Yorkshire

“ The beautiful Lincolnshire hills on my left, and the still more beautiful hills, dales, and woods of my own native Yorkshire to the north, lent their charms to form a landscape I never saw equalled, and in casting my last lingering gaze upon it I felt that the inanimate beauties of creation must now to me for ever be a blank. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Let none the Yorkshire girls despise,
Who are so active now a days;
So brisk and nimble they do grow,
That few can match them, I do know;
Then let us stand up for Yorkshire,
Those country girls I love most dear.
A Yorkshire girl, who can outvie?
No city girls can them come nigh;
They've rosy blushes in their cheeks,
While city girls are green as leeks ”

“ Go where you will in Yorkshire, you will find no more fascinating woodland scenery than that of the gorges of Mulgrave. 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. ”

“ Yorkshire now began to lose its natural beauties and artificial adornments. We had left the clothing country, and its numerous villages peopled by the happy race of manufacturers, who, remote from the contamination of large towns, pass their hours in industry and innocence, unenslaved by those vices which are too often found to result from the association of numbers in one place. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Yorkshire, of course, is another leading feature in the book, as well it must be, and so are our southern, eastern, and western counties; none, indeed, escape all the notice that is their due; and as it is not given to all sportsmen to revel in the realms of pasture, unalloyed by the drawbacks of small enclosures, hills and dales, crags and boulders, mud and marshes, or impenetrable woodlands, so we all accommodate ourselves to locality, and are happy in our less ambitious surroundings and histories. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A Yorkshireman once said to me, 'My county folk are all alike. Their first thought is how to resist. Why! I myself, if I hear a man say it is a fine day, catch myself trying to find out that it is no such thing. It is so in thought; it is so in word; it is so in deed.'
So you may imagine the press-gang had no easy time of it on the Yorkshire coast. ”

“ My residence in Sheffield made me pretty well acquainted with the Yorkshire character, bluff, rough, frank, and hospitable. The first impressions of Yorkshire are perhaps not pleasant, but you soon find that beneath the rough crust there is a great deal that is very warm-hearted and kind.
Upon more than one occasion some terrible accident at one of the coal pits of the South Yorkshire collieries took me out of the town to supply the extra help needed at such a time, and more than once I have been present at terribly heart-rending sights. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Around is the fair region of Yorkshire, a landscape of massive cows and renowned pigs, the head-quarters of all English hams and bacons; and the streets in York are old and pretty, with projecting gables and black rafters. ”

“ That is why we prefer the West Riding of Yorkshire to any other part of England, for there we are at home with the native, and are not looked upon as ‘foreigners’. The name Yorkshire has become a synonym for acuteness not unmixed with a touch of unscrupulousness. In Lincolnshire, for example, when anything is done which [Pg 3] is very clever, sharp, or unscrupulous, they say: That’s real Yerksheer. To put Yorkshire on a person means in Lancashire to cheat, trick, or overreach him; in Lancashire and Lincolnshire a sharp overreaching person is called a Yorkshire bite. ”

“ It may seem almost superfluous to explain that this book does not deal with the whole of Yorkshire, for it would obviously be impossible to get even a passing glimpse of such a great tract of country in a book of this nature. But I have endeavoured to give my own impressions of much of the beautiful coast-line, and also some idea of the character of the moors and dales of the north-east portion of the county. ”

“ Under the empire political power had centred in the district between the Humber and the Roman wall; York was the capital of Roman Britain; villas of rich land-owners studded the valley of the Ouse; and the bulk of the garrison maintained in the island lay camped along its northern border. But no record tells us how Yorkshire was won, or how the Engle made themselves masters of the uplands about Lincoln. It is only by their later settlements that we follow their march into the heart of Britain. ”

“ On wide uplands of chalk the air has a raciness, the sunlight a purity and a sparkle, not to be found in lowlands. There may be no streams, perhaps not even a pond; you may find few large trees, and scarcely any parks; ruined abbeys and even castles may be conspicuously absent, and yet the landscapes have a power of attracting and fascinating. This is exactly the case with the Wolds of Yorkshire, and their characteristics are not unlike the chalk hills of Sussex, or those great expanses of windswept downs, where the weathered monoliths of Stonehenge have resisted sun and storm for ages. ”

“ So I went about for awhile under a kind of suspicion, or as an unintentional martyr, until one day there met me two gentlemen from Leeds, one of whom declared that he and others, jealous of their county’s reputation, and doubting not to convict me of error, had made diligent inquiry and found to their discomfiture, that the assemblages implied in the villager’s remark, did actually take place within Yorkshire itself. The discovery is not one to be proud of ”

“ The woollen district of the West Riding of Yorkshire is a charming region, a beautiful green hill country, whose elevations grow more rugged towards the West until they reach their highest point in the bold ridge of Blackstone Edge, the watershed between the Irish Sea and the German Ocean. The valleys of the Aire, along which stretches Leeds, and of the Calder, through which the Manchester-Leeds railway runs, are among the most attractive in England, and are strewn in all directions with the factories, villages, and towns. ”

“ Says he, "Look, I've found a gold ring, sir,
If you'll ten shillings give me, yours it shall be."
"Oh!" says I, "'tis a grand looking thing, sir,
But I tell you what, my sweet London chap,
Dont think of my money to ease me,
For a Yorkshire lad knows brass from gold,
If he don't—then Jemmy Johnson squeeze me." [229]
I was tired of their tricks, says I, "I'll go home,
While all's right, tight, and comely;
For a rolling stone gathers no moss,
And home is home if it's ever so homely." ”

“ Whitby, and not Scarborough, would be my choice had I to sojourn for a few weeks on the Yorkshire coast. What it lacks of the style and show which characterize its aristocratic neighbour, is more than made up by its situation on a river and the beauty of its neighbourhood; and I regretted not having time to stay more than one day in a place that offers so many attractions. Woods and waterfalls beautify and enliven the landscape ”

“ It is surprising what effect sayings like these produce upon the mind. From one end to the other of the kingdom, Yorkshiremen are looked upon as being keener than other people; more eager in pursuit of their own interests; more sharp and more selfish. For my part, I was cured with regard to the people long before I saw Yorkshire. In the army, where we see men of all counties, I always found Yorkshiremen distinguished for their frank manners and generous disposition. In the United States, my kind and generous friends of Pennsylvania were the children and descendants of Yorkshire parents ”

“ If one place of it be moorish, miry, and unpleasant, another makes a free tender of delight, and presents itself to the eye full of beauty and contentive variety.”
Considering, furthermore, that for two years in succession I had seen the peasantry in parts of the north and south of Europe, and had come to the conclusion (under correction, for my travel is brief) that the English labourer, with his weekly wages, his cottage and garden, is better off than the peasant proprietor of Germany and Tyrol,—considering this, I wished to prove my conclusion, and therefore started hopefully for Yorkshire. ”

“ We are now in a corner of Westmoreland which, traversed by Birkdale, presents diversified alpine features. The valley is green; the meadows are flowery and dotted with cattle; the hills, stern and high, are browsed by sheep; and Maize Beck, a talkative mountain stream, flows with many a stony bend along the bottom—the dividing line between Westmoreland and Yorkshire. There are no trees; and for miles wide the only building is here and there a solitary byre. ”

“ It is a really remarkable stream in making its debut without the slightest fuss, for it is large enough at its very birth to be called a small river. Its modesty is a great loss to Yorkshire, for if, instead of gathering strength in the hidden places in the limestone fells, it were to keep to more rational methods, it would flow to the edge of the Cover, and there precipitate itself in majestic fashion into a great pool below. ”

“ Scattered over some of the pleasantest parts of Yorkshire are to be found the ruined homes of men and women who centuries ago formed a very distinct class among the people of our country. These men and women were the monks, friars, and nuns of mediæval England, and their homes were known as monasteries and friaries. ”

“ 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. ”

“ O' sike a day. THE YORKSHIRE LAD IN LONDON.
WHEN I left father and mother, sister and brother,
They all cried you'll surely be undone;
For resolved was I my fortune to try,
And just take a trip to London—
Cry'd my father, "When there, dont curse and swear
As the Londoners do if they teaze ye,
But your passion keep down as well as you can,
And say—Jemmy Johnson squeeze me."
"Lord, father, do you take me for a fool,
That was in Yorkshire born and bred, man;
I'm not to be done by the London chaps,
As long as I've eyes in my head, man ”

“ THE HALLAM SUCCESSION.
CHAPTER I. “The changing guests, each in a different mood, Sit at the road-side table and arise: And every life among them in likewise Is a soul’s board set daily with new food. “May not this ancient room thou sitt’st in dwell In separate living souls for joy or pain? Nay, all its corners may be painted plain Where Heaven shows pictures of some life well-spent.”
Yorkshire is the epitome of England. Whatever is excellent in the whole land is found there. The men are sturdy, shrewd, and stalwart ”

“ Yorkshire enjoys the advantage of possessing a great number of diverse industries, and it was very early in the field as a manufacturing district. From its coal, iron, steel, and woollen trades, in addition to its farming and shipping pursuits, great wealth was rapidly accumulated after the close of the bad times following the Napoleonic wars. ”