A Month in Yorkshire Part 17

I left Ingleton on the right, and turned off at the cross-roads for Clapham, distant four miles. Here, as in other parts of my travel, the miles seemed long--quite as long as they were found to be years ago. We are told that when young Daniel Dove walked dutifully every day to school, "the distance was in those days called two miles; but miles of such long measure that they were for him a good hour's walk at a cheerful pace." On the way from Mickle Fell to Brough I met with a more unkindly experience; and that was an hour's walking for a single mile.

The road undulating along the hill-side commands pleasing views, and for one on foot is to be preferred to the new road, which winds among the fields below. And with a brightening evening we come to Clapham--a cheerful, pretty village, adorned with flowers, and climbers, and smooth gra.s.s plots, embowered by trees, and watered by a merry brook, lying open to the sun on the roots of Ingleborough. Looking about for an inn, I saw the _Bull and Cave_, and secured quarters there by leaving my knapsack, and set out to seek for the guide, whom I found chatting with a group of loungers on the bridge. Bull and Cave seemed to me such an odd coupling, that I fancied cave must be a Yorks.h.i.+re way of spelling calf; but it really means that which it purports, and the two words are yoked together in order that visitors, who are numerous, may be easily attracted.

Here in Clapdale--a dale which penetrates the slopes of Ingleborough--is the famous Ingleborough Cave, the deepest and most remarkable of all the caves. .h.i.therto discovered in the honeycombed flanks of that remarkable hill. Intending to see this, I left unvisited the other caves which have been mentioned as lying to the right and left of the road as you come down from _Gearstones_.

The fee for a single person to see the cave is half-a-crown; for a party of eight or ten a s.h.i.+lling each. The guide, who is an old soldier, and a good specimen of the cla.s.s, civil and intelligent, called at his house as we pa.s.sed to get candles, and presently we were clear of the village, and walking up-hill along a narrow lane. Below us on the right lay cultivated grounds and well-kept plantations, through which, as the old man told me, visitors were once allowed to walk on their way to the cave--a pleasing and much less toilsome way than the lane; but the remains of picnics left on the gra.s.s, broken bottles, orange-peels, greasy paper and wisps of hay, became such a serious abuse of the privilege, that Mr. Farrer, the proprietor, withdrew his permission.

"It's a wonder to me," said the guide, "that people shouldn't know how to behave themselves."

In about half an hour we came to a hollow between two gra.s.sy acclivities, out of which runs a rapid beck, and here on the left, in a limestone cliff prettily screened by trees, is the entrance to the cave, a low, wide arch that narrows as it recedes into the gloom. We walked in a few yards; the guide lit two candles, placed one in my hand and unlocked the iron gate, which, very properly, keeps out the perpetrators of wanton mischief. A few paces take us beyond the last gleam of daylight, and we are in a narrow pa.s.sage, of which the sides and roof are covered with a brown incrustation resembling gigantic cl.u.s.ters of petrified moss. Curious mushroom-like growths hang from the roof, and throwing his light on these, the guide says we are pa.s.sing through the Inverted Forest. So it continues, the roof still low, for eighty yards, comprising the Old Cave, which has been known for ages; and we come to a narrow pa.s.sage hewn through a thick screen of stalagmite. It was opened twenty years ago by Mr. Farrer's gardener, who laboured at the barrier until it was breached, and a new cavern of marvellous formation was discovered beyond. An involuntary exclamation broke from me as I entered and beheld what might have been taken for a glittering fairy palace. On each side, sloping gently upwards till they met the roof, great bulging ma.s.ses of stalagmite of snowy whiteness lay outspread, mound after mound glittering as with millions of diamonds. For the convenience of explorers, the pa.s.sage between them has been widened and levelled as far as possible, wherein the beck that we saw outside finds a channel after unusual rains. You walk along this pa.s.sage now on sand, now on pebbles, now bare rock. All the great white ma.s.ses are damp; their surfaces are rough with countless crystallized convolutions and minute ripples, between which trickle here and there tiny threads of water. It is to the moisture that the unsullied whiteness is due, and the glistening effect; for wherever stalact.i.te or stalagmite becomes dry, the colour changes to brown, as we saw in the Old Cave. A strange illusion came over me as I paced slowly past the undulating ranges, and for a moment they seemed to represent the great rounded snow-fields that whiten the sides of the Alps.

The cavern widens: we are in the Pillar Hall; stalact.i.tes of all dimensions hang from the roof, singly and in groups. Thousands are mere nipples, or an inch or two in length; many are two or three feet; and the whole place resounds with the drip and tinkle of water. Stalagmites dot the floor, and while some have grown upwards the stalact.i.tes have grown downwards, until the ends meet, and the ceaseless trickle of water fas.h.i.+ons an unbroken crystal pillar. Some stalact.i.tes a.s.sume a spiral twist; and where a long thin fissure occurs in the roof they take the form of draperies, curtains, and wings--wings shaped like those of angels. The guide strikes one of the wings with a small mallet, and it gives out a rich musical note; another has the deep sonorous boom of a cathedral bell, another rings sharp and shrill, and a row of stalact.i.tic sheets answers when touched with a gamut of notes. Your imagination grows restless while you listen to such strange music deep in the heart of a mountain.

And there are pools on the floor, and in raised basins at the side--pools of water so limpid as to be treacherous, for in the uncertain light all appears to be solid rock. I stepped knee deep into one, mistaking it for an even floor. Well for me it was not the Abyss which yawns at the end of Pillar Hall. The guide, to show the effect of light reflected on the water, crawls up to the end of one of the basins with the two candles in his hand, while you standing in the gloom at the other end, observe the smooth brilliant surface, and the brightness that flashes from every prominence of roof or wall.

Although geologists explain the process of formation, there is yet much food for wonder in remembering that all these various objects were formed by running water. The water, finding its way through fissures in the mighty bed of limestone overhead, hangs in drops, one drop pushes another off, but not idly; for while the current of air blowing through carries off their carbonic acid, they give up the salt of lime gathered during percolation, and form small stony tubes. And these tubes, the same cause continuing to operate, grow in course of ages to magnificent stalact.i.tes; and where thin, broad streams have appeared, there the draperies and wings and the great snow-fields have been fas.h.i.+oned. The incrustation spreads even over some of the pools: the film of water flowing in deposits its solid contents on the margin, and these, crystallizing and acc.u.mulating, advance upon the surface, as ice forms from the edge towards the centre of a pond, and in time bridge it over with a translucent sheet.

Among the stalagmites are a few of beehive shape; but there is one named the Jockey Cap, an extraordinary specimen for bigness. Its base has a circ.u.mference of ten feet, its height is two feet, all produced by a succession of drops from one single point. Advantage has been taken of this circ.u.mstance to measure the rate of its growth. Mr. Farrer collected a pint of drops, and ascertained the fall to be one hundred pints a day, each pint containing one grain of calcareous matter; and from this daily supply of a hundred grains the Jockey Cap was built up to its present dimensions in two hundred and fifty-nine years. In six years, from 1845 to 1851, the diameter increased by two, and the height by three inches. Probably owing to the morning's rain, the drops fell rapidly while I stood looking at the cap--splash--splash--splash--into a small saucer-like depression in the middle of the crown, from which with ceaseless overflow the water bathes the entire ma.s.s. Around it is the most drippy part of the cave.

In places there are sudden breaks in the roof at right angles to the pa.s.sage--cracks produced by the cooling of this great limestone bubble in the primeval days--which look as if Nature had begun to form a series of cross aisles, and then held her hand. Some of these are nests of stalact.i.tes; one exhibits architectural forms adorned with beads and mouldings as if sculptured in purest marble. The farther you penetrate the loftier do they become; impressing you with the idea that they are but the ante-chambers of some majestic temple farther within. The Abyss appears to be a similar arch reversed in the floor.

Then we came to a bend where the roof rus.h.i.+ng down appears to bar all further advance, but the guide puts a thing into your hand which you might take to be a scrubbing-brush, and telling you to stoop, creeps into a low opening between the rising floor and descending roof, and you discover that the scrubbing-brush is a paddle to enable you to walk on three legs while crouching down. It keeps your right hand from the slippery rock; and your left has always enough to do in holding the candle. The creeping continues but for a few yards, and you emerge into one of the cross vaults, and again sand and pebbles form the floor. Then comes the Cellar Gallery, a long tunnel-like pa.s.sage, the sides perpendicular, the roof arched, which, like all the rest, has been shaped by currents of water, aided in this case by the grinding action of sand and pebbles. Continuing through thousands of years, the result is as we behold it. The tunnel appears the more gloomy from the absence of ornament: no stalact.i.tes, no wings, reflect the dim candle-flame; for which reason, as well as to avoid the creeping, many visitors refuse to advance beyond the entrance of the Long Gallery. But the tunnel leads you into the Giant's Hall, where stalact.i.tes and draperies again meet your eye, and where your light is all too feeble to illumine the lofty roof. And here is the end, 2106 feet from the entrance--nearly half a mile. From the time that the gardener broke through the barrier in the Old Cave, two years were spent in gradual advances till the Giant's Hall was reached. The adventurous explorers endeavoured to get farther, for two small holes were discovered leading downwards from one side of the Hall to a lower cave, through which arose the sound of falling water.

They braved the danger, and let themselves down to a level, where they were stopped by a deep pool--the receiver of the fall. It must have looked fearfully dismal. Yet might there not be caverns still more wonderful beyond? Fixing a candle to his cap and with a rope round his body, Mr. James Farrer swam across the murky lake, and found it closed in by what appeared to be an impa.s.sable wall of limestone--the heart of Ingleborough. It was a courageous adventure.

I stretched out my candle and peered down the two holes. One is dry and sandy, the other slimy with a constant drip. I heard the noise of the fall, the voice of the water plunging for ever, night and day, in deep darkness. It seemed awful. A current of air blows forth continually, whereby the cave is ventilated throughout its entire length, and the visitor, safe from stagnant damps and stifling vapours, breathes freely in a pure atmosphere.

I walked once more from end to end of the Hall; and we retraced our steps. In the first cross aisle the guide made me aware of an echo which came back to the ear as a hollow moan. We crept through into Pillar Hall, and I could not help lingering once more to admire the brilliant and delicate incrustations, and to scramble between or over the great stalagmitic barriers to see what was in the rear. Here and there I saw a ma.s.s resembling a font, filled with water of exquisite purity, or raised oval or oblong basins representing alabaster baths, wherein none but vestal virgins might enter.

Except that the path has been levelled and widened, and openings enlarged, and planks laid in one place to facilitate access to a change of level, the cave remains as when first discovered. Mr. Farrer's precautions against mischief have prevented that pillage of the interior so much to be deplored in other caves of this region, where the first-comers made prize of all the ornaments within reach, and left little but bare walls for those who follow. Yet even here some of the smaller stalact.i.tes, the size of a finger, have been missed after a party has gone through; and once a man struck a group of stalact.i.tes and broke more than a foot off the longest, in sheer wantonness, as it seemed, for the fragment was too heavy to carry away. And there the mutilation remains, a lasting reproach to a fool.

My candle burnt out, and the other flickered near its end, but the old man had two halves which he lit, and these more than sufficed for our return. The red light of sunset was streaming into the entrance when we came forth after a sojourn of nearly two hours in the bowels of the mountain. The guide had been very indulgent with me; for most visitors stay but an hour. Those who merely wish to walk through, content with a hasty glance, will find little to impede their movements. There is nothing, indeed, which need deter a woman, only she must leave her hoop at home, wear thick boots, and make provision for looping-up her skirts.

Many an English maiden would then enjoy a visit to Ingleborough Cave.

The beck flows out from under the cliff a few yards above the entrance through a broad low vault. I crept in for some distance, and it seemed to me that access to the cave might be gained by wading up the stream.

Then as we went down the hill, the old soldier thought that as there were but two of us, we might venture to walk through the grounds, where we saw the lake, the bridge, and the cascade, on our way to the village.

Delicious trout from the neighbouring brook, and most excellent beer, awaited me for supper, and made me well content with the _Bull and Cave_. Afterwards I joined the party in the little bar-parlour, where among a variety of topics, the mountain was talked about. The landlord, a hale old fellow of sixty, said that he had never once been on the summit, though he had lived all his life at the base. A rustic, though a two years' resident in Clapham, had not been up, and for a reason: "You see," he said, "if a man gets on a high place, he isn't satisfied then; he wants to get higher. So I thinks best to content myself down here."

Then spoke another of the party, a man well dressed, in praise of rural quiet, and the enjoyment of fresh air, contrasting the tranquillity of Clapham at that hour with the noise and confusion at Bradford, where the streets would be thronged till after midnight. He was an 'operative'

from Bradford, come as was his wont, to spend Sunday in the country. He grew eloquent on the subject of masters and men, averring that masters, as a body, would never do anything for the benefit of workmen unless compelled thereto by act of Parliament. Well might he say so. Would the mills be ventilated; would dangerous machinery be boxed off; would schools have been interposed between children and slavery, had Parliament not interfered? The number of Yorks.h.i.+re factory children at school on the last day of October, 1857, was 18,000, from eight to thirteen years of age. On this latter particular our spinner could not say enough in praise of the House of Commons: there was a chance for the bairns now that the law punished the masters who did not allow time for school as well as for work. "It's one of the grandest things," he said, "Parliament ever did for the factory hands."

He had too much reason to speak as he did; but we must not suppose that the great millowners are worse than other masters. Owing to the large numbers they employ, the evils complained of appear in a violent and concentrated form; but we have only to look at the way in which apprentices and domestic servants are treated everywhere, especially in large towns (with comparatively few exceptions,) to become aware that a want of fair-play is by far too prevalent. No wonder that Dr.

Livingstone finds reason to say we are not model Christians.

CHAPTER XXII.

By Rail to Skipton--A Stony Town--Church and Castle--The Cliffords--Wharfedale--Bolton Abbey--Picturesque Ruins--A Foot-Bath--Sc.r.a.ps from Wordsworth--Bolton Park--The Strid-- Barden Tower--The Wharfe--The Shepherd Lord--Reading to Grandfather--A Cup of Tea--Cheerful Hospitality--Trout Fis.h.i.+ng --Gale Beck--Symon Seat--A Real Entertainer--Burnsall--A Drink of Porter--Immoralities--Threshfield--Kilnsey--The Crag-- Kettlewell--A Primitive Village--Great Whernside--Starbottom-- Buckden--Last View of Wharfedale--Cray--Bishopdale--A Pleasant Lane--Bolton Castle--Penhill--Aysgarth--Dead Pastimes--Decrease of Quakers--Failure of a Mission--Why and Wherefore--Aysgarth Force--Drunken Barnaby--Inroad of Fas.h.i.+on.

The railway station at Clapham, as well as others along the line, is built in the old timbered style, and harmonizes well with the landscape.

A railway hotel stands close by, invitingly open to guests who dislike the walk of a mile to the village; and the landlord, as I was told, multiplies his profits by renting the Cave.

A short flight by the first train took me to breakfast at Skipton, all through the pretty country of Craven, of which the town is the capital.

The houses are built of stone taken from the neighbouring hills. The bells were just beginning their chimes as I pa.s.sed the church, and, seeing the door open, I went in and looked at the stained gla.s.s and old monuments, the s.h.i.+elds and sculptures which commemorate the Cliffords--Lords of the Honour of Skipton--the Lady Ellinor, of the house of Brandon; the Earls of c.u.mberland, one of whom was Queen Elizabeth's champion against the Spaniard, as well as in tilt and tournament.

The castle, which has played a conspicuous part in history, stands beside the church, and there, over the gateway, you may still see the s.h.i.+eld bearing two griffins, and the motto #Desormais#. Within, you view the ma.s.sive, low, round towers from a pleasant garden, where but few signs of antiquity are to be seen; for modern restorations have masked the old grim features. Here dwelt the Cliffords, a proud and mighty family, who made a noise in the world, in their day. Among them was Lord John, or Black Clifford, who did butcher-work at the battle of Wakefield, and was repaid the year after at Towton. In the first year of Edward IV. the estates were forfeited because of high treason, and Henry, the tenth Lord of the Honour of Skipton, to escape the ill consequence of his father's disloyalty, was concealed for twenty-five years among the shepherds of c.u.mberland. Another of the line was that imperial-minded Countess, the Lady Anne Clifford, who, when she repaired her castle of Skipton, made it known by an inscription in the same terms as that set up on her castle at Brough, and with the same pa.s.sage of Scripture. Now it is a private residence; and the ancient tapestries and pictures, and other curiosities which are still preserved, can only be seen after due pains taken by the inquiring visitor.

The life of the Shepherd Lord, as he was called, is a touching episode in the history of the Cliffords; heightened by the marked contrast between the father and son--the one warlike and revengeful, the other gentle and forgiving. We shall come again on the traces of the pastoral chief ere the day be over.

There is a long stretch of the old castle wall on the left as you go up the road towards Knaresborough. From the top of the hill, looking back about a mile and a half distant, you get a pleasing view of Skipton, lying in its cheerful green valley; and presently, in the other direction, you see the hills of Wharfedale. Everywhere the gra.s.s is waving, or, newly-mown, fills all the air with delightful odour. I walked slowly, for the day was hot--one of the hottest of that fervid July--and took till noon to accomplish the seven miles to Bolton Abbey.

The number of vehicles drawn up at the _Devons.h.i.+re Arms_--a good inn about two furlongs from the ruin--and the numerous visitors, betokened something unusually attractive.

Since Landseer painted his picture, Bolton Abbey has become a household word. It seems familiar to us beforehand. We picture it to our minds; and your imagination must be extravagant indeed if the picture be not realized. It is a charming scene that opens as you turn out of the road and descend the gra.s.sy slope: the abbey standing, proud and beautiful in decay, in a green meadow, where stately trees adorn the gentle undulations; the Wharfe rippling cheerfully past, coming forth from wooded hills above, going away between wooded hills below, alike

"With mazy error under pendent shades;"

the bold perpendicular cliff opposite, all purple and gray, crowned and flanked with hanging wood; the cascade rus.h.i.+ng down in a narrow line of foam; the big mossy stones that line the bank, and the stony islets in the bed of the stream; and, looking up the dale, the great sweeps of wood in Bolton Park, terminated by the wild heights of Symon Seat and Barden Fell. All around you see encircling woods, and combinations of rock, and wood, and water, that inspire delightful emotions.

But you will turn again and again to the abbey to gaze on its tall arches, the great empty window, the crumbling walls, over which hang rich ma.s.ses of ivy, and walking slowly round you will discover the points whence the ruins appear most picturesque. And within, where elder-trees grow, and the carved tombstones of the old abbots lie on the turf, you may still see where the monks sat in the sanctuary, and where they poured the holy water. And whether from within or without, you will survey with reverent admiration. A part of the nave is used as a church for the neighbourhood, and ere I left, the country folk came from all the paths around, summoned by the pealing bell. I looked in and saw richly stained windows and old tombs.

On the rise above the abbey stands a castellated lodge, embodying the ancient gate-house, an occasional resort of the late Duke of Devons.h.i.+re, to whom the estate belonged. Of all his possessions this perhaps offered him most of beauty and tranquillity.

You may ramble at will; cross the long row of stepping-stones to the opposite bank, and scramble through the wood to the top of the cliff; or roam over the meadows up and down the river, or lounge in idle enjoyment on the seats fixed under some of the trees. After strolling hither and thither, I concealed myself under the branches overhanging the stream, and sat there as in a bower, with my feet in the shallow water, the lively flas.h.i.+ng current broad before me, and read,

"From Bolton's old monastic tower The bells ring loud with gladsome power; The sun s.h.i.+nes bright; the fields are gay With people in their best array Of stole and doublet, hood and scarf, Along the banks of crystal Wharfe, Through the Vale retired and lowly, Trooping to that summons holy.

And, up among the moorlands, see What sprinklings of blithe company!"

And while I read, the bell was ringing, and the people were gathering together, and anon the priest

"all tranquilly Recites the holy liturgy,"

but no White Doe of Rylstone came gliding down to pace timidly among the tombs, and make her couch on a solitary grave.

And reading there on the scene itself, I found a new charm in the pages--a vivid life in the old events and old names:

"Pa.s.s, pa.s.s who will, yon chantry door; And through the c.h.i.n.k in the fractured floor Look down, and see a grisly sight; A vault where the bodies are buried upright!

There, face by face, and hand by hand, The Claphams and Mauleverers stand; And, in his place, among son and sire, Is John de Clapham, that fierce Esquire, A valiant man, and a name of dread In the ruthless wars of the White and Red; Who dragged Earl Pembroke from Banbury church, And smote off his head on the stones of the porch!

Look down among them, if you dare; Oft does the White Doe loiter there."

And here, as at Skipton, we are reminded of the Cliffords, and of the Shepherd Lord, to whom appeared at times the gracious fairy,

"And taught him signs, and showed him sights, In Craven's dens, on c.u.mbrian heights; When under a cloud of fear he lay, A shepherd clad in homely gray."

I left my mossy seat and returned to the bank, thoroughly cooled, on coming to the end of the poem, and started for a travel up the dale. The road skirts the edge of Bolton Park; but the pleasantest way is through the park itself, for there you have grand wooded slopes on each side, and there the river rus.h.i.+ng along its limestone bed encounters the far-famed Strid. A rustic, however, told me that no one was allowed to cross the park on Sunday; but having come to see a sight, I did not like to be disappointed, and thought it best to test the question myself. I kept on, therefore, pa.s.sing from the open grounds to delightful paths under the woods, bending hither and thither, and with many a rise and fall among rocks and trees. Presently, guided by the roar, I struck through the wood for the stony margin of the river. Here all is rock: great hummocks, ledges and tables of rock, wherein are deep basins, gullies, bays, and shallow pools; and the water makes a loud noise as it struggles past. Here and there a rugged cliff appears, its base buried in underwood, its front hung with ivy; and there are marks on the trees, and portentous signs on the drifted boulders, which reveal the swollen height of floods. There are times when all these Yorks.h.i.+re rivers become impetuous torrents, roaring along in resistless might and majesty.

A little farther and the rocks form a dam, leaving but a narrow opening in the centre, across which a man may stride, for the pa.s.sage of the stream--and we behold the Strid. Piling itself up against the barrier, the water rushes through, deep, swift and ungovernable, and boils and eddies below with never-ceasing tumult. The rock on each side of the sluice is worn smooth by the feet of many who have stridden across, caring nothing for the tales that are told of terrible accidents from a slip of the foot or from giddiness. Once a young lady, fascinated by the rapid current, fell in and was drowned in sight of her friends. And