opening upon a stone balcony beyond which we can see the fountain,
flowers and shrubbery of the gardens, and farther away, against the
purple sky, the massive yet graceful towers of the minster. How
different the Station Hotel is from the average railway hotel in
America can be appreciated only by one who has enjoyed the hospitality
of the one and endured the necessity of staying at the other. We feel
as nearly at home as one possibly may at a hotel, and the spirit of
Shakespeare's worthy who proposes to take his ease at his inn comes
upon us. We look forward with satisfaction to a short pause in the
pleasant old northern capital, whose splendid church and importance in
ecclesiastical antiquity are rivalled only by Canterbury.
The two chief cathedral cities of England have many points of
similarity, though in population and importance York easily leads.
And yet, neither has ever been thoroughly modernized; the spirit and
relics of ancient days confront one everywhere and the great churches,
while dissimilar, contest for supremacy among English cathedrals. While
Canterbury has the greater historic interest and the tombs of many
famous warriors and churchmen, York Minster can boast of perhaps the
finest windows in the world. But why should I compare or contrast these
delightful towns? When one is in Canterbury there is no place like
Canterbury, and when in York, why York is without a rival. And after
all, neither has much claim to place in this chronicle, which is not to
tell of the familiar shrines.
As might be expected, the vicinity of York abounds in magnificent
country seats and historic mansions, many of which are open to the
public on specified days. Of these, few are statelier than Castle
Howard, the seat of the Earls of Carlisle, about fifteen miles to
the northwest. It can boast of little historic interest, for it was
built less than two hundred years ago, after the turmoil of internal
warfare had ceased in England. It is therefore not a castle in the
accepted sense, but a stately private residence designed by Vanbrugh,
the architect of Blenheim. Though its architectural faults have been
enlarged upon by critics, none can gainsay the impressiveness of the
building, and Ferguson, in his "History of Modern Architecture,"
declares that it "would be difficult to point out a more imposing
country home possessed by any nobleman in England than this palace
of the Howards." With its central dome and purely classic facade,
pierced by monotonous rows of tall windows, it presents the aspect
of a public building--reminding us of some of the state capitols in
America--rather than a private home. Though it serves as the home of
the owner a considerable part of the time, it is really a great museum,
rich in paintings and other works of art which have been accumulated by
the family, which has always been a wealthy one.
[Illustration: CASTLE HOWARD.]
The surroundings of the palace are in keeping with its vast size and
architectural importance. It is situated in a large park and stands on
slightly rising grounds overlooking a panorama of lawnlike meadows,
diversified with fine trees and shimmering lakes. Near at hand are the
somewhat formal gardens, ornamented with monuments and statuary. As a
show place it is in much favor with the people of England and few of
the great houses are more accessible to everyone. Though we did not
arrive at the regular hour for visitors, we had little difficulty in
gaining admission and were shown about as though we had been welcome
guests rather than the nuisances which I fear ordinary tourists are
often regarded in such places. The formality of securing tickets is not
required and no admission fee is charged.
While the interior of the palace is disappointing--huge,
cold, unhomelike rooms--its contents are of greatest interest.
Among the pictures there are examples of English and foreign
masters--Gainsborough, Lely, Van Dyke, Reynolds, and many more--and
there are treasures among the rare books, bronzes and sculptures which
have been collected through many generations. The present earl is
himself a man of literary and artistic tastes, and numerous paintings,
done by himself, hang in the galleries.
From the large low windows an enchanting view presented itself.
Stretches of beautiful park, dotted with ancient trees, through which
gleamed the placid waters of the lake--now like dull silver, for the
sky had become overcast--sloped away from the front, while to the rear
lay the gardens with all the bloom of English summer time. Out just
beyond these is a many-pillared circular structure, like a classic
temple, the burial-place of the Howards for many generations. Verily
the surroundings almost savor of enchantment, and form, with the great
mansion itself, a background of splendor and romance for the ancient
family. And the very freedom with which such places are thrown open
to people of all degrees does much to entrench the feudal system in
England.
But we have lingered long enough at Castle Howard; the sky is lowering
and gray sheets of rain are sweeping through the trees. We hasten to
the trusty car and are soon ensconced beneath its rainproof coverings.
It is gloomy and cheerless enough, but it would have seemed far more
so could we have foreseen that for the next ten days the weather would
be little better. One loses much under such conditions. The roads as
a rule are not affected and with a reliable motor one may keep going
quite as well as on sunshiny days; but the beauty of the landscapes
will often be shut out, and a succession of dull, chilly days has a
decidedly depressing effect on one's spirits.
The direct route across the moor to Thirsk is impassable--the heavy
rain has made it a trail of deep mud, and we dare not attempt its
precipitous "bank" under such conditions. A detour of many miles by way
of Easingwold is necessary, but once on the North Road there is ample
opportunity to make up for delay. Country constables will hardly be
abroad in the driving rain and the motor purrs quite as contentedly and
drives the car quite as swiftly as in the sunniest weather.
We splash through the streets of Thirsk with a glance at its church
tower, the one redeeming feature of the town. The rain soon ceases,
but a gray mist half hides the outlines of the Cleveland Hills on our
right and hangs heavily over the fertile valley to our left. It is
of little consequence, for there are few stretches of main road in
England that have less to detain the wayfarer than the forty-eight
miles from York to Stockton-on-Tees. Yarm is a sleepy town overshadowed
by its majestic church tower, which again impresses us how the church
alone often relieves the squalidness and gives a touch of sentiment
to many an uninteresting English village. At Yarm we enter the broad
vale of the Tees and again traverse the wide, unattractive street of
Stockton. Twenty miles farther Durham's stately towers loom in dim
outline against the gray sky; we cautiously wend our way through the
crooked streets of the cathedral town and plunge into the fog that
hangs heavily over the Newcastle road.
We come into Newcastle about lamplighting time, weary and somewhat
bedraggled from our long flight over the rain-soaked roads. And
Newcastle-on-Tyne, at the close of a rainy day, is about the last place
to cheer one's drooping spirits. The lamps glimmer dimly through the
fog as we splash along the bumpy streets to the Station Hotel--and few
hostelries were more genuinely welcome during all our long wanderings.
Nor is Newcastle less dingy and unattractive on the following
morning--the rain is still falling and black clouds of sooty smoke hang
over the place. London is bad enough under such conditions, but the
Tyne city is worse and our first anxiety is to get on the open road
again, although it chanced we were doomed to disappointment for much
of the day.
Amidst all the evidences of modern industry--the coal-mining and
ship-building that have made Newcastle famous--there still linger
many relics of the ancient order, memorials of the day when all was
rural and quiet along the Tyne. In the very midst of the factories and
shipyards at Jarrow, a suburb a few miles down the river, still stands
the abbey church where some thirteen hundred years ago the Venerable
Bede wrote those chronicles which form the basis of ancient English
history. Thither we resolved to go and found the way with no small
difficulty to the bald, half-ruined structure on the bank of a small
stream whose waters reeked with chemicals from a neighboring factory.
Though much restored, the walls and tower of the church are the same
that sheltered the monastic brotherhood in the time of Bede, about the
seventh century. The present monastic ruins, however, are of Norman
origin, the older Saxon foundation having quite disappeared. Several
relics of Bede are preserved in the church, among them the rude,
uncomfortable chair he is said to have used. Altogether, this shrine
of the Father of English History is full of interest and when musing
within its precincts one will not fail to recall the story of Bede's
death. For tradition has it that "He was translating St. John's Gospel
into English when he was attacked by a sudden illness and felt he was
dying. He kept on with his task, however, and continued dictating to
his scribe, bidding him write quickly. When he was told that the book
was finished, he said, 'You speak truth, all is finished now,' and
after singing 'Glory to God,' he quietly passed away."
The Tyne valley road to Carlisle on the south side of the river by
the way of Hexham looks very well on the map, but the run would be a
wearisome one under favorable conditions; in the face of a continual
rain it is even more of a task, and no one motoring for pleasure should
take this route. It is rough and hilly and runs through a succession
of mining and manufacturing towns. The road follows the edge of the
moorland hills to the southward, and in many places the hillsides
afford wide views over the Tyne valley, but the gray rain obscured the
prospect for us and only an occasional lull gave some hint of the broad
vale and the purple Northumbrian Hills beyond.
Hexham is beautifully situated a mile or two below the juncture of the
northern and southern branches of the Tyne, lying in a nook of the
wooded hills, while the broad river sweeps past beneath. The low square
tower of its abbey church looms up over the town from the commanding
hill. It is one of the most important in the North Country, rivaling
the cathedrals in proportions, and has only recently been restored.
Here we crossed to the northern side of the river to reach the most
stupendous relic of the Roman occupation of Britain--the wall which
Hadrian built as a protection against the incursions of the wild
northern tribes. This wall was seventy miles in length--from Tynemouth
to the Solway--of an average thickness of eight feet and probably not
less than eighteen feet in height. It surmounted the chain of hills
overlooking the valley between Newcastle and Carlisle and was well
supplied with military defenses in the shape of forts and battlemented
towers. We closely followed the line of the wall from Chollerford to
Greenhead, a distance of about fifteen miles. In places it is still
wonderfully perfect, being built of hewn stone, well fitted and
carefully laid, as it must have been to stand the storms of eighteen
hundred years; but most of the distance the course of the wall is now
marked only by an earthen ridge.
We had seen many relics of the Roman rule in England at Bath, at York,
and also the remarkable remains of Uriconium near Shrewsbury, but
nothing so impressed us with the completeness of the Roman occupation
as this great wall of Hadrian. And it also testifies mutely to the
great difficulty the Roman legions must have experienced in controlling
the light-armed bandits from across the border, in a day when the
means of communication were so few and so slow. This situation
continued until several hundred years later, the country along the
Tyne, the narrow neck of land connecting England and Scotland, being
the scene of constant turmoil and bloody strife. The wild tribes of the
northern hills would sweep down into the valley, leaving a strip of
burned and plundered country, and before soldiers could be gotten into
the field the marauders would retreat to their native fastnesses. One
might not telephone to Carlisle that the Campbells or McGregors were
raiding the country, and troops could not be hurried by railroad to
the scene of trouble. Before the horseback messenger could reach the
authorities, the marauders would have disappeared. This condition of
things the Romans sought to overcome by building the great wall and one
can hardly doubt that they chose the best means at their command; but
the history of those times is hazy at best and we can learn little of
what was really accomplished by this stupendous undertaking.
[Illustration: REMAINS OF GREAT ROMAN WALL NEAR HEXHAM.]
The road through the rough Northumbrian hills is as lonely and desolate
as any one will find in England. So much has it fallen into disuse
that the grass and heather have almost obliterated it in places, and
it appeared that little had been done to maintain it for years. The
cheerless day accentuated the dreariness of the rough countryside; the
rain had increased to a downpour and had blown in upon us in spite
of our coverings. The road was clear, fairly level and straight away;
despite its rough surface we splashed onward at a swift pace through
the pools and rivulets that submerged it in places.
Naworth Castle, also an estate of the Earl of Carlisle, the owner of
Castle Howard, is just off the road before entering Brampton, eight or
nine miles out of Carlisle. It is thrown open with the same freedom
that prevails at the great Yorkshire house, but though the greater part
of Naworth is far older, it has less to interest the casual visitor.
Situated as it is in the very center of the scenes of border turmoil,
it has a stirring history dating back to 1300, when it was built by
Lord Dacre, ancestor of the Howards. The story of his elopement with
the heiress who owned the estate and who was betrothed to a boy of
seven, and of the subsequent pardon of the lovers by the King Edward,
forms a romantic background for the stern-looking old place; but we
will not recount the many legends that gathered about the castle during
the long period of border warfare. Escaping almost unscathed during
the castle-smashing time of Cromwell, Naworth suffered severely from
fire in 1844, but the interior has since been remodeled into a fairly
comfortable modern dwelling. Here again the artistic and literary
tastes of the owner are evident in the valuable library and the fine
gallery of paintings.
[Illustration: NAWORTH CASTLE.]
Continuing our way through Naworth Park, we drop down the narrow and
fearfully steep lane to the vale of the Irthing and cross over the old
high-arched bridge to Lanercost Priory. The rain is still falling and
no doubt the custodian has given up hope of visitors on such a day,
for he cannot be found; but we discover the gardener, who secures the
keys from the neighboring rectory and proves himself a capable guide.
The abbey church has been restored by the Carlisles and is used by the
parish as a place of worship. All about are the red sandstone ruins
of a once great monastery. We wander among the mossy grave-stones and
crumbling tombs,
"The 'Miserere' in the moss,
The 'Mercy Jesu' in the rain,"
calling up thoughts of a forgotten order of things. In the roofless
chapel we pause before an altar-tomb, its sandstone bosses water-soaked
and crumbling in the rain--it is the oldest in the abbey and covers the
grave of Lord Roland de Vaux of Triermaine, an ancestor of the Dacres.
The name seems familiar and the lines,
"Murmuring over the name again,
Lord Roland de Vaux of Triermaine,"
come unbidden to my mind. Ah, yes! it is in the weird music of
"Christabel" that the name of the long-dead baron is interwoven, and
perhaps his "castle good" was the predecessor of Naworth. There are
other elaborate tombs of the Dacres and Howards, and there is a world
of pathos in Sir Edward Boehm's terra cotta effigy of little Elizabeth,
daughter of the present earl, who died in 1883. It is the figure of
an infant child asleep, with one little rounded arm thrown above the
head and the other folded gracefully on the breast, while a quiet smile
plays over the dimpled face--
But come--it is late, and Lanercost Priory would be gloomy enough on
such a day without the infant figure. We retrace our way through the
ivy-mantled portal and hasten through the park to the Carlisle road,
which shortly brings us to the border city, and grateful indeed is the
old-fashioned hospitality of the County Hotel, one of the most pleasant
among the famous inns of the North Country.
XIII
ACROSS THE TWEED
Gretna Green is a disappointingly modern-looking hamlet, and has little
to accord with the romantic associations that its name always brings
up. In olden days it gained fame as a place where marriages were
accomplished with an ease and celerity that is rivalled in our time
only by the dissolution of the tie in some of our own courts. Hither
the eloping couples hastened from England, to be united with scarcely
other ceremony than mutual promises--witnesses were not required--and
a worthy blacksmith did a thriving business merely by acting as clerk
to record the marriages. The ceremony was legally valid in Scotland
and therefore had to be recognized in England, according to mutual
agreement of the nations to recognize each other's institutions. But
today Gretna Green's ancient source of fame and revenue has vanished;
no Young Lochinvars flee wildly across the Solway to its refuge; it is
just a prosaic Scotch village, whose greatest excitement is occasioned
by the motor cars that sweep through on the fine Edinburgh road.
Quite different is the fame of Ecclefechan, a few miles farther--a
mean-looking village closely skirting the road for a half-mile.
Typically Scotch in its bleakness and angularity, it seems fittingly
indeed the birthplace of the strange genius who was, in some respects,
the most remarkable man of letters of the last century. Thomas Carlyle
was born here in 1795 and sleeps his last sleep, alone, in the village
kirkyard, for Jane Welsh is not buried by his side. As we came into
the town, we paused directly opposite the whitewashed cottage where
the sage was born and which is still kept sacred to his memory. The
old woman caretaker welcomed us in broadest Scotch and showed us about
with unalloyed pride and satisfaction. Here are gathered mementoes
and relics of Carlyle--books, manuscripts and pictures; the memorial
presented him in 1875, bearing the signature of almost every noted
literary contemporary; the wreath sent by Emperor William in 1895
to be laid on the grave; and other things of more or less curious
significance. The cottage itself is a typical home of the Scotch
villager, the tiny rooms supplied with huge fireplaces and the quaint
old-time kitchen still in daily use by the caretaker. The house was
built by Carlyle's father, a stonemason by trade, to whose "solid
honest work" the distinguished son was wont proudly to refer on divers
occasions. The motor car is awakening Ecclefechan to the fact that it
is the birthplace of a man famous the world over, for they told us
that many visitors now came like ourselves.
There are no finer stretches of road in Scotland than the broad,
beautifully engineered highway from Carlisle to Lanark, winding among
the hills with grades so gentle as to be almost imperceptible. The
rain, which followed us since we left Carlisle, has ceased and many
panoramas of hill and valley lie before us. Oftentimes the low-hung
clouds partially obscure the view, but aside from this the scene
stretches away clear and sharp to the gray belt of the horizon. We are
passing through the hills of Tintock Moor, which Burns has sung as
"Yon wild mossy mountains so lofty and wide
That nurse in their bosom the youth of the Clyde."
They may have seemed "lofty and wide" to the poet who never left his
native soil, but they are only low green hills. The river here is
little more than a brawling brook, leaping through the stony vale.
Before we came into Edinburgh we paused at Rosslyn Chapel, perhaps,
after Melrose, Abottsford and Ayr, the most frequented shrine in all
Scotland. Conveyances of all kinds ply continuously from Edinburgh
during the season, and though the day was not especially favorable,
we found a throng at the chapel. The chapel is admittedly the most
elaborate Gothic building in Britain. The intricacy and minuteness of
detail are simply marvelous and compel the admiration of even those
who condemn the ornamentation as overdone and wearisome when studied
closely; still, Sir Gilbert Scott designated Rosslyn as "a poem in
stone," and Wordsworth was so impressed that he wrote one of his finest
sonnets in praise of it.
One must of course hear the oft-told story of the master workman who,
puzzled over the intricate drawings of one of the carved pillars, went
to Rome to consult the architect of the Vatican; but while he was away
his apprentice solved the problem and when the builder returned the
finished column greeted his eyes. He was so enraged at the success of
the apprentice in overcoming the difficulty that he struck the poor
youth dead at the foot of the pillar and was hanged for the crime.
Anyway, the pillar is there and it is not at all unlikely that the
master workman was hanged--a very common incident in those days.
Nor will the guide forget to remind you that in the vault beneath your
feet the barons of Rosslyn for the past six hundred years have been
buried, each one sheathed in full armor. And there is a tradition that
on the night before the death of a lord of Rosslyn the chapel seems to
be enveloped in flames, a superstition upon which Scott founded his
ballad of "Rosabelle."
"Seemed all on fire that chapel proud
Where Rosslyn's chiefs uncoffined lie,
Each baron for a sable shroud
Sheathed in his iron panoply."
The castle near at hand is as severely plain and rude as the chapel is
ornate--a bare, gloomy place that tells in itself volumes of the hard,
comfortless life of the "good old days." The apartments of the lord of
the castle would be counted a sorry prison-house now--one that would
bring forth a protest from the Howard Society--and what shall one say
of the quarters for the serving-men and soldiers, or of the dungeon
itself, where the unfortunate captives were confined? Nothing, for our
powers of expression are inadequate; language itself is inadequate.
Thank God, the order of things is changed!
Edinburgh, with its wealth of historic and literary associations, its
famous castle and storied palaces, its classic architecture and its
fine shops, will always appeal to the wayfarer, I care not how often he
may come; but it is too widely known to engage this chronicle of more
unfamiliar Britain.
The excellent North British Hotel, where, wonder of wonders in Britain,
you may, if fortunate enough, secure a heated bathroom en suite,
might well tempt us to a longer stay; but we must be on, and the next
afternoon finds us on the road to Queensferry. Here our motor, with two
or three others, is loaded on a ferryboat which carries us across the
Firth of Forth. We pass directly under the bridge, and in no other way
can one get a really adequate idea of this marvelous structure, which,
despite all the recent achievements of bridge-building, still holds its
place as the most remarkable feat of engineering in its class.
About Loch Leven and the ruin that rears its low, square tower from
the clustered foliage of its tiny islet, there will always hover
an atmosphere of romance. And why should it not be thus, since the
authentic feats that history records have in them more of romance than
many of the wild tales of the imagination? But more than this: the halo
which the genius of Scott has thrown over the spot and the song and
story that have been builded on the captivity and escape of the fair
prisoner of Loch Leven, continue to make the placid lake a shrine for
many pilgrims.