By Rail to Leeds--Kirkstall Abbey--Valley of the Aire--Flight
to Settle--Giggleswick--Drunken Barnaby again--Nymph and Satyr
--The astonished Bagman--What do they Addle?--View from
Castleber--George Fox's Vision on Pendle Hill--Walk to Maum--
Companions--Horse versus Scenery--Talk by the Way--Little Wit,
muckle Work--Malham Tarn--Ale for Recompense--Malham--
Hospitality--Gordale Scar--Scenery versus Horse--Trap for Trout
--A Brookside Musing--Malham Cove--Source of the Aire--To
Keighley.
On the second morning of my stay in York, after a farewell visit to the
minster, I travelled by rail to Leeds. I had little time, and,
remembering former days, less inclination to tarry in this great,
dismal, cloth-weaving town; so after a passing glance at the new
town-hall, and some other improvements, I walked through the long,
scraggy suburb such as only a busy manufacturing town can create, to
Kirkstall Abbey. This also was an abode of the Cistercians, founded in
1152 by Henry de Lacy; and they who can discourse learnedly on such
subjects pronounce it to be, as a ruin, more perfect than some which we
have already visited. But it stands only a few yards from a black,
much-frequented road, and within sight and hearing of a big forge, and
the Aire flows past, not pellucid, but stained with the refuse liquor of
dye-works. Still the site is not devoid of natural beauty; and an hour
may be agreeably passed in sauntering about the ruin. It must have been
a delightful haunt when Leeds was Loidis in Elmete.
I had expected to see the valley of the Aire sprinkled with the villa
residences of the merchants of Leeds; but the busy traders prefer to
live in the town, and in all the nine miles on the way to Bradford, you
have only a succession of factories, dye-works, and excavations,
encroaching on and deforming the beauty of the valley, while the
vegetation betrays signs of the harmful effect of smoke.
As the afternoon drew on, I bethought myself that it was the last day of
the week, and a desire came over me for one more quiet Sunday among the
hills. So I turned aside to Newlay station, and took flight by the first
train that came up for Settle, retracing part of my journey through
Craven of the week before.
On the way from the station to the town, I made a detour to Giggleswick,
a village that claims notice for its grammar-school, a fine cliff--part
of the Craven fault--and a remarkable spring. Of his visit to this place
Drunken Barnaby chants:
"Thence to Giggleswick most steril,
Hem'd with shelves and rocks of peril,
Near to th' way, as a traveller goes,
A fine fresh spring both ebbs and flows;
Neither know the learn'd that travel
What procures it, salt or gravel."
Drayton helps us to a legend which accounts for the origin of the
spring. Suppose we pause for a few minutes to read it. Coming to this
place, he says:
"At Giggleswick where I a fountain can you show,
That eight times in a day is said to ebb and flow,
Who sometime was a nymph, and in the mountains high
Of Craven, whose blue heads for caps put on the sky,
Amongst th' Oreads there, and sylvans made abode
(It was ere human foot upon those hills had trod),
Of all the mountain kind and since she was most fair,
It was a satyr's chance to see her silver hair
Flow loosely at her back, as up a cliff she clame,
Her beauties noting well, her features, and her frame,
And after her he goes; which when she did espy,
Before him like the wind the nimble nymph doth fly,
They hurry down the rocks, o'er hill and dale they drive,
To take her he doth strain, t' outstrip him she doth strive,
Like one his kind that knew, and greatly fear'd his rape,
And to the topick gods by praying to escape,
They turn'd her to a spring, which as she then did pant,
When wearied with her course, her breath grew wondrous scant:
Even as the fearful nymph, then thick and short did blow,
Now made by them a spring, so doth she ebb and flow."
It was supper-time when I came to the _Lion_ at Settle. A commercial
traveller, who was in the town on his first visit, looked up from his
accounts while I sat at table to tell me of a strange word which he had
heard during the day, and with as much astonishment as if it had been
Esquimaux. Indeed, he had not recovered from his astonishment, and could
not help having a good laugh when he thought of the cause. Seeing a
factory on the outskirts of the town, he asked a girl, "What do they
make in that factory?"
"What do they addle?" replied the girl, inquiringly. And ever since he
had been repeating to himself, "What do they addle?" and always with a
fresh burst of laughter.
"Pretty outlandish talk that, isn't it?" he said, as he finished his
story.
Settle is a quiet little town, built at the foot of Castleber, another
of the grand cliffs of Craven. To the inhabitants the huge rock is a
recreative resort: seats are placed at its base; a zigzag path leads to
the summit, whence the views over the valley of the Ribble are very
picturesque and pleasing. On the north-west the broad top of
Ingleborough is seen peeping over an intervening height; Penyghent
appears in the north; and southerly, Pendle Hill rises within the
borders of Lancashire. Very beautiful did the dewy landscape seem to me
the next morning as I sat on the cliff top while the sunlight increased
upon the green expanse.
"As we travelled," says George Fox in his _Journal_, "we came near a
very great hill, called Pendle Hill, and I was moved of the Lord to go
up to the top of it; which I did with difficulty, it was so very steep
and high. When I was come to the top, I saw the sea bordering upon
Lancashire. From the top of this hill the Lord let me see in what places
he had a great people to be gathered. As I went down, I found a spring
of water in the side of the hill, with which I refreshed myself, having
eaten or drunk but little for several days before." The spring is still
there, and known in the neighbourhood as George Fox's Well.
After breakfast I set out to walk to Malham, about seven miles distant,
and was mounting the hill at an easy pace behind the town, when two men
came up, and presently told me they also were going to Maum--as they
pronounced it. So we joined company, all alike strangers to the road,
and came soon to the bye-path of which the ostler at the _Lion_ had
advised me: "It would save a mile or more if I could only find the way."
A greater attraction for me was, that it led across the silent pastures
on the top of the hills. As I got over the stile, an old man who was
passing strongly urged us to keep the road; we should be sure to lose
ourselves, and happen never to get to Maum at all. To which I replied,
that if a Londoner and two Yorkshiremen could not find their way across
six miles of hill-country they deserved to lose it; and away we went
across the field. Ere long we were on breezy slopes, which, opening here
and there on the left, revealed curious rocky summits beyond, and as we
trod the springy turf, my companions told me they had come by rail from
Bentham, and were going to Malham for no other purpose than to see a
horse which one of them had sent there "to grass" a few weeks
previously. They were as much amused at my admiration of the scenery as
I was at their taking so long a journey to look at a quadruped. They
would not go out of their way to see Malham Cove, or Gordale Scar, not
they: a horse was worth more than all the scenery. And yet, judging by
their dress and general conversation, they were men in respectable
circumstances. Presently, as we passed a rocky cone springing all yellow
and gray from a bright green eminence, I stopped and tried to make them
understand why it was admirable, pointing out its form, the contrasts of
colour, and its relation to surrounding objects: "Well!" said one, "I
never thought of that. It do make a difference when you look at it in
that way."
Neither of them had ever been to London, and what pleased them most was
to hear something about the great city. They were as full of wonder, and
as ready to express it, as children; and not one of us found the way
wearisome. We had taken a new departure when in sight of Stockdale, a
solitary farm-house down in a hollow, as instructed, and gained a
rougher elevation, when the track, which had become faint, disappeared
altogether, and at a spot where no landmark was in sight to guide us.
"The old man was right," said the Yorkshiremen; "we have lost the way;"
and they began a debate as to the course now to be followed. At length
one strode off in a direction that would have taken him in time to the
top of Penyghent. I looked at the sun, and declared for the east. But
no, the other remained resolute in his opinion, and would not be
persuaded. "Let him go," I said to his companion, who sided with me;
"little wit in the head makes muckle work for the heels;" and we took a
course to the east.
After a while the other repented, and came panting after us; and before
we had gone half a mile we saw Malham Tarn, broad and blue, at a
distance on the left; then the track reappeared; then Malham came in
sight, lying far down in a pleasant valley; and then we came into a
rough, narrow road, descending steeply, and the Yorkshireman
acknowledged his error.
"Eh! that's Maum Cove, is it?" he said, as a turn in the road showed us
the head of the valley; "that's what we've heard so much talk about.
Well, it's a grand scar." He seemed to repent of even this morsel of
admiration, and helped his neighbour with strong resolutions not to turn
aside and look up at the cliff from its base.
We each had a glass of ale at the public-house in the village. Before I
was aware, one of my companions paid for the three, nor would he on any
terms be persuaded otherwise.
"Hoot, lad," he rejoined, "say nought about it. I'd pay ten times as
much for the pleasure of your talk." And with that he silenced me.
Although Gordale Scar is not more than a mile from Malham, they refused
to go and see it. However, when we came to the grazier's house, and they
heard that the Scar lay in the way to the pasture where the horse was
turned out, they thought they wouldn't mind taking a look just, as they
went. The good wife brought out bread, cheese, butter, and a jug of
beer, and would have me sit down and partake with the others; regarding
my plea that I was a stranger, and had just taken a drink, as worthless.
A few minutes sufficed, and then her son accompanied us, for without him
the horse would never be found. We followed a road running along the
base of the precipitous hills which cross the head of the valley, to a
rustic tenement, dignified with the name of Gordale House; and there
turned towards the cliffs by the side of a brook. At first there is
nothing to indicate your approach to anything extraordinary: you enter a
great chasm, where the crags rise high and singularly rugged, sprinkled
here and there with a small fir or graceful ash, where the bright green
turf, sloping up into all the ins and outs of the dark gray cliff, and
the little brook babbling out towards the sunshine, between great masses
of rock fallen from above, enliven the otherwise gloomy scene. You might
fancy yourself in a great roofless cave; but, ascending to the rear, you
find an outlet, a sudden bend in the chasm, narrower, and more rocky and
gloomy than the entrance. The cliffs rise higher and overhang fearfully
above, appearing to meet indeed at the upper end; and there, from that
grim crevice, rushes a waterfall. The water makes a bound, strikes the
top of a rock, and, rushing down on each side, forms an inverted /\ of
splash and foam. And now you feel that Gordale Scar deserves all the
admiration lavished upon it.
"Well!" exclaimed one of the Yorkshiremen, "who'd ha' thought to see
anything like this? And we living all our life within twenty mile of it!
'Tis a wonderful place."
"So, you do believe at last," I rejoined, "that scenery is worth looking
at, as well as a horse?"
"That I do. I don't wonder now that you come all the way from London to
see our hills."
We crossed the fall, climbed up the rock into another bend of the chasm,
where the water makes its first plunge, unseen from below, shut in by
crags that wear a sterner frown. You look up to the summit and see the
water tumbling through a ring of rock, so strangely has the disruptive
shock there broken the cliff. The effect both on ear and eye as the
torrent breaks into spray and dashes downwards in fantastic channels, is
surprisingly impressive.
Only on one side is the pass accessible, and there so steep that your
hands must aid in the ascent. We scrambled to the top and found
ourselves on the margin of a table-land sloping gently upwards from the
edge of the precipice, so bestrewn with upheaved rocks and lumps of
stone, that but for the grass which grows rich and sweet between,
whereof the sheep bite gladly, the aspect would indeed be savage. Along
an irregular furrow, as it may be called, which deepens as it nears the
precipice, flows the beck--coming, as the boy told us, from Malham Tarn.
There was another small stream, he said, which disappeared in a
'swallow' on his father's pasture; and in that swallow he had many times
found large trout, struggling helplessly in their unexpected trap. And,
pointing to the highest shoulder of the cliff, he said that a fox, once
hard pressed by the hounds, had leaped over, followed by a dog, and both
were killed by the fall.
After a few minutes of admiration, the Yorkshiremen and their guide
began to move off across the fell, in search of the horse. One of them
hoped we should meet again on the way back. The other said, "Not much
hope o' that; for he won't go away from this till he have learnt it all
by heart." Then we shook hands, and they promised to set up a pile of
stones at a certain gate on their return, as a signal to me that they
had passed through.
True enough, I was in no haste to depart, and there was much to admire
as well as "to learn." The sight of the innumerable shelves, with their
fringe of grass, the diversity of jagged rocks thrusting their gray
heads up into the sunlight, of the rugged and broken slopes, set me
longing for a scramble. Hither and thither I went; now to a point where
I could see miles of the cliffs, and mark how, in many places, owing to
the splitting and shivering, the limestone wall resembles a row of organ
pipes. Now into a gap all barren and stony with immemorial screes;
where, however, you could hear the faint tinkle of hidden water, and
pulling away the stones, discover small ferns and pale blades of grass
along the course of the tiny current. Anon, returning to the Scar, I
climbed to the top of the crag that juts midway in the rear of the
chasm, surveying the scene below; then selecting a nook by the side of
the beck, a little above its leap through the ring, I lay down and
watched the water as it ran with innumerable sparkling cascades from the
rise of the fell. Here the solitude was complete, and the view limited
to a few yards of the hollow water-course patched with green and gray,
and the bright blue sky above.
And while I lay, soothed by the murmur of the water, looking up at the
great white clouds floating slowly across the blue, certain thoughts
that had haunted me for some days shaped themselves in order in my
brain; and with your permission, gracious reader, I here produce them:
A cloud of care had come across my mind;
Ill-balanced hung the world: here pleasure all;
There hopeless toil, and cruel pangs that fall
On Poverty, to which but death seemed kind.
And so, with heart perplexed, I left behind
The crowd of men, the town with smoky pall,
And sought the hills, and breathed the mountain wind.
Hath God forgotten then the mean and small?
I mused, and gazed o'er purple fells outroll'd;
When, lo! beneath an old thatched roof a gleam
That kindled soon with sunset's gorgeous gold:
Broad panes, nor fretted oriel brighter beam.
If glories thus on lattice rude unfold,
Of life unlit by Heaven we may not deem.
The sun was beginning to drop towards the west before I left the
pleasant hollow; and then with reluctance, for my holiday was near its
close, and months would elapse before I should again hear the voice of a
mountain brook, and slake myself in sunshine. Having returned to the
village, I kept along the river bank to the head of the valley, where
copse and enormous boulders, scattered about the narrow grassy level and
in the bed of the stream, make a fine foreground to the magnificent
limestone cliff of Malham Cove. Rising sheer to a height of nearly three
hundred feet, the precipice curving inwards, buttressed on each side by
woody slopes, realizes Wordsworth's description--"semicirque profound;"
and while you look up at its pale marble-like surface, broken only by a
narrow shelf--a stripe of green--accessible to goats and adventurous
boys, you will be ready to say with the bard,
"Oh, had this vast theatric structure wound
With finished sweep into a perfect round,
No mightier work had gained the plausive smile
Of all-beholding Phoebus!"
At a distance you might well imagine it to be a towering ruin, from
which Time has not yet gnawed the traces of fallen chambers and
colonnades. And perhaps yet more will you desire to see the cataract
which once came rushing down in one tremendous plunge from the summit,
as is said, owing to some temporary stoppage of the underground
channels. What a glorious fall that must have been! more than twice the
height of Niagara.
From a low flat arch at the base of the cliff, about twenty feet in
width, the river Aire rushes out, copiously fed by a subterranean
source. The water sparkles as it flows forth into the light of day, and
begins its course clear and bright as truth, yet fated to receive many a
defilement ere it pours into the Ouse. Could the Naiads forsee what is
to befall, how piteous would be their lamentations! The stream is at
once of considerable volume, inhabited by trout, and you may fish at the
very mouth of the arch.
Here, too, I scrambled up and down, crossed and recrossed the stream, to
find all the points of view; then ascending to the hill-top I traced the
line of cliff from the Cove to Gordale. It is a continuation of that
great geological phenomenon already mentioned--the Craven fault--which,
extending yet farther, terminates near Threshfield, the village by which
we passed last Sunday on our way to Kettlewell.
My return walk was quiet enough, and favourable to meditation. The
Yorkshiremen had set up the preconcerted signal by the gate. I hope the
horse did not drive the Scar quite out of their memory. Perhaps a
lasting impression was made; for "Gordale-chasm" is, as Wordsworth says,
"----terrific as the lair
Where the young lions couch."
I left Settle by the last evening train, journeying for the third time
over the same ground, and came to the _Devonshire Arms_ at Keighley just
before the doors were locked for the night.