_Monday, October 30th._
[Illustration: PEVERIL CASTLE.]
The Scots as a nation are proverbial for their travelling propensities;
they are to be found not only in every part of the British Isles, but in
almost every known and unknown part of the wide world. It was a jocular
saying then in vogue that if ever the North Pole were discovered, a
Scotsman would be found there sitting on the top! Sir Walter Scott was
by no means behind his fellow countrymen in his love of travel, and like
his famous Moss-troopers, whose raids carried them far beyond the
Borders, even into foreign countries, he had not confined himself "to
his own--his Native Land." We were not surprised, therefore, wrhen we
heard of him in the lonely neighbourhood of the Peak of Derbyshire, or
that, although he had never been known to have visited the castle or its
immediate surroundings, he had written a novel entitled _Peveril of the
Peak_. This fact was looked upon as a good joke by his personal friends,
who gave him the title of the book as a nickname, and Sir Walter, when
writing to some of his most intimate friends, had been known to
subscribe himself in humorous vein as "Peveril of the Peak."
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE PEAK CAVERN.]
There were several objects of interest well worth seeing at Castleton
besides the great cavern; there was the famous Blue John Mine, that took
its name from the peculiar blue stone found therein, a kind of fibrous
fluor-spar usually blue to purple, though with occasional black and
yellow veins, of which ornaments were made and sold to visitors, and
from which the large blue stone was obtained that formed the magnificent
vase in Chatsworth House, the residence of the Duke of Devonshire, and
in other noble mansions which possess examples of the craft. In the mine
there were two caverns, one of them 100 feet and the other 150 feet
high, "which glittered with sparkling stalactites." Then there was the
Speedwell Mine, one of the curiosities of the Peak, discovered by miners
searching for ore, which they failed to find, although they laboured for
years at an enormous cost. In boring through the rock, however, they
came to a large natural cavern, now reached by descending about a
hundred steps to a canal below, on which was a boat for conveying
passengers to the other end of the canal, with only a small light or
torch at the bow to relieve the stygian darkness. Visitors were landed
on a platform to listen to a tremendous sound of rushing water being
precipitated somewhere in the fearful and impenetrable darkness, whose
obscurity and overpowering gloom could almost be felt. On the slope of
the Eldon Hill there was also a fearful chasm called the Eldon Hole,
where a falling stone was never heard to strike the bottom. This had
been visited in the time of Queen Elizabeth by the Earl of Leicester,
who caused an unfortunate native to be lowered into it to the full
length of a long rope; when the poor fellow was drawn up again he was
"stark mad," and died eight days afterwards.
We had to leave all these attractions to a later visit, since we had
come to Castleton to see the largest cavern of all, locally named the
"Devil's Hole," but by polite visitors the "Peak Cavern." The approach
to the cavern was very imposing and impressive, perpendicular rocks
rising on both sides to a great height, while Peveril Castle stood on
the top of the precipice before us like a sentinel guarding entrance to
the cavern, which was in the form of an immense Gothic arch 120 feet
high, 42 feet wide, and said to be large enough to contain the Parish
Church and all its belongings. This entrance, however, was being used as
a rope-walk, where, early as it was, the workers were already making
hempen ropes alongside the stream which flowed from the cavern, and the
strong smell of hemp which prevailed as we stood for a few minutes
watching the rope-makers was not at all unpleasant.
[Illustration: ROPE-WALK AT ENTRANCE INSIDE CAVE, CASTLETON, IN 1871.]
If it had been the entrance to Hades, to which it had been likened by a
learned visitor, we might have been confronted by Cerberus instead of
our guide, whom our friends had warned overnight that his attendance
would be required early this morning by distinguished visitors, who
would expect the cave to be lit up with coloured lights in honour of
their visit. The guide as he handed a light to each of us explained
apologetically that his stock of red lights had been exhausted during
the season, but he had brought a sufficient number of blue lights to
suit the occasion. We followed him into the largest division of the
cavern, which was 270 feet long and 150 feet high, the total length
being about half a mile. It contained many other rooms or caves, into
which he conducted us, the first being known as the Bell House, and here
the path we had been following suddenly came to an end at an arch about
five yards wide, where there was a stream called the River Styx, over
which he ferried us in a boat, landing us in a cave called the Hall of
Pluto, the Being who ruled over the Greek Hades, or Home of Departed
Spirits, guarded by a savage three-headed dog named Cerberus. The only
way of reaching the "Home," our guide told us, was by means of the ferry
on the River Styx, of which Charon had charge, and to ensure the spirit
having a safe passage to the Elysian Fields it was necessary that his
toll should be paid with a coin placed beforehand in the mouth or hand
of the departed. We did not, however, take the hint about the payment of
the toll until after our return journey, when we found ourselves again
at the mouth of the Great Cavern, a privilege perhaps not extended to
Pluto's ghostly visitors, nor did we see any of those mysterious or
mythological beings; perhaps the nearest approach to them was the figure
of our guide himself, as he held aloft the blue torch he had in his hand
when in the Hall of Pluto, for he presented the appearance of a man
afflicted with delirium tremens or one of those "blue devils" often seen
by victims of that dreadful disease. We also saw Roger Rain's House,
where it always rained, summer and winter, all the year round, and the
Robbers' Cave, with its five natural arches. But the strangest cave we
visited was that called the "Devil's Wine Cellar," an awful abyss where
the water rushed down a great hole and there disappeared. Her Most
Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria, visited the cavern in 1832, and one of
the caves was named Victoria in memory of that event; we had the honour
of standing on the exact spot where she stood on that occasion.
Our visit to the cavern was quite a success, enhanced as it was by the
blue lights, so, having paid the guide for his services, we returned to
our lodgings to "pack up" preparatory to resuming our walk. The white
stones so kindly presented to my brother--of which he was very proud,
for they certainly were very fine specimens--seemed likely to prove a
white elephant to him. The difficulty now was how to carry them in
addition to all the other luggage. Hurrying into the town, he returned
in a few minutes with an enormous and strongly made red handkerchief
like those worn by the miners, and in this he tied the stones, which
were quite heavy and a burden in themselves. With these and all the
other luggage as well he presented a very strange appearance as he
toiled up the steep track through Cave Dale leading from the rear of the
town to the moors above. It was no small feat of endurance and strength,
for he carried his burdens until we arrived at Tamworth railway station
in Staffordshire, to which our next box of clothes had been ordered, a
distance of sixty-eight and a half miles by the way we walked. It was
with a feeling of real thankfulness for not having been killed with
kindness in the bestowal of these gifts that he deposited the stones in
that box. When they reached home they were looked upon as too valuable
to be placed on the rockeries and retained the sole possession of a
mantelshelf for many years. My ankle was still very weak, and it was as
much as I could do to carry the solitary walking-stick to assist me
forwards; but we were obliged to move on, as we were now quite fifty
miles behind our projected routine, and we knew there was some hard work
before us. When we reached the moors, which were about a thousand feet
above sea-level, the going was comparatively easy on the soft rich grass
which makes the cow's milk so rich, and we had some good views of the
hills. That named Mam Tor was one of the "Seven wonders of the Peak,"
and its neighbour, known as the Shivering Mountain, was quite a
curiosity, as the shale, of which it was composed, was constantly
breaking away and sliding down the mountain slope with a sound like that
of falling water. Bagshawe Cavern was near at hand, but we did not visit
it. It was so named because it had been found on land belonging to Sir
William Bagshawe, whose lady christened its chambers and grottos with
some very queer names. Across the moors we could see the town of
Tideswell, our next objective, standing like an oasis in the desert, for
there were no trees on the moors. We had planned that after leaving
there we would continue our way across the moors to Newhaven, and then
walk through Dove Dale to Ashbourne in the reverse direction to that
taken the year before on our walk from London to Lancashire. Before
reaching Tideswell we came to a point known as Lane Head, where six
lane-ends met, and which we supposed must have been an important
meeting-place when the moors, which surrounded it for miles, formed a
portion of the ancient Peak Forest. We passed other objects of interest,
including some ancient remains of lead mining in the form of curious
long tunnels like sewers on the ground level which radiated to a point
where on the furnaces heaps of timber were piled up and the lead ore was
smelted by the heat which was intensified by these draught-producing
tunnels.
[Illustration: TIDESWELL CHURCH.]
When Peak Forest was in its primeval glory, and the Kings of England
with their lords, earls, and nobles came to hunt there, many of the
leading families had dwellings in the forest, and we passed a relic of
these, a curious old mansion called Hazelbadge Hall, the ancient home of
the Vernons, who still claim by right as Forester to name the coroner
for West Derbyshire when the position falls vacant.
Tideswell was supposed to have taken its name from an ebbing and flowing
well whose water rose and fell like the tides in the sea, but which had
been choked up towards the end of the eighteenth century, and reopened
in the grounds of a mansion, so that the cup-shaped hollow could be seen
filling and emptying.
A market had existed at Tideswell since the year 1250, and one was
being held as we entered the town, and the "George Inn," where we called
for refreshments, was fairly well filled with visitors of one kind or
another.
We left our luggage to the care of the ostler, and went to visit the
fine old church adjacent, where many ancient families lie buried; the
principal object of interest was the magnificent chancel, which has been
described as "one Gallery of Light and Beauty," the whole structure
being known as the Cathedral of the Peak. There was a fine monumental
brass, with features engraved on it which throw light on the Church
ritual of the day, to the memory of Bishop Pursglove, who was a native
of Tideswell and founder of the local Grammar School, who surrendered
his Priory of Gisburn to Henry VIII in 1540, but refused, in 1559, to
take the Oath of Supremacy. Sampson Meverill, Knight Constable of
England, also lies buried in the chancel, and by his epitaph on a marble
tomb, brought curiously enough from Sussex, he asks the reader "devoutly
of your charity" to say "a Pater Noster with an Ave for all Xtian
soules, and especially for the soule of him whose bones resten under
this stone." Meverill, with John Montagu, Earl of Shrewsbury, fought as
"a Captain of diverse worshipful places in France," serving under John,
Duke of Bedford, in the "Hundred Years' War," and after fighting in
eleven battles within the space of two years he won knighthood at the
duke's hands at St. Luce. In the churchyard was buried William Newton,
the Minstrel of the Peak, and Samuel Slack, who in the last quarter of
the eighteenth century was the most popular bass singer in England. When
quite young Slack competed with others for a position in a college choir
at Cambridge, and sang Purcell's famous air, "They that go down to the
sea in ships." When he had finished, the Precentor rose immediately and
said to the other candidates, "Gentlemen, I now leave it to you whether
any one will sing after what you have just heard!" No one rose, and so
Slack gained the position.
Soon afterwards Georgiana, Duchess of Sutherland, interested herself in
him, and had him placed under Spofforth, the chief singing master of the
day, under whose tuition he greatly improved, taking London by storm. He
was for many years the principal bass at all the great musical
festivals. So powerful was his voice, it is said, that on one occasion
when he was pursued by a bull he uttered a bellow which so terrified the
animal that it ran away, so young ladies who were afraid of these
animals always felt safe when accompanied by Mr. Slack. When singing
before King George III at Windsor Castle, he was told that His Majesty
had been pleased with his singing. Slack remarked in his Derbyshire
dialect, which he always remembered, "Oh, he was pleased, were he? I
thow't I could do't." Slack it was said made no effort to improve
himself either in speech or in manners, and therefore it was thought
that he preferred low society.
When he retired and returned to his native village he was delighted to
join the local "Catch and Glee Club," of which he soon became the ruling
spirit. It held its meetings at the "George Inn" where we had called for
refreshments, and we were shown an old print of the club representing
six singers in Hogarthian attitudes with glasses, jugs, and pipes, with
Slack and his friend Chadwick of Hayfield apparently singing heartily
from the same book Slack's favourite song, "Life's a Bumper fill'd by
Fate." Tideswell had always been a musical town; as far back as the year
1826 there was a "Tideswell Music Band," which consisted of six
clarionets, two flutes, three bassoons, one serpent, two trumpets, two
trombones, two French horns, one bugle, and one double drum--twenty
performers in all.
They had three practices weekly, and there were the usual fines for
those who came late, or missed a practice, for inattention to the
leader, or for a dirty instrument, the heaviest fine of all being for
intoxication. But long after this there was a Tideswell Brass Band which
became famous throughout the country, for the leader not only wrote the
score copies for his own band, but lithographed and sold them to other
bands all over the country.
[Illustration: "LIFE'S A BUMPER."]
We were particularly interested in all this, for my brother had for the
past eight years indulged in the luxury of a brass band himself. The
band consisted of about twenty members when in full strength, and as
instruments were dear in those days it was a most expensive luxury, and
what it had cost him in instruments, music, and uniforms no one ever
knew. He had often purchased "scores" from Metcalf, the leader of the
Tideswell Band, a fact that was rather a source of anxiety to me, as I
knew if he called to see Metcalf our expedition for that day would be at
an end, as they might have conversed with each other for hours. I could
not prevent him from relating at the "George" one of his early
reminiscences, which fairly "brought down the house," as there were some
musicians in the company.
His band had been formed in 1863, and consisted of about a dozen
performers. Christmas time was coming on, when the bandsmen resolved to
show off a little and at the same time collect some money from their
friends to spend in the New Year. They therefore decided that the band
should go out "busking" each evening during Christmas week. They had
only learned to play five tunes--two of them belonging to well-known
hymns, a third "God Save the Queen," while the remaining two were
quicksteps, one of which was not quite perfectly learned.
They were well received in the village, and almost every house had been
visited with the exception of the Hall, which was some distance away,
and had been left till the last probably owing to the fact that the
squire was not particularly noted for his liberality. If, however, he
had been at home that week, and had any sense of music, he would have
learned all their tunes off by heart, as the band must have been heard
clearly enough when playing at the farms surrounding the mansion.
To avoid a possibility of giving offence, however, it was decided to pay
him a visit; so the band assembled one evening in front of the mansion,
and the conductor led off with a Psalm tune, during which the Hall door
was opened by a servant. At this unexpected compliment expectations rose
high amongst the members of the band, and a second Psalm tune was
played, the full number of verses in the hymn being repeated. Then
followed a pause to give the squire a chance of distinguishing himself,
but as he failed to rise to the occasion it was decided to play a
quickstep. This was followed by a rather awkward pause, as there were
some high notes in the remaining quickstep which the soprano player said
he was sure he could not reach as he was getting "ramp'd" already. At
this moment, however, the situation was relieved by the appearance of a
female servant at the door.
The member of the band who had been deputed to collect all donations at
once went to the door, and all eyes were turned upon him when he came
back towards the lawn, every member on tip-toe of expectation. But he
had only returned to say that the squire's lady wished the band to play
a polka. This spread consternation throughout the band, and one of the
younger members went to the conductor saying, "A polka! A polka! I say,
Jim, what's that?" "Oh," replied the conductor, "number three played
quick!" Now number three was a quickstep named after Havelock the famous
English General in India, so "Havelock's March played quick" had to do
duty for a polka; but the only man who could play it quickly was the
conductor himself, who after the words, "Ready, chaps!" and the usual
signal "One-two-three," dashed off at an unusual speed, the performers
following as rapidly as they could, the Bombardon and the Double B, the
biggest instruments, finishing last with a most awful groan, after which
the conductor, who couldn't stop laughing when once he started, was
found rolling on the lawn in a kind of convulsion. It took them some
time to recover their equilibrium, during which the Hall door remained
open, and a portion of the band had already begun to move away in
despair, when they were called back by the old butler appearing at the
Hall door with a silver tray in his hand. The collector's services were
again requisitioned, and he returned with the magnificent sum of one
shilling! As most of the farmers had given five shillings and the
remainder half a crown, the squire's reputation for generosity had been
fully maintained. One verse of "God save the Queen," instead of the
usual three, was played by the way of acknowledgment, and so ended the
band's busking season in the year 1863.
We quite enjoyed our visit to Tideswell, and were rather loath to leave
the friendly company at the "George Inn," who were greatly interested in
our walk, several musical members watching our departure as the ostler
loaded my brother with the luggage.
Tideswell possessed a poet named Beebe Eyre, who in 1854 was awarded £50
out of the Queen's Royal Bounty, which probably inspired him to write:
Tideswell! thou art my natal spot,
And hence I love thee well;
May prosperous days now be the lot
Of all that in thee dwell!
The sentiments expressed by the poet coincided with our own. As we
departed from the town we observed a curiosity in the shape of a very
old and extremely dilapidated building, which we were informed could
neither be repaired, pulled down, nor sold because it belonged to some
charity.
On the moors outside the town there were some more curious remains of
the Romans and others skilled in mining, which we thought would greatly
interest antiquarians, as they displayed more methods of mining than at
other places we had visited. A stream had evidently disappointed them by
filtering through its bed of limestone, but this they had prevented by
forming a course of pebbles and cement, which ran right through
Tideswell, and served the double purpose of a water supply and a sewer.
We crossed the old "Rakes," or lines, where the Romans simply dug out
the ore and threw up the rubbish, which still remained in long lines.
Clever though they were, they only knew lead when it occurred in the
form known as galena, which looked like lead itself, and so they threw
out a more valuable ore, cerusite, or lead carbonate, and the heaps of
this valuable material were mined over a second time in comparatively
recent times. The miner of the Middle Ages made many soughs to drain
away the water from the mines, and we saw more of the tunnels that had
been made to draw air to the furnaces when wood was used for smelting
the lead.
The forest, like many others, had disappeared, and Anna Seward had
exactly described the country we were passing through when she wrote:
The long lone tracks of Tideswell's native moor,
Stretched on vast hills that far and near prevail.
Bleak, stony, bare, monotonous, and pale.
The poet Newton had provided the town with a water supply by having
pipes laid at his own expense from the Well Head at the source of the
stream which flowed out of an old lead-mine. Lead in drinking-water has
an evil name for causing poisoning, but the Tideswell folk flourish on
it, since no one seems to think of dying before seventy, and a goodly
number live to over ninety.
They have some small industries, cotton manufacture having spread from
Lancashire into these remote districts. It is an old-fashioned place,
with houses mostly stuccoed with broken crystals and limestone from the
"Rakes" and containing curiously carved cupboard doors and posts torn
from churches ornamented in Jacobean style by the sacrilegious
Cromwellians, many of them having been erected just after the Great
Rebellion.
[Illustration: THE DUKE OF BRIDGEWATER.]
[Illustration: BRIDGE CARRYING THE CANAL OVERHEAD.]
We now journeyed along the mountain track until it descended sharply
into Miller's Dale; but before reaching this place we were interested in
the village of Formhill, where Brindley, the famous canal engineer, was
born in 1716. Brindley was employed by the great Duke of Bridgewater,
the pioneer of canal-making in England, to construct a canal from his
collieries at Worsley, in Lancashire, to Manchester, in order to cheapen
the cost of coal at that important manufacturing centre. It was an
extraordinary achievement, considering that Brindley was quite
uneducated and knew no mathematics, and up to the last remained
illiterate. Most of his problems were solved without writings or
drawings, and when anything difficult had to be considered, he would go
to bed and think it out there. At the Worsley end it involved tunnelling
to the seams of coal where the colliers were at work so that they could
load the coal directly into the boats. He constructed from ten to
thirteen miles of underground canals on two different levels, with an
ingeniously constructed connection between the two. After this he made
the great Bridgewater Canal, forty miles in length, from Manchester to
Runcorn, which obtained a fall of one foot per mile by following a
circuitous route without a lock or a tunnel in the whole of its course
until it reached its terminus at the River Mersey. In places where a
brook or a small valley had to be crossed the canal was carried on
artificially raised banks, and to provide against a burst in any of
these, which would have caused the water to run out of the canal, it was
narrowed at each end of the embankment so that only one boat could pass
through at a time, this narrow passage being known as a "stop place."
At the entrance to this a door was so placed at the bottom of the canal
that if any undue current should appear, such as would occur if the
embankment gave way, one end of it would rise into a socket prepared for
it in the stop-place, and so prevent any water leaving the canal except
that in the broken section, a remedy simple but ingenious. On arriving
at Runcorn the boats were lowered by a series of locks into the River
Mersey, a double service of locks being provided so that boats could
pass up and down at the same time and so avoid delay.
[Illustration: JAMES BRINDLEY.]
When the water was first turned into the canal, Brindley mysteriously
disappeared, and was nowhere to be found; but as the canal when full did
not burst its embankments, as he had feared, he soon reappeared and was
afterwards employed to construct even more difficult canals. He died in
1772, and was buried in Harriseahead Churchyard on the Cheshire border
of Staffordshire. It is computed that he engineered as many miles of
canals as there are days in the year.
[Illustration: THE BOTTOM LOCKS AT RUNCORN.]
It must have been a regular custom for the parsons in Derbyshire to keep
diaries in the eighteenth century, for the Vicar of Wormhill kept one,
like the Vicar of Castleton, both chancing to be members of the Bagshawe
family, a common name in that neighbourhood. He was a hard-working and
conscientious man, and made the following entry in it on February 3rd,
1798
_Sunday_.--Preached at Wormhill on the vanity of human pursuits and
human pleasures, to a polite audience, an affecting sermon. Rode in
the evening to Castleton, where I read three discourses by Secker. In
the forest I was sorry to observe a party of boys playing at
Football. I spoke to them but was laughed at, and on my departure one
of the boys gave the football a wonderful kick--a proof this of the
degeneracy of human nature!
On reaching Miller's Dale, a romantic deep hollow in the limestone, at
the bottom of which winds the fast-flowing Wye, my brother declared
that he felt more at home, as it happened to be the only place he had
seen since leaving John o' Groat's that he had previously visited, and
it reminded him of a rather amusing incident.
[Illustration: THE BRIDGEWATER CANAL--WHERE IT ENTERS THE MINES AT
WORSLEY.]
Our uncle, a civil engineer in London, had been over on a visit, and was
wearing a white top-hat, then becoming fashionable, and as my brother
thought that a similar hat would just suit the dark blue velveteen coat
he wore on Sundays, he soon appeared in the prevailing fashion. He was
walking from Ambergate to Buxton, and had reached Miller's Dale about
noon, just as the millers were leaving the flour mills for dinner. One
would have thought that the sight of a white hat would have delighted
the millers, but as these hats were rather dear, and beyond the
financial reach of the man in the street, they had become an object of
derision to those who could not afford to wear them, the music-hall
answer to the question "Who stole the donkey?" being at that time "The
man with the white hat!"
He had met one group of the millers coming up the hill and another lot
was following, when a man in the first group suddenly turned round and
shouted to a man in the second group, "I say, Jack, who stole the
donkey?" But Jack had not yet passed my brother, and, as he had still to
face him, he dared not give the customary answer, so, instead of
replying "The man with the white hat," he called out in the Derbyshire
dialect, with a broad grin on his face, "Th' feyther." A roar of
laughter both behind and in front, in which my brother heartily joined,
followed this repartee.
Probably some of the opprobrium attached to the white hat was because of
its having been an emblem of the Radicals. We had seen that worn by Sir
Walter Scott in his declining days, but we could not think of including
him in that extreme political party, though its origin dated back to
the time when he was still alive. Probably the emblem was only local,
for it originated at Preston in Lancashire, a place we knew well,
commonly called Proud Preston, no doubt by reason of its connection with
the noble family of Stanley, who had a mansion in the town. Preston was
often represented in Parliament by a Stanley, and was looked upon as a
Pocket Borough. In the turbulent times preceding the Abolition of the
Corn Laws a powerful opponent, in the person of Mr. Henry Hunt, a
demagogue politician, who had suffered imprisonment for advocating
Chartism, appeared at the Preston election of 1830 to oppose the
Honourable E.G. Stanley, afterwards Earl of Derby. He always appeared
wearing a white hat, and was an eloquent speaker, and for these reasons
earned the sobriquet of "Orator" Hunt and "Man with the White Hat." The
election contest was one of the most exciting events that ever occurred
in Preston, and as usual the children took their share in the
proceedings, those on Mr. Stanley's side parading the streets singing in
a popular air:
Hey! Ho! Stanley for Ever! Stanley for Ever!
Hey! Ho! Stanley for Ever Ho!
Stanley, Stanley, Stanley, Ho!
Stanley is my honey Ho!
When he weds he will be rich,
He will have a coach and six.
Then followed the chorus to the accompaniment of drums and triangles:
Hey! Ho! Stanley for Ever, Ho!
In spite of this, however, and similar ditties, "Orator Hunt," by a
total vote of 3,730, became M.P. for Preston, and it was said that it
was through this incident that the Radicals adopted the White Hat as
their emblem.
Lord Derby was so annoyed at the result of the election that he closed
his house, which stood across the end of a quiet street, and placed a
line of posts across it, between which strong chains were hung, and on
which my brother could remember swinging when a boy.
One of our uncles was known as the "Preston Poet" at that time, and he
wrote a poem entitled "The Poor, God Bless 'Em!" the first verse
reading:
Let sycophants bend their base knees in the court
And servilely cringe round the gate,
And barter their honour to earn the support
Of the wealthy, the titled, the great;
Their guilt piled possessions I loathe, while I scorn
The knaves, the vile knaves who possess 'em;
I love not to pamper oppression, but mourn
For the poor, the robb'd poor--God bless 'em!
A striking contrast to the volubility of Mr. Hunt was Mr. Samuel
Horrocks, also M.P. for Preston, whose connection with the "Big Factory"
in Preston probably gained him the seat. He was said to have been the
"quiet Member," never known to make a speech in the House of Commons,
unless it was to ask some official to close a window. The main
thoroughfare in Preston was Fishergate, a wide street, where on one
Saturday night two men appeared walking up the middle of the street,
carrying large papers suspended over their arms and shouting at the top
of their voices.
"The Speech of Samuel Horrocks, Esquire, M.P., in the British House of
Commons! one penny," which they continued to repeat.
"Eh! owd Sammy's bin makkin' a speech," and a rush was made for the
papers. The streets were poorly lighted in those days, and the men did a
roaring business in the dark. One man, however, was so anxious to read
the speech that he could not wait until he got home, but went to a shop
window, where there was a light, but the paper was blank. Thinking they
had given him the wrong paper, he ran after the men and shouted,
pointing to the paper, "Hey, there's nowt on it." "Well," growled one of
the men, "_he said nowt_."
[Illustration: CHATSWORTH HOUSE.]
We now climbed up the opposite side of the dale, and continued on the
moorland road for a few miles, calling at the "Flagg Moor Inn" for tea.
By the time we had finished it was quite dark, and the landlady of the
inn did her best to persuade us to stay there for the night, telling us
that the road from there to Ashbourne was so lonely that it was possible
on a dark night to walk the whole distance of fourteen miles without
seeing a single person, and as it had been the Great Fair at Newhaven
that day, there might be some dangerous characters on the roads. When
she saw we were determined to proceed farther, she warned us that the
road did not pass through any village, and that there was only a
solitary house here and there, some of them being a little way from the
road. The road was quite straight, and had a stone wall on each side all
the way, so all we had got to do was to keep straight on, and to mind we
did not turn to the right or the left along any of the by-roads lest we
should get lost on the moors. It was not without some feeling of regret
that we bade the landlady "Good night" and started out from the
comfortable inn on a pitch-dark night. Fortunately the road was dry,
and, as there were no trees, the limestone of which it was composed
showed a white track easily discernible in the inky darkness which
surrounded it. As we got farther on our way we could see right in front
a great illumination in the mist or clouds above marking the glare from
the country fair at Newhaven, which was only four miles from the inn we
had just left. We met quite a number of people returning from the fair,
both on foot and in vehicles, and as they all appeared to be in good
spirits we received a friendly greeting from all who spoke to us.
Presently arriving at Newhaven itself, which consisted solely of one
large inn, we found the surrounding open space packed with a noisy and
jovial crowd of people, the number of whom absolutely astonished us, as
the country around appeared so desolate, and we wondered where they all
could have come from. Newhaven, which had been a very important place in
the coaching-days, was a big three-storeyed house with twenty-five
bedrooms and stabling for a hundred horses. It stood at a junction of
roads about 1,100 feet above sea-level in a most lonely place, and in
the zenith of its popularity there was seldom a bedroom empty, the house
being quite as gay as if it had been in London itself. It had been
specially built for the coach traffic by the then Duke of Devonshire,
whose mansion, Chatsworth House, was only a few miles distant. King
George IV stayed at Newhaven on one occasion, and was so pleased with
his entertainment that he granted to the inn a free and perpetual
licence of his own sovereign pleasure, so that no application for
renewal of licence at Brewster Sessions was ever afterwards required; a
fact which accounted in some measure for the noisy company congregated
therein, in defiance of the superintendent of police, who, with five or
six of his officers, was standing in front of the fair. Booths had been
erected by other publicans, but the police had ordered these to be
removed earlier in the day to prevent further disturbances.
We noticed they had quite a number of persons in custody, and when I saw
a policeman looking very critically at the miscellaneous assortment of
luggage my brother was carrying, I thought he was about to be added to
the number; but he was soon satisfied as to the honesty of his
intentions. The "New Haven" must have meant a new haven for passengers,
horses, and coaches when the old haven had been removed, as the word
seemed only to apply to the hotel, which, as it was ten miles both from
Buxton and Ashbourne, and also on the Roman road known as Via Gellia,
must have been built exactly to accommodate the ten-mile run of the
coaches either way. It quite enlivened us to see the old-fashioned
shows, the shooting-boxes, the exhibitions of monstrosities, with stalls
displaying all sorts of nuts, sweets, gingerbreads, and all the
paraphernalia that in those days comprised a country fair, and we should
have liked to stay at the inn and visit some of the shows which were
ranged in front of it and along the green patches of grass which lined
the Ashbourne road; but in the first place the inn was not available,
and in the second our twenty-five-mile average daily walk was too much
in arrears to admit of any further delay.
[Illustration: THE DOVE HOLES, DOVEDALE.]
All the shows and stalls were doing a roaring trade, and the naphtha
lamps with which they were lighted flared weirdly into the inky darkness
above. Had we been so minded, we might have turned aside and found
quarters at an inn bearing the odd sign of "The Silent Woman" (a woman
with her head cut off and tucked under her arm, similar to one nearer
home called the "Headless Woman"--in the latter case, however, the tall
figure of the woman was shown standing upright, without any visible
support, while her head was calmly resting on the ground--the idea
seeming to be that a woman could not be silent so long as her head was
on her body), but we felt that Ashbourne must be reached that night,
which now seemed blacker than ever after leaving the glaring lights in
the Fair. Nor did we feel inclined to turn along any by-road on a dark
night like that, seeing that we had been partly lost on our way from
London the previous year, nearly at the same place, and on quite as dark
a night. On that memorable occasion we had entered Dovedale near Thorpe,
and visited the Lovers' Leap, Reynard's Cave, Tissington Spires, and
Dove Holes, but darkness came on, compelling us to leave the dale to
resume our walk the following morning. Eventually we saw a light in the
distance, where we found a cottage, the inmates of which kindly
conducted us with a lantern across a lonely place to the village of
Parwich, which in the Derbyshire dialect they pronounced "Porritch,"
reminding us of our supper.
[Illustration: TISSINGTON SPIRES.]
[Illustration: REYNARD'S CAVE, DOVEDALE.]
It was nearly closing-time when we were ushered into the taproom of the
village inn among some strange companions, and when the hour of closing
arrived we saw the head of the village policeman appear at the shutter
through which outside customers were served with beer. The landlord
asked him, "Will you have a pint?" Looking significantly at ourselves,
he replied, "No, thank you," but we noticed the "pint" was placed in the
aperture, and soon afterwards disappeared!
At Newhaven we ascertained that we were now quite near Hartington and
Dovedale. Hartington was a famous resort of fishermen and well known to
Isaak Walton, the "Father of Fishermen," and author of that famous book
_The Compleat Angler or the Contemplative Man's Recreation_, so full of
such cheerful piety and contentment, such sweet freshness and
simplicity, as to give the book a perennial charm. He was a great friend
of Charles Cotton of Beresford Hall, who built a fine fishing-house near
the famous Pike Pool on the River Dove, over the arched doorway of which
he placed a cipher stone formed with the combined initials of Walton and
himself, and inscribed with the words "Piscatoribus Sacrum." It was said
that when they came to fish in the fish pool early in the morning,
Cotton smoked tobacco for his breakfast!
What spot more honoured than this beautiful place?
Twice honoured truly. Here Charles Cotton sang,
Hilarious, his whole-hearted songs, that rang
With a true note, through town and country ways,
While the Dove trout--in chorus--splashed their praise.
Here Walton sate with Cotton in the shade
And watched him dubb his flies, and doubtless made
The time seem short, with gossip of old days.
Their cyphers are enlaced above the door,
And in each angler's heart, firm-set and sure.
While rivers run, shall those two names endure,
Walton and Cotton linked for evermore---
And Piscatoribus Sacrum where more fit
A motto for their wisdom worth and wit?
Say, where shall the toiler find rest from his labours,
And seek sweet repose from the overstrung will?
Away from the worry and jar of his neighbours
Where moor-tinted streamlets flow down from the hill.
Then hurrah! jolly anglers, for burn and for river.
The songs of the birds and the lowing of kine:
The voice of the river shall soothe us for ever,
Then here's to the toast, boys--"The rod and the line!"
[Illustration: TISSINGTON HALL, GATEWAY.]
We walked in the darkness for about six miles thinking all the time of
Dovedale, which we knew was running parallel with our road at about two
miles' distance. When we reached Tissington, about three miles from
Ashbourne, the night had become lighter, and there ought to have been a
considerable section of the moon visible if the sky had been clear. Here
we came to quite a considerable number of trees, but the village must
have been somewhere in the rear of them. Well-dressing was a custom
common in Derbyshire, and also on a much smaller scale in some of the
neighbouring counties; but this village of Tissington was specially
noted in this respect, for it contained five wells, all of which had to
be dressed. As the dressers of the different wells vied with each other
which should have the best show, the children and young people had a
busy time in collecting the flowers, plants, buds, and ferns necessary
to form the display. The festival was held on Holy Thursday, and was
preceded with a service in the church followed by one at each of the
wells, and if the weather was fine, hundreds of visitors assembled to
criticise the work at the different wells. The origin of well-dressing
is unknown, but it is certainly of remote antiquity, probably dating
back to pagan times. That at Tissington was supposed to have developed
at the time of the Black Plague in the fourteenth century, when,
although it decimated many villages in the neighbourhood, it missed
Tissington altogether--because, it was supposed, of the purity of the
waters. But the origin of well-dressing must have been of much greater
antiquity: the custom no doubt had its beginnings as an expression of
praise to God from whom all blessings flow. The old proverb, "We never
know the value of water till the well runs dry," is singularly
appropriate in the hilly districts of Derbyshire, where not only the
wells, but the rivers also have been known to dry up, and when the
spring comes and brings the flowers, what could be more natural than to
thank the Almighty who sends the rain and the water, without which they
could not grow.
[Illustration: TISSINGTON CHURCH.]
We were sorry to have missed our walk down Dove Dale, but it was all for
the best, as we should again have been caught in the dark there, and
perhaps I should have injured my foot again, as the path along the Dale
was difficult to negotiate even in the daylight. In any case we were
pleased when we reached Ashbourne, where we had no difficulty in finding
our hotel, for the signboard of the "Green Man" reached over our heads
from one side of the main street to the other.
(_Distance walked twenty-six and a half miles_.)
_Tuesday, October 31st._
The inn we stayed at was a famous one in the days of the stagecoaches,
and bore the double name "The Green Man and the Black's Head Royal
Hotel" on a sign which was probably unique, for it reached across the
full width of the street. A former landlord having bought another
coaching-house in the town known as the "Black's Head," transferred the
business to the "Green Man," when he incorporated the two signs. We were
now on the verge of Dr. Johnson's country, the learned compiler of the
great dictionary, who visited the "Green Man" in company with his
companion, James Boswell, whose _Life of Dr. Johnson_ is said to be the
finest biography ever written in the English language. They had a friend
at Ashbourne, a Dr. Taylor, whom they often visited, and on one occasion
when they were all sitting in his garden their conversation turned on
the subject of the future state of man. Johnson gave expression to his
views in the following words, "Sir, I do not imagine that all things
will be made clear to us immediately after death, but that the ways of
Providence will be explained to us very gradually."
[Illustration: "THE GREEN MAN AND BLACK'S HEAD."]
Boswell stayed at the "Green Man" just before journeying with Dr.
Johnson to Scotland, and was greatly pleased by the manners of the
landlady, for he described her as a "mighty civil gentlewoman" who
curtseyed very low as she gave him an engraving of the sign of the
house, under which she had written a polite note asking for a
recommendation of the inn to his "extensive acquaintance, and her most
grateful thanks for his patronage and her sincerest prayers for his
happiness in time and in blessed eternity." The present landlady of the
hotel appeared to be a worthy successor to the lady who presided there
in the time of Boswell, for we found her equally civil and obliging,
and, needless to say, we did justice to a very good breakfast served up
in her best style.
[Illustration: IN ASHBOURNE CHURCH IN YE OLDEN TIME.]
The Old Hall of Ashbourne, situated at the higher end of the town, was a
fine old mansion, with a long history, dating from the Cockayne family,
who were in possession of lands here as early as the year 1372, and who
were followed by the Boothby family.
The young Pretender, "Bonnie Prince Charlie," who had many friends in
England, stayed a night at the Hall in 1745, and the oak door of the
room in which he slept was still preserved. He and his Highlanders never
got farther than Derby, when he had to beat a hurried retreat, pursued
by the Duke of Cumberland. Prince Charlie, to avoid the opposing army at
Stafford and Lichfield, turned aside along the Churnet valley, through
Leek, and so to Ashbourne. At Derby he called a Council of War, and
learned how the Royal forces were closing in upon him, so that
reluctantly a retreat was ordered. Then began a period of plundering and
rapine. The Highlanders spread over the country, but on their return
never crossed into Staffordshire, for, as the story goes, the old women
of the Woodlands of Needwood Forest undertook to find how things were
going, and crept down to the bridges of Sudbury and Scropton. As it
began to rain, they used their red flannel petticoats as cloaks, which
the Highlanders, spying, took to be the red uniforms of soldiers, and a
panic seized them--so much so, that some who had seized some
pig-puddings and were fastening them hot on a pole, according to a local
ditty, ran out through a back door, and, jumping from a heap of manure,
fell up to the neck in a cesspool. The pillage near Ashbourne was very
great, but they could not stay, for the Duke was already at Uttoxoter
with a small force.
[Illustration: ASHBOURNE CHURCH.]
George Canning, the great orator who was born in 1770 and died when he
was Prime Minister of England in 1827, often visited Ashbourne Old Hall.
In his time the town of Ashbourne was a flourishing one; it was said to
be the only town in England that benefited by the French prisoners of
war, as there were 200 officers, including three generals, quartered
there in 1804, and it was estimated that they spent nearly £30,000 in
Ashbourne. An omnibus was then running between Ashbourne and Derby,
which out of courtesy to the French was named a "diligence," the French
equivalent for stage-coach; but the Derby diligence was soon abbreviated
to the Derby "Dilly." The roads at that time were very rough,
macadamised surfaces being unknown, and a very steep hill leading into
the Ashbourne and Derby Road was called _bête noire_ by the French,
about which Canning, who was an occasional passenger, wrote the
following lines:
So down the hill, romantic Ashbourne, glides
The Derby Dilly, carrying three insides;
One in each corner sits and lolls at ease,
With folded arms, propt back and outstretched knees;
While the pressed bodkin, pinched and squeezed to death,
Sweats in the midmost place and scolds and pants for breath.
We were now at the end of the last spur of the Pennine Range of hills
and in the last town in Derbyshire. As if to own allegiance to its own
county, the spire of the parish church, which was 212 feet high, claimed
to be the "Pride of the Peak." In the thirteenth-century church beneath
it, dedicated to St. Oswald, there were many fine tombs of the former
owners of the Old Hall at Ashbourne, those belonging to the Cockayne
family being splendid examples of the sculptor's art. We noted that one
member of the family was killed at the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1404,
while another had been knighted by King Henry VII at the siege of
Tournay. The finest object in the church was the marble figure of a
little child as she appeared--
Before Decay's effacing fingers
Have swept the lines where beauty lingers,
which for simplicity, elegance, and childlike innocence of face was said
to be the most interesting and pathetic monument in England. It is
reputed to be the masterpiece of the English sculptor Thomas Banks,
whose work was almost entirely executed abroad, where he was better
known than in England. The inscriptions on it were in four different
languages, English, Italian, French, and Latin, that in English being: