A Month in Yorkshire Part 2

So it'll be a pretty fair day's work." And yet the chances were that he would have to wait six months for payment.

We pa.s.sed through Welwick--place of wells--a small, clean village, with a small, squat church, with carvings sadly mutilated on the outside, and inside, a handsome tomb. At Plowland, near this, lived the Wrights, confederates in the Gunpowder Plot. Nearly all the cottages are models of cleanliness; the door-sill and step washed with yellow ochre, and here and there you see through the open door that the walls of the room inside are papered, and the little pictures and simple ornaments all in keeping.

You will take pleasure in these indications, and perhaps believe them to be the result of an affection for cleanliness. The walls of some of the houses and farm-yards are built of pebbles--'sea-cobbles,' as they are called--placed zigzag-wise, with a novel and pretty effect: and the examples multiply as we get nearer the sea, where they may be seen in the walls of the churches.

At Skeffling the painter turned into a farm-house which looked comfortably hospitable enough to put him at ease regarding his dinner, and as if it had little need to take six months' credit for four and sixpence, while I turned from the high-road into a track leading past the church--which, by the way, has architectural features worthy examination--to the coa.r.s.e and swarthy flats where the distant view is hidden by a great embankment that runs along their margin for miles.

Once on the top of this 'Humber-bank,' I met a l.u.s.ty breeze sweeping in from the sea, and had before me a singular prospect--the bank itself stretching far as the eye can see in a straight line to the east and west, covered with coa.r.s.e gra.s.s and patches of gray, thistle-like, sea-holly--_Eryngo maritima_. Its outer sloop is loose sand falling away to the damp line left by the tide, beyond which all is mud--a great brown expanse outspread for miles. The tide being at its lowest, only the tops of the masts of small vessels are to be seen, moving, as it seems, mysteriously: the river itself is hardly discernible. In places the mud lies smooth and slimy; in others thickly rippled, or tossed into billows, as if the water had stamped thereon an impression of all its moods. Fishermen wade across it in huge boots from their boats to the firm beach, and dig down through it two or three feet to find stiff holding-ground for their anchors.

Yonder rises the lighthouse, surprisingly far, as it seems, to seaward, at times half hidden by a thin, creeping haze. And from Spurn to Sunk Island this whole northern sh.o.r.e is of the same brown, monotonous aspect: a desert, where the only living things are a few sea-birds, wheeling and darting rapidly, their white wings flas.h.i.+ng by contrast with the sad-coloured sh.o.r.e.

I walked along the top of the bank to Kilnsea, deceived continually in my estimate of distance by the long dead level. Here and there a drain pierces the bank, and reappears on the outer side as a raised sewer, with its outlet beyond high-water mark; and these constructions, as well as the waifs and strays--old baskets and dead seagulls--cheat the eye strangely as to their magnitude when first seen. At times, after a las.h.i.+ng storm has swept off a few acres of the mud, the soil beneath is found to be a mixture of peat and gravel, in which animal and vegetable remains and curious antiquities are imbedded. Now and then the relics are washed out, and show by their character that they once belonged to Burstall Priory, a religious house, despoiled by the sea before King Harry began his Reformation. Burstall Garth, one of the pastures traversed by the bank, preserves its name: the building itself has utterly disappeared.

Suddenly a gap occurs in the bank, showing where the unruly tide has broken through. For some reason the mischief was not repaired, but a new bank was constructed of chalk and big pebbles, about a stone's throw to the rear. A green, slimy pool still lies in a hollow between the two.

The entertainment at the _Crown and Anchor_ at Kilnsea by no means equals the expectations of a stranger who reads the host's aristocratic name--_Metforth Tennison_--over the door. I found the bread poor; the cheese poorer; the beer poorest; yet was content therewith, knowing that vicissitude is good for a man. The place itself has a special interest, telling, so to speak, its own history--a history of desolation. The wife, pointing to the road pa.s.sing between the house and the beach, told me she remembered Kilnsea church standing at the seaward end of the village, with as broad a road between it and the edge of the cliff. But year by year, as from time immemorial the sea advanced, the road, fields, pastures, and cottages were undermined and melted away. Still the church stood, and though it trembled as the roaring waves smote the cliff beneath, and the wind howled around its unsheltered walls, service was held within it up to 1823. In that year it began to yield, the walls cracked, the floor sank, the windows broke; sea-birds flew in and out, shrieking in the storm, until, in 1826, one-half of the edifice tumbled into the sea, and the other half followed in 1831. The chief portion of the village stands on and near the cliff, but as the waste appears to be greater there than elsewhere, houses are abandoned year by year. In 1847, the _Blue Bell Inn_ was five hundred and thirty-four yards from the sh.o.r.e; of this quant.i.ty forty-three yards were lost in the next six years. Kilnsea exists, therefore, only as a diminished and diminis.h.i.+ng parish, and in the few scattered cottages near the bank of the Humber.

The old font was carried away from the church to Skeffling, where it is preserved in the garden of the parsonage.

Her reminiscences ended, the good woman talked of the rough walking that lay before me. It was a wild place out there, not often visited by strangers; but sometimes "wagon loads o' c.o.o.ntra foak cam' to see t'

loights." At one time, as I have heard, a stage-coach used to do the journey for the gratification of the curious.

A short distance beyond the _Crown and Anchor_ stands a small lone cottage built of sea-cobbles, with a sandy garden and potato-plot in front, and a sandy field, in which a thin, stunted crop of rye was making believe to grow. Once past this cottage, and all is a wild waste of sand, covered here and there with reedy gra.s.s, among which you now and then see a dusty pink convolvulus, struggling, as it were, to keep alive a speck of beauty amid the barrenness. Here, as old chronicles tell, the king once had 'coningers,' or rabbit-warrens, and rabbits still burrow in the hillocks. Presently, there is the wide open sea on your left, and you can mark the waves rus.h.i.+ng up on either side, hissing and thundering against the low bank that keeps them apart.

"A broad long sand in the shape of a spoon," is the description given of Spurn in a pet.i.tion presented to parliament nearly two hundred years ago; and, if we suppose the spoon turned upside down, it still answers.

It narrows and sinks as it projects from the main sh.o.r.e for about two miles, and this part being the weakest and most easily s.h.i.+fted by the rapid currents, is strengthened every few yards by rows of stakes driven deeply in, and hurdle work. You see the effect in the smooth drifts acc.u.mulated in the s.p.a.ce between the barriers, which only require to be planted with gra.s.s to become fixed. As it is, the walking is laborious: you sink ankle-deep and slide back at every step, unless you accept the alternative of walking within the wash of the advancing wave.

For a long while the lighthouse appears to be as far off as ever.

A little farther, and we are on a rugged embankment of chalk: the ground is low on each side, and a large pond rests in the hollow between us and the sea on the left, marking the spot where, a few years ago, the sea broke through and made a clean sweep all across the bank. Every tide washed it wider and deeper, until at last the fis.h.i.+ng-vessels used it as a short cut in entering or departing from the river. The effect of the breach would, in time, had a low-water channel been established, have seriously endangered the sh.o.r.e of the estuary, besides threatening destruction to the site of the lighthouse. As speedily, therefore, as wind and weather would permit, piles and stakes were driven in, and the gap was filled up with big lumps of chalk brought from the quarry at Barton, forming an embankment sloped on both sides, to render the shock of the waves as harmless as possible. The trucks, rails, and sleepers with which the work had been accomplished were still lying on the sand, awaiting removal. Henceforth measures of precaution will be taken in time, for a conservator of the river has been appointed.

The depth of the bay formed by the spoon appears to increase more and more each time you look back. How vast is the curve between this bank of chalk and the point where we struck the sh.o.r.e from Skeffling! The far-spreading sands--or rather mud--are known as the Trinity Dry Sands.

At this moment they are disappearing beneath the rising tide, and you can easily see what thousands of acres might be reclaimed were a barrier erected to keep out the water. "Government have been talkin' o' doing it for years," said a fisherman to whom I talked at Kilnsea, "but 'taint begun yet."

Desolate as is now the scene, it was once enlivened by the dwellings of men and the stir of commerce. Off the spot where we stand, there lay, five hundred years ago, a low islet, accessible by a flat ridge of sand and yellow pebbles, known as Ravenser Odd, or Ravensrode, as some write it. "Situate at the entry to the sea," it was a port regarded with envy and fear by the merchants of Grimsby and Hull, for its pilots were skilful, and its traders enterprising. For a time it flourished; but while the rival Roses wasted the realm, the sea crept nearer, and at length, after an existence of a century and a half, distinctly traceable in ancient records and old books, a high tide, enraged by a storm, ended the history of Ravenser Odd with a fearful catastrophe. A gravelly bank, running outwards, still discoverable by excavation, is believed to be the foundation of the low, flat ridge of sand and yellow pebbles along which the folk of the little town pa.s.sed daily to and fro; among them at times strange seamen and merchants from far-away lands, and cowled monks and friars pacing meekly on errands of the Church.

And yonder, near the bottom of the curve, stood the town variously described as Ravenser, Ravenspurne, and Ravenspurg--a town that sent members to parliament in the reigns of the first two Edwards, and was considered of sufficient importance to be invited to take part in the great councils held in London, when the "kinge's majestie" desired to know the naval forces of the kingdom. Now, twice a day, the tide rolls in triumphantly over its site.

"The banish'd Bolingbroke repeals himself, And with uplifted arms is safe arriv'd At Ravenspurg,"

writes Shakspeare, perpetuating alike the name of the place and the memory of the Duke of Lancaster's adventure,--an adventure brought before us in an invective by the fiery Hotspur, which I may, perhaps, be pardoned for introducing here:

"My father, my uncle, and myself, Did give him that same royalty he wears: And,--when he was not six and twenty strong, Sick in the world's regard, wretched and low, A poor unminded outlaw, sneaking home,-- My father gave him welcome to the sh.o.r.e: And,--when he heard him swear a vow to G.o.d, He came but to be Duke of Lancaster, To sue his livery, and beg his peace; With tears of innocency and terms of zeal,-- My father, in kind heart and pity mov'd, Swore him a.s.sistance, and performed it too.

Now, when the lords and barons of the realm Perceived Northumberland did lean to him, The more and less came in with cap and knee; Met him in boroughs, cities, villages; Attended him on bridges, stood in lanes, Laid gifts before him, proffered him their oaths, Gave him their heirs; as pages follow'd him, Even at the heels, in golden mult.i.tudes.

He presently,--as greatness knows itself,-- Steps me a little higher than his vow Made to my father, while his blood was poor, Upon the naked sh.o.r.e at Ravenspurg."

The cross set up to commemorate the landing was s.h.i.+fted from place to place when endangered by the sea, and lastly to Hedon, where it still remains, as already mentioned. It was at the same port that Edward IV.

landed, with an excuse plausible as that of the duke whose exploit he imitated.

Though it be "naked" still, and toilsome to walk on, the sh.o.r.e is by no means barren of interest. By-and-by we come to firm ground, mostly covered with thickly-matted gra.s.s; a great irregular, oval mound, which represents the bowl of the spoon reversed. Near its centre is a fenced garden and a row of cottages--the residence of the life-boat crew. A little farther, on the summit of the ridge, stands the lighthouse, built by Smeaton, in 1776, and at the water's edge, on the inner side, the lower light. The princ.i.p.al tower is ninety feet in height, and from the gallery at the top you get an excellent bird's-eye view over sea and land. Most remarkable is the tongue of sand along which we have walked, now visible in its whole extent and outline. It is lowest where the breach was made, and now that the tide has risen higher, the chalk embankment seems scarcely above the level of the water. Beyond that it broadens away to the sh.o.r.e of the estuary on one side, and the coast of Holderness on the other--low, sweeping lines which your eye follows for miles. By the waste of that coast the Spurn is maintained, and the Trinity Sands are daily enlarged, and the meadows fattened along Ouse and Trent. First the lighter particles of the falling cliffs drift round by the set of the current, and gradually the heavier portions and pebbles follow, and the supply being inexhaustible, a phenomenon is produced similar to that of the Chesil Bank, on the coast of Dorsets.h.i.+re, except that here the pebbles are for the most part masked by sand.

I looked northwards for Flamborough Head, but Dimlington Hill, which lies between, though not half the height, hides it completely. Beyond Dimlington lies Withernsea, a small watering-place, the terminus of the Hull and Holderness Railway, to which the natives of the melancholy town betake themselves for health and recreation, tempted by a quadrille band and cheap season-tickets. Adjoining Withernsea is all that remains of Owthorne, a village which has shared the doom of Kilnsea. The churches at the two places were known as 'sister churches;' that at Withernsea yet stands in ruins; but Owthorne church was swept into the sea within the memory of persons now living. The story runs that two sisters living there, each on her manor, in the good old times, began to build a church for the glory of G.o.d and the good of their own souls, and the work went on prosperously until a quarrel arose between them on the question of spire or tower. Neither would yield. At length a holy monk suggested that each sister should build a church on her own manor; the suggestion was approved, and for long years the Sister Churches resounded with the voice of prayer and praise, and offered a fair day-mark to the mariner.

But, as of old, the devouring sea rushed higher and higher upon the land, and the cliff, sapped and undermined, fell, and with it the church of Owthorne. In 1786, the edge of the burial-ground first began to fail; the church itself was not touched till thirty years later. It was a mournful sight to see the riven churchyard, and skeletons and broken coffins sticking out from the new cliff, and bones, skulls, and fragments of long-buried wood strewn on the beach. One of the coffins washed out from a vault under the east end of the church contained an embalmed corpse, the back of the scalp still bearing the gray hairs of one who had been the village pastor. The eyes of the villagers were shocked by these ghastly relics of mortality tossed rudely forth to the light of day; and aged folk who tottered down to see the havoc, wept as by some remembered token they recognised a relative or friend of bygone years, whom they had followed to the grave--the resting place of the dead, as they trusted, till the end of time. In some places bodies still clad in naval attire, with bright-coloured silk kerchiefs round the neck, were unearthed, as if the sea were eager to reclaim the s.h.i.+pwrecked sailors whom it had in former time flung dead upon the sh.o.r.e.

But, to return to the lighthouse. According to Smeaton's survey this extremity of the spoon comprehends ninety-eight acres. It slopes gently to the sea, and is somewhat altered in outline by every gale. At the time of my visit, rows of piles were being driven in, and barriers of chalk erected, to secure the ground on the outer side between the tower and the sea; and a new row of cottages for the life-boat crew, built nearer to the side where most wrecks occur than the old row, was nearly finished. Beyond, towards the point, stands a public-house, in what seems a dangerous situation, close to the water. There was once a garden between it and the sea; now the spray dashes into the rear of the house; for the wall and one-half of the hindermost room have disappeared along with the garden, and the hostess contents herself with the rooms in front, fondly hoping they will last her time. She has but few guests now, and talks with regret of the change since the digging of ballast was forbidden on the Spurn. Then trade was good, for the diggers were numerous and thirsty. That ballast-digging should ever have been permitted in so unstable a spot argues a great want of forethought somewhere.

The paved enclosure around the tower is kept scrupulously clean, for the rain which falls thereon and flows into the cistern beneath is the only drinkable water to be had. "It never fails," said the keeper, "but in some seasons acquires a stale flavour." He was formerly at Flamborough, and although appointment to the Spurn was promotion, he did not like it so well. It was so lonesome; the rough, trackless way between, made the nearest village seem far off; now and then a boat came across with visitors from Cleathorpes, a seven miles' trip; there had been one that morning, but not often enough to break the monotony. And he could not get much diversion in reading, for the Trinity Board, he knew not why, had ceased to circulate the lighthouse library.

The lesser tower stands at the foot of the inner slope, where its base is covered by every tide. Its height is fifty feet, and the entrance, approached by a long wooden bridge, is far above reach of the water.

This is the third tower erected on the same spot; the two which preceded it suffered so much damage from the sea that they had to be rebuilt.

About the time that ambitious Bolingbroke landed, a good hermit, moved with pity by the number of wrecks, and the dangers that beset the mouth of the estuary, set up a light somewhere near Ravenser. But finding himself too poor to maintain it, he addressed a pet.i.tion to the "wyse Commons of Parliament," for succour, and not in vain. The mayor of Hull, with other citizens, were empowered "to make a toure to be up on daylight and a redy bekyn wheryn shall be light gevyng by nyght to alle the vesselx that comyn into the seid ryver of Humbre."

In the seventeenth century, Mr. Justinian Angell, of London, obtained a license to build a lighthouse on the Spurn. It was an octagonal tower of brick, displaying an open coal fire on the top, which in stormy weather was frequently blown quite out, when most wanted. Wrecks were continually taking place; and it is only since Smeaton completed his tower, and the floating-light was established in the offing, and the channel was properly buoyed, that vessels can approach the Humber with safety by night as well as by day.

It was full tide when I returned along the chalky embankment, and the light spray from the breakers sprinkled my cheek, giving me a playful intimation of what might be expected in a storm.

I was pa.s.sing a tilery near Welwick, when a beery fellow, who sat in the little office with a jug before him and a pipe in his mouth, threw up the window and asked, in a gruff, insolent tone, "A say, guvner, did ye meet Father Mathew?"

"Yes."

"What did he say to ye?"

"He told me I should see a fool at the tileworks."

Down went the window with a hearty slam, and before I was fifty yards away, the same voice rushed into the road and challenged me to go back and fight. And when the owner of the voice saw that the stranger took no heed thereof, he cried, till hidden by a bend in the road, "Yer nothin'

but t' scram o' t' yerth!--yer nothin' but t' scram o' t' yerth!"

Thinking _scram_ might be the Yorks.h.i.+re for _sc.u.m_, I made a note of it for the benefit of philologists, and kept on to Patrington, where I arrived in time for the last train to Hull, quite content with six-and-twenty miles for my first day's walk.

CHAPTER IV.

Northern Manners--Cottingham--The Romance of Baynard Castle-- Beverley--Yorks.h.i.+re Dialect--The Farmers' Breakfast--Glimpses of the Town--Antiquities and Constables--The Minster--Yellow Ochre--The Percy Shrine--The Murdered Earl--The Costly Funeral --The Sister's Tomb--Rhyming Legend--The Fridstool--The Belfry.

Journeying from Hull to Beverley by 'market-train' on the morrow, I had ample proof, in the noisy talk of the crowded pa.s.sengers, that Yorks.h.i.+re dialect and its peculiar idioms are not "rapidly disappearing before the facilities for travel afforded by railways." Nor could I fail to notice what has before struck me, that taken cla.s.s for cla.s.s, the people north of Coventry exhibit a rudeness, not to say coa.r.s.eness of manners, which is rarely seen south of that ancient city. In Staffords.h.i.+re, within twenty miles of Birmingham, there are districts where baptism, marriage, and other moral and religious observances considered as essentials of Christianity, are as completely disregarded as among the heathen. In some parts of Lancas.h.i.+re and Yorks.h.i.+re similar characteristics prevail; but rude manners do not necessarily imply loose morality. Generally speaking the rudeness is a safety-valve that lets off the faults or seeming faults of character; and I for one prefer rudeness to that over-refinement prevalent in Middles.e.x, where you may not call things by their right names, and where, as a consequence, the sense of what is fraudulent, and criminal, and wicked, has become weakened, because of the very mild and innocent words in which 'good society' requires that dishonesty and sin should be spoken of.

If we alight at Cottingham and take a walk in the neighbourhood we may discover the scene of a romantic incident. There stood Baynard Castle, a grand old feudal structure, the residence of Lord Wake. When Henry VIII.

lay at Hull, he sent a messenger to announce a royal visit to the castle, antic.i.p.ating, no doubt, a loyal reception; but the lord instead of pride felt only alarm, for his wife, whom he loved truly, was very beautiful, and he feared for the consequences should the amorous monarch set eyes on her beauty. He resolved on a stratagem: gave instructions to his confidential steward; departed at dead of night with his wife; and before morning nothing of the castle remained but a heap of smoking ruins. The king, on hearing of the fire, little suspecting the cause, generously sent a gift of two thousand pounds, with friendly words, to mitigate the loss; but the wary lord having evaded the visit, refused also to receive the money. And now, after lapse of centuries, there is nothing left but traces of a moat and rampart, to show the wayfarer where such an ardent sacrifice was made to true affection.

Even among the farmers, at whose table I took breakfast at the _Holderness Hotel_, at Beverley, there was evidence that broad Yorks.h.i.+re is not bad Dutch, as the proverb says:

"Gooid brade, botter, and cheese, Is gooid Yorks.h.i.+re, and gooid Friese."

The farmers talked about horses, and, to my surprise, they ate but daintily of the good things, the beef, ham, mutton, brawn, and other substantial fare that literally burdened the table. Not one played the part of a good trencherman, but trifled as if the victim of dinners fas.h.i.+onably late; and still more to my surprise, when the conversation took a turn, they all spoke disdainfully of walking. That sort of exercise was not at all to their liking. "I ha'n't walked four mile I don't know when," said one; and his fellows avowed themselves similarly lazy. My intention to walk along the coast to the mouth of the Tees appeared to them a weakminded project.

Beverley has a staid, respectable aspect, as if aware of its claims to consideration. Many of the houses have an old-world look, and among them a searching eye will discover unmistakable bits of antiquity. A small columnar building in the market-place is called the market-cross; beyond it stands a rare old specimen of architecture, St. Mary's church, the scene of the accident recorded by the ancient rhymer:--

"At Beverley a sudden chaunce did falle, The parish chirche stepille it fell At evynsonge tyme, the chaunce was thralle, Ffourscore folke ther was slayn thay telle."