Yorkburg

“ For many years the struggle for life and honor gave your fathers no time for thought of other things, but they held their heads up through it all, and you—you are your fathers' sons! In the years I have been away I never saw anything beautiful or useful or splendid, never saw good streets, schools, libraries, churches, parks, playgrounds, galleries, museums, baths, kindergartens, never saw a good idea in operation, or anything that made life nicer and better that I didn't wish Yorkburg had it. ”

“ Nothing shows the kind of fool you are as quick as your tongue. Balaam's Brickhouse won't hurt you."
"Mr. President"—the interruption was ignored, and only the trembling of the fine, thin voice gave evidence of anger—Mr. President, Yorkburg is no pauper, and does not need the gift which has been offered it to-night, provided it will acknowledge it needs to be cleaned up. Yorkburg is a very clean place. ”

“ And if Yorkburg knew what was good for it, all these Yankee ideas Mary Cary is bringing down here would be stopped. She spends money in every direction, sends this person away and that one away, and gives picnics and parties to people nobody ever heard of until lately. People of that class are ruined by having the things done for them that she is doing. After awhile they'll be wanting to move up on King Street and expect us to speak to them as if they were our friends. ”

“ I want you to see the beautiful things Miss Gibbie has done. Of course, Yorkburg doesn't understand; doesn't know why I am back, and why I am living alone save for the servants; and some don't approve. That the once charity child who lived at the asylum should now own Tree Hill is something of a trial, and that it could happen without their knowledge or consent is grievous unto them. ”

“ It isn't laid out at all, and many of its streets start and end as they please. An elemental need of Yorkburg is that it should be laid out anew, and by a competent civil engineer who knows what he is about. This engineer will be provided when you agree to use his services. Mr. Brickhouse says we have a precious past. That is true, but a precious past doesn't make good walking, and, not being dead, our feet have some rights. There is no string tied to this gift of fifty thousand dollars save the restriction that the money be expended for the purposes mentioned. ”

“ By the time I'm grown I guess I'll find a lot of things are said and not meant. Maybe when I find out I will be all the gladder to come back to Yorkburg, where people don't seem to know much about these new-fashioned things. Where they still believe in the old ones, and just live on and don't hurry, and are kind and polite and dear, if they are slow and queer and proud a little bit. ”

“ MARY CARY I AN UNTHANKFUL ORPHAN
y name is Mary Cary. I live in the Yorkburg Female Orphan Asylum. You may think nothing happens in an Orphan Asylum. It does. The orphans are sure enough children, and real much like the kind that have Mothers and Fathers ”

“ And in that Love-Land everything was done the other way, just backward from our way, and yourself came second instead of first.
X THE REAGAN BALL
t is snowing fast and furious to-day. It's grand to watch it. I love miracles, and it's a miracle to see an ugly place turn into a palace of marble and silver with diamond decorations. That's what the Asylum is to-day. I certainly would like to have seen the Reagan ball. Miss Webb says it was the best show ever given in Yorkburg, and she enjoyed it, being particular fond of freaks.
Miss Katherine didn't want to go, but Miss Webb made her. ”

“ The barriers were at length burst, and York entered the town, and then in the streets were heard the shouts of "A Warwick! a Warwick!" on the other side "A York! a York!" and in the midst the war cries of "King Henry! a Somerset! a Percy! a Clifford!" etc., all intermingled with the clash of swords upon armour and shield; the whir of arrows flying through the air; the groans of wounded and dying men, and the screams of flying women; whilst the market-place was strewn with the bodies of fallen men, and the streets flowed with blood. ”

“ The castle, or fortified house of the Constables, is reduced to the insignificant ‘Danish Tower’ we have seen. It stands in a meadow, and sheep crop the grass which covers but does not hide the outline of the foundations. Yorkshire being a county rich in superstitions, it is not surprising to find that a fisherman will turn back from going to his boat, if he happens on his way to meet a parson, a woman, or a hare, as any one of these brings bad luck. It is also extremely unwise to mention to a man who is baiting lines a hare, a rabbit, a fox, a pig, or an egg. ”

“ We are now leaving old Yorkshire with its waste moorlands, its wide, fertile valleys, its narrow, picturesque dales, its quaint old towns and modern cities, its castles and abbeys, and, more than all, its associations of the past which reach out even to the shores of our native land, and we leave it with the keenest regret. It has fallen to us as it has to few to traverse the highways and byways of every section of the great county, and I can but be sensible as to how feebly my pages reflect the things that charmed us. ”

“ The Duke of York had with him, in Sandal Castle, his family, including the youthful Earl of Rutland. Boy-like, he must needs go and see the battle, and nothing could dissuade him. "I will go," said he, "and see my father kill the cruel Queen; and when I am a man I will go and fight, and kill his enemies too." "A battle is not a place, Lord Edmund," replied his tutor and chaplain, Sir Robert Aspall, "for boys. A stray arrow might kill you." "Think not, sir priest," replied the brave boy, "that a son of Richard of York is afraid of an arrow! ”

“ Yorktown in 1754. From a sketch (now in the Mariners’ Museum, Newport News, Va.) drawn by a British Naval Officer.
When fully extended and at peak prosperity, colonial Yorktown must have been a rather pleasant little town. At best, its population very likely never exceeded 3,000—a small number by present standards, yet sizeable 35 for that period. An English visitor who stopped here in 1736 wrote of it:
You perceive a great Air of Opulence amongst the Inhabitants, who have some of them built themselves Houses, equal in Magnificence to many of our superb ones at St. ”

“ It is the stern grandeur of the scarred hillsides and the wide mountainous views from the heights that give this part of Yorkshire such a fascination. If you climb to the top of Rogan's Seat, you have a huge panorama of desolate country spread out before you. The confused jumble of blue-grey mountains to the north-west is beyond the limits of Yorkshire at last, and in their strong embrace those stern Westmorland hills hold the charms of Lakeland.
If one stays in this mountainous region, there are new and exciting walks available for every day. ”

“ But to see so much of the country at once comes as a surprise to everyone. Stretching inland towards the backbone of England, there is spread out a huge tract of smiling country, covered with a most complex network of hedges, which gradually melt away into the indefinite blue edge of the world where the hills of Wensleydale rise from the plain. Looking across the little town of Guisborough, lying near the shelter of the hills, to the broad sweep of the North Sea, this piece of Yorkshire seems so small that one almost expects to see the Cheviots away in the north. ”

“ Come what might, Brother Jucundus felt he must have a fling. He should die without it. Just one jolification in the twelvemonth, and then he would put up for the rest of the year with beans and cabbage, small beer and matins before dawn.
York fair approached. York fair! of all that is ravishing! The shows of dancing dogs, the whirli-go-rounds, the giantesses and dwarfs, the "spice" stalls, the drinking-booths! To York fair he must, he would go, if condemned to a bean and a thimbleful of water for fasting dinner ever after. ”

“ Yorkshire (3,208) , the largest county in England, is divided into three Ridings (i. e. thirdings or thirds) for administrative purposes, North, East, and West, with a fourth called the Ainsty, under the jurisdiction of the Lord Mayor and aldermen of York; of these the West is the wealthiest and the most populous; contains a large coal-field, and is the centre of the woollen manufacture of the county; the East being mainly agricultural, with iron-works and shipbuilding-works; and the North mainly pastoral, with industries connected with mining and shipping. ”

“ The grim blackened walls of York Castle confront the traveller who approaches the city by Fishergate, and lend a gloomy air to the entrance; the more gloomy because those heavy piles of sooty masonry nowadays encircle a prison for malefactors, rather than forming the defences of a garrison, and keep our social enemies within, instead of a more chivalric foe without. For over two hundred years York Castle has been an assize court and a gaol, and the military element no longer lends it pure romance. ”

“ It will be hard if I cannot find an heiress lacking a husband, and thou shalt be a baron of England."
Again are we among the merry hills and dales of Cleveland. The summer has passed away, the leaves of autumn have fallen, the fierce blasts of the wintry winds of North Yorkshire have toned down into the gentle gales of spring, and a glad sunshine pervades land and sea. But there is wailing and lamentation within the walls of Wada's old castle, and saddened hearts beneath the shadow of St. Hilda's tower. ”

“ The more prominent families were united by marriage with all the noted Tidewater families. The most famous son of Yorktown was Thomas Nelson, Jr., signer of the Declaration of Independence, Governor of Virginia, and commander of the militia at the siege of 1781. His remains rest in the churchyard of Grace Church in Yorktown.
From the point of view of growth and prosperity, Yorktown was at its peak about 1750. The shops continued busy and the wharves full, perhaps for another quarter of a century; yet, even before the Revolution, evidences of decline were discernible. ”

“ Down on the bank of York River, not far from Chesapeake Bay, with a few remains of the British entrenchments still visible, is Yorktown, the scene of Cornwallis's surrender, the last conflict of the American Revolution. Sir Henry Clinton, the British commander-in-chief in 1781, ordered Lord Cornwallis to occupy a strong defensible position in Virginia, and he established himself at Yorktown on 53 August 1st, with his army of eight thousand men, supported by several warships in York River, and strongly fortified not only Yorktown, but also Gloucester Point, across the river. ”

“ I said, "I think that there will be no great search for you as yet. The Yorkists will believe you to have escaped, and your servants will take word that you are a prisoner. It will be a long day before those mistakes are found out. The army of York will pass on, and your people will scatter, and go north in little parties, and I shall meet with them. Here you are safe, and you may sleep in peace, even were you to hear voices of men searching for you close at hand, for the secret of this cave is mine only. ”

“ In passing northward from Lincoln, a profitable digression may be had to Southwell, whose noble choir seems to be an emanation from Lincoln, and its far-famed chapter-house from York; and to Newstead, whose beautiful west front and lovely carving agrees in style with the eastern portion of Lincoln.{200}
Yorkshire is especially the land of minsters and abbey churches. To attempt here a description of them would be vain; a Yorkshire tour is one of the richest treats the student can look forward to, and one to which he ought to be liberal in his allowance of time. ”

“ The men one dreams of are wearing suits of chain mail, or are in the dress so quaintly drawn in the tapestry at Bayeux, and they have brought with them their wives, their servants, and even their dogs. Thus Richmond began as a foreign town, and the folks ate and drank and slept as they had always done before they left France. Much of this alien blood was no doubt absorbed by the already mixed Anglo-Saxon and Danish population of Yorkshire, and perhaps, if his descent could be traced, one would find that the passer-by who has just disturbed our dreaming has Breton blood in his veins. ”

“ Two thousand years ago, what is now the East Riding of Yorkshire was chiefly forest land, with the exception of the Wold uplands, which were pastures, almost destitute of trees, having some semblance to the swelling and rolling waves of the ocean, where the Brigantes fed their flocks and herds, where they dwelt in scattered hamlets, and where they now sleep in their multitudinous tumuli. ”

“ Go where you will in Yorkshire, you will find no more fascinating woodland scenery than this. From the broken walls and towers of the old Norman castle the views over the ravines on either hand—for the castle stands on a lofty promontory in a sea of foliage—are entrancing; and after seeing the astoundingly brilliant colours with which autumn paints these trees, there is a tendency to find the ordinary woodland commonplace. The narrowest and deepest gorge is hundreds of feet deep in the shale. ”

“ A vast medley, truly! and all to be manufactured into broadcloth in Yorkshire. No wonder that the Univers declares England is to perish by her commerce.
The walk to the town gives you such a view as can only be seen in a manufacturing district: hills, fields, meadows, and rough slopes, all bestrewn with cottages, factories, warehouses, sheds, clouded here and there by smoke; roads and paths wandering apparently anywhere; here and there a quarry, and piles of squared stone; heaps of refuse; wheat-fields among the houses ”