CHAPTER XI.

“Big bees fly high;Little bees make the honey:Poor men do the work;Rich men get the money.”

One of the party, lively enough to have lived when the island was “merry England,” hearing that I intended to walk through Bay Town on the morrow, said, laughingly, “You’ll find nought butTuddsandPooadsdown there;” meaning that Todd and Poad were the prevalent names.

From Cloughton to Haiburn Wyke—The embowered Path—Approach to the Sea—Rock, Water, and Foliage—Heavy Walking—Staintondale Cliffs—The Undercliff—The Peak—Raven Hall—Robin Hood’s Bay—A Trespass—Alum Works—Waterfalls—Bay Town—Manners and Customs of the Natives—Coal Trade—The Churchyard—Epitaphs—Black-a-moor—Hawsker—Vale of Pickering—Robin Hood and Little John’s Archery—Whitby Abbey—Beautiful Ruin—St. Hilda, Wilfrid, and Cœdmon—Legends—A Fallen Tower—St. Mary’s Church—Whitby—The Vale of Esk—Specimens of Popular Hymns.

The next morning looked unpromising; the heavy rain which began to fall the evening before had continued all night, and when I started, trees and hedges were still dripping and the grass drooping, overburdened with watery beads. Bye-paths are not enticing under such circumstances: however, the range of cliffs between Haiburn Wyke and Robin Hood’s Bay is so continuously grand and lofty that I made up my mind to walk along their summit whether or not.

About half an hour from Cloughton brought me to a ‘crammle gate,’ as the natives call it; that is, a rustic gate with zigzaggy rails, from which a private road curves down through a grove to a farm-house on the right. Here, finding no outlet, I had to inquire, and was told to cross the garden. All praise to the good-nature which trusts a stranger to lift the “clinking latch” and walk unwatched through a garden so pretty, teeming with fruit, flowers, and vegetables; where a path overarched by busy climbers leads you into pleasing ins and outs, and along blooming borders to the edge of a wooded glen, and that is Haiburn Wyke. The path, not trimly kept as in the garden, invites you onwards beneath a thick shade of oak, ash, and hazel; between clumps of honeysuckle and wild roses, and broken slopes hung with ferns and ivy, and a very forest of grasses; while, to heighten thecharm, a little brook descends prattling confidingly to the many stones that lie in its crooked channel. The path winds, now steep, now gradual, and at the bends a seat offers a resting-place if you incline to pause and meditate.

There was another charm: at first a fitful murmur which swelled into a roar as I sauntered down and came nearer to the sea. The trees grow so thickly that I could see but a few yards around, and there seemed something almost awful in the sound of the thundering surge, all the heavier in the damp air, as it plunged on the rugged beach: so near, and yet unseen. But after another bend or two it grows lighter overhead, crags peep through the foliage on both sides, and then emerging on a level partly filled by a summer-house, you see the narrow cove, the jutting cliffs that shelter it, and every minute the tumultuous sea flinging all round the stony curve a belt of quivering foam.

I could not advance far, for the tide had but just begun to fall; however, striding out as far as possible, I turned to look at the glen. It is a charming scene: the leafy hollow, the cliffs rounding away from the mantling green to present a bare front to the sea, yet patched and streaked with gray and yellow and white and brown, as if to make up for loss of verdure. There the brook, tumbling over stony ledges, shoots into a cascade between huge masses of rock, and hurries still with lively noise across the beach, talking as freely to boulders of five tons’ weight as to stones of a pound; heedless, apparently, that its voice will soon be drowned for ever in the mighty voice of the sea. It is a charming scene, truly, even under a gloomy sky: you will see none fairer on all the coast. On a sunshiny day it should attract many visitors from Scarborough, when those able to walk might explore Cloughton Wyke—less beautiful than this—on the way.

To get up the steep clay road all miry with the rain on the northern side of the glen, was no easy task; but the great ball of clay which clung to each of my feet was soon licked off by the wet grass in the fields above. I took the edge of the cliffs, and found the ascent to the Staintondale summit not less toilsome. There was no path, and wading through the rank grass and weeds, or through heavy wheat and drenched barley on ground always up-hill, wetted me through up to the hips in a few minutes, and gave me a taste of work. For the time I did not much admire the Yorkshire thriftinesswhich had ploughed and sown so close to the bank leaving no single inch of space. However, I came at times to a bare field or a pasture, and the freshening breeze blew me almost dry before climbing over awkward fences for another bath of weeds and grain. And besides, a few faint watery gleams of sunshine began to slant down upon the sea, and the increasing height of the cliffs opened wide views over land and water—from misty hills looming mountainous on one side, to the distant smoke of a coasting steamer on the other. And again there are two or three miles of undercliff, a great slope covered with a dense bush threaded here and there by narrow paths, and forming in places an impenetrable tangle. To stand on the highest point, five hundred and eighty-five feet above the sea, and look down on the precipitous crags, the ridges and hollows and rounded buttresses decked with the mazy bush where birds without number haunt, is a sight that repays the labour. At the corner of one of the fields the bushes lean inwards so much from the wind, that the farmer has taken advantage of the overshoot to construct a bower wherein to sit and enjoy the prospect.

These tall cliffs are the sudden termination of a range of hills stretching from the interior to the coast. Taken with the undercliff, they present many combinations which would delight the eye and employ the pencil of an artist. And to the geologist they are of abounding interest, exhibiting shale, shelly limestone, sandstones of various qualities in which belemnites and ferns, and other animal and vegetable fossils, are embedded in surprising quantities. You can descend here and there by a zigzag path, and look up at the towering crags, or search the fallen masses, or push into the thicket; that is, in dry weather. After about two miles the bush thins off, and gives place to gorse, and reedy ponds in the hollows, and short turf on which cattle and sheep are grazing.

The range continues for perhaps five miles and ends in a great perpendicular bluff—a resort of sea-birds. Here on getting over the fence I noticed that the pasture had a well-kept, finished appearance; and presently, passing the corner of a wall, I found myself on a lawn, and in front of Raven Hall—a squire’s residence. An embrasured wall built to represent bastions and turrets runs along the edge of the cliff, and looking over, you see beneath the grand sweep of Robin Hood’s Bay backed by a vast hollow slope—a natural amphitheatre a league in compass, containing fields and meadows, shaly screes and patches of heath, cottages, and the Peak alum-works. We are on the Peak, and can survey the whole scene, away to Bay Town, a patch of red capped by pale-blue smoke just within the northern horn of the bay.

A lady and gentleman were trying in defiance of the wind to haul up a flag on the tall staff erected at the point, to whom I apologised for my unintentional trespass. They needed no apology, and only wondered that any one should travel along the cliffs on such a morning. “Did you do it for pleasure?” asked the lady, with a merry twinkle in her eye, as she saw how bedraggled I looked below the knees.

The gentleman left the flapping banner, and showed me from the rear of the premises the readiest way down to the beach—a very long irregular descent, the latter portion across the alum shale, and down the abrupt slope of Cinder Hill, where the buildings are blackened by smoke. At first the beach is nothing but a layer of small fragments of shale, of a dark slate-colour, refuse from the works; and where the cliffs reappear there you see shale in its natural condition, and feel it beneath your feet while treading on the yielding sand. Numerous cascades leap down from these cliffs; at the time I passed swollen by the rain, and well set off by the dark precipice. One of them was a remarkably good representation of theStaubbachon a small scale.

About half way I met a gig conveying visitors to the Hall at a walking pace, for the wheels sank deep. It was for them that the flag was to be raised, as a signal of welcome; and looking back I saw it flying proudly, on what, seen from below, appeared a castle on the cliff. At this moment the sun shone out, and lit up the Peak in all its magnificent proportions; and the effects of my trudge through drip and mire soon disappeared. Another mile and the rocks are thickly strewn with periwinkles, and great plashy beds of seaweed must be crossed, and then we see that the outermost houses rest on a solid weather-stained wall of boulders, through which descends a rugged incline of big stones—the foot of the main street of Bay Town.

There is no lack of quarters, for within a few yards you may count seven public-houses. It is a strange place, with alleys which are stairs for side streets, and these leading into queer places, back yards and pigstyes, and little gardensthriving with pot-herbs. Everything is on a slope, overtopped by the green hill behind. Half way up the street, in what looks like a market-place, lie a number of boats, as if for ornament. You can hardly imagine them to have been hauled up from the beach. Some of the shops are curiosities in their appearance and display of wares; yet there are traders in Bay Town who could buy up two or three of your fashionable shopkeepers in the watering-places.

“Yer master wants ye,” said a messenger to a young fellow who sat smoking his pipe in theKing’s Head, while Martha, the hostess, fried a chop for my dinner.

“Tell him I isn’t here: I isn’t a coomin’,” was the answer, with a touch of Yorkshire, which I heard frequently afterwards.

From the talk that went on I gathered that Bay Town likes to amuse itself as well as other places. All through the past winter a ball or dance had been held nearly every evening, in the large rooms which, it appears, are found somewhere belonging to the very unpretending public-houses. On the other hand, church and chapel are well attended, and the singing is hearty. Weddings and funerals are made the occasion of festivals, and great is the number of guests. Martha assured me that two hundred persons were invited when her father was buried; and even for a child, the number asked will be forty or fifty; and all get something to eat and drink. It was commonly said in the neighbourhood that the head of a Bay Town funeral procession would be at the church before the tail had left the house. The church is on the hill-top, nearly a mile away. A clannish feeling prevails. Any lad or lass who should chose to wed with an outsider, would be disgraced. Ourselves to ourselves, is the rule. On their way home from church, the young couple are beset by invitations to drink at door after door, as they pass, and jugs of strong liquor are bravely drained, and all the eighteen hundred inhabitants share in the gladness. Hence the perpetuation of Todds and Poads. However, as regards names, the most numerous which I saw were Granger and Bedlington, or Bettleton, as the natives call it.

The trade in fish has given place to trade in coal; and Bay Town owns about eighty coal brigs and schooners, which sail to Edinburgh, to London, to ports in France, and one, which belongs to a man who a few years ago was a labourer, crossesthe ocean to America. There are no such miserable paupers as swarm in the large towns. Except the collier crews, the folk seldom leave the parish; and their farthest travel is to Hartlepool in the steamer which calls in the bay on her way from Scarborough.

I chose to finish the walk to Whitby by the road; and in a few minutes, so steep is the hill, was above Bay Town, and looking on the view bounded by the massy Peak. Near where the lane enters the high road stands the church, a modern edifice, thickly surrounded with tombstones. Black with gilt letters, appears to be the favourite style; and among them are white stones, bearing outspread gilt wings and stars, and an ornamental border. The clannish feeling loves to keep alive the memory of the departed; and one might judge that it has the gift of “powetry,” and delights in epitaphs. Let us read a few: we shall find “drowned at sea,” and “mariner,” a frequent word in the inscriptions:

Partner dear my life is past,My love for you was to the last;Therefore for me no sorrow take,But love my children for my sake.

An old man of eighty-two is made to say:

From raging storms at seaThe Lord he did me save,And here my tottering limbs is broughtTo moulder in the grave.

Lancelot Moorsom, aged seventy-four, varies the matter thus:

Tho’ boreas blast and neptune wavesHath toss’d me too and fro’,By God’s decree you plainly see,I’m harbour’d here below,But here I do at anchor rideWith many of our fleet,And once again I must set sail,My Saviour Christ to meet.

Of a good old wife, we read something for which the sex would be the better were it true of all:

She was not puff’d in mind,She had no scornful eye,Nor did she exercise herselfIn things that were too high.

Childhood claims a tender sentiment; and parents mourn thus for their little ones:

One hand they gave to Jesus, one to Death,And looking upward to their Father’s throne,Their gentle spirits vanish’d with their breath,And fled to Eden’s ever blooming zone.

The road runs along the high ground near enough to the sea for you to hear its roar, and note the outline of the cliffs, while inland the country rolls away hilly to the dreary region described by old writers as “Black-a-moor.” Another half-hour, and having passed through Hawsker, you see a strange-looking building a long way off. It is the Abbey of Whitby. And now a view opens into the Vale of Pickering; and there, in the fields on the left, are the stones which mark where the arrows fell, when Robin Hood and Little John, who had been treated to a dinner at the Abbey, went up on the roof to gratify the monks with a specimen of their skill, and proved the goodness of their bows, and their right to rank as foremost of English archers. As your eye measures the distance, more than a mile, your admiration of the merry outlaws will brighten up, unless like the incredulous antiquary, you consider such stories as only fit to be left “among the lyes of the land.”

Seen from the road, over the wall-top, the abbey reveals but few of the beautiful features which charm your eye on a nearer view. To gain admission you have to pass through an old mansion belonging to the Cholmley family, in which, by the way, there are rooms, and passages, and a stair, weapons, furniture, and tapestry that remind you of the olden time; and in the rear a delightful garden, with a prospect along the vale of Esk. From the garden you enter a meadow, and may wander at will about the ruin.

I saw it to perfection, for the sky had cleared, and the evening sun touched the crumbling walls and massy columns and rows of graceful arches with wondrous beauty, relieved by the lengthening shadows. The effect of the triple rows of windows is singularly pleasing, and there are carvings and mouldings still remaining that will bear the closest inspection, although it was a mason of the thirteenth century who cut them. Three distinct styles are obvious, and you will notice that the whitest stone, which is the oldest, is the least decayed.An aisle still offers you the shelter of its groined roof, the transept still shows the corbels and niches, and carved roses that fed the eyes of Robin Hood’s entertainers, and on the sedilia where they sat you may now repose. Every moment you discover some new beauty, something to increase your admiration, and wonder that so much should be left of a building which has not a tree to shelter it from the storms of the sea.

For twelve hundred years the ground has been consecrated. Here the blessed St. Hilda founded a monastery, and dedicated it to St. Peter, in 658. Here it was that the famous debate was held concerning the proper time of Easter between the Christians who were converted by Culdee missionaries from Ireland before St. Augustine’s visit, and those of the later time. It was St. John and the practice of the Eastern Church against St. Peter and the Western; and through the eloquent arguments of Wilfrid of Ripon, the latter prevailed.

Here Cœdmon, one of the menial monks, was miraculously inspired to write the poem which immortalises his name; and here St. John of Beverley was educated. Then came the Danish pirates under Ubba, and destroyed the monastery, and the place lay waste till one of William the Conqueror’s warriors, grieved to the heart on beholding the desolation, exchanged his coat of steel for a Benedictine’s gown, and rebuilt the sacred house.

Few who come hither will need to be reminded of that inspiriting voyage along the coast, when

“The Abbess of St. Hilda placedWith five fair nuns the galley graced,”

nor of the sisters’ evening talk, while

“—Whitby’s nuns exulting told,How to their house three barons boldMust menial service do;While horns blow out a note of shame,And monks cry ‘Fye upon your name!In wrath, for loss of sylvan game,St. Hilda’s priest ye slew.’—This on Ascension day, each year,While labouring on our harbour-pier,Must Herbert, Bruce, and Percy hear.—They told how in their convent cellA Saxon princess once did dwell,The lovely Edelfled;And how of thousand snakes, each oneWas changed into a coil of stoneWhen holy Hilda pray’d;Themselves, within their holy bound,Their stony folds had often found.They told how seafowls’ pinions fail,As over Whitby’s towers they sail,And sinking down, with flutterings faint,They do their homage to the saint.”

The stately tower, the glory of the ruin, fell in 1830, at the close of a reign, during which things good and beautiful were unhappily but too much neglected. A rugged heap, with lumps of stone peeping out from tufts of coarse grass, marks the spot where the fall took place; the last, it is to be hoped, that will be permitted in so striking a memorial of the architecture of the past. Standing in private grounds and surrounded by a light iron fence, it is now safe from the intrusion of cattle and from wanton spoilers.

A few yards beyond the abbey, you cross St. Mary’s churchyard to the top of a long flight of steps, where a remarkable scene opens suddenly beneath. Whitby, lying on each side of the Esk, the river winding from a wooded vale, expanding to receive the numerous vessels of the inner harbour, and flowing away between the houses and the two piers to the sea. The declivity is so abrupt, that the houses appear strangely huddled together, tier above tier, in irregular masses, as if resting one on the other, and what with the colour and variety of forms, the shipping, the great depth of the valley, the great bluffs with which it terminates, and line upon line of breakers beginning to foam at two furlongs from the shore, make up a scene surpassingly picturesque; one that you will be in no hurry to lose sight of. If the Whitby church-goers find it toilsome to ascend nearly two hundred steps every Sunday, they have a goodly prospect for recompense, besides the service.

One wall of the church is said to be older than any portion of the abbey; but the edifice has undergone so many alterations, that meritorious architecture is not now to be looked for. A more breezy churchyard it would not be easy to find. Opposite, on the farther cliff, is a cluster of new stone houses, including a spacious hotel, built to attract visitors; an enterprise promoted by King George Hudson in his palmy days.

I lingered, contemplating the view, till it was time to lookfor an inn; I chose theTalbot, and had no reason to repent my choice. On the way thither, I bought two religious ballads at a little shop, the mistress of which told me she sold “hundreds of ’em,” and that they were printed at Otley. As specimens of a class of compositions which are relished and sung as hymns by a numerous section of the community, they are eminently suggestive. Do they supply a real want? Are they harmless? Are they edifying? Can they who find satisfaction therein be led up to something better? To close this chapter, here follows a quotation fromThe Railway to Heaven:

“O! what a deal we hear and readAbout Railways and railway speed,Of lines which are, or may be made;And selling shares is quite a trade.Allow me, as an old Divine,To point you to another line,Which does from earth to heaven extend,Where real pleasures never end.Of truth divine the rails are made,And on the Rock of Ages laid;The rails are fix’d in chairs of love,Firm as the throne of God above.One grand first-class is used for all,For Jew and Gentile, great and small,There’s room for all the world inside,And kings with beggars here do ride.About a hundred years or soWesley and others said they’d go:A carriage mercy did provide,That Wesley and his friends might ride.’Tis nine-and-thirty years, they say,Whoever lives to see next May,Another coach was added thenUnto this all important train.Jesus is the first engineer,He does the gospel engine steer;We’ve guards who ride, while others standClose by the way with flag in hand.CHORUS.“My son, says God, give me thy heart;Make haste, or else the train will start.”

“O! what a deal we hear and readAbout Railways and railway speed,Of lines which are, or may be made;And selling shares is quite a trade.

Allow me, as an old Divine,To point you to another line,Which does from earth to heaven extend,Where real pleasures never end.

Of truth divine the rails are made,And on the Rock of Ages laid;The rails are fix’d in chairs of love,Firm as the throne of God above.

One grand first-class is used for all,For Jew and Gentile, great and small,There’s room for all the world inside,And kings with beggars here do ride.

About a hundred years or soWesley and others said they’d go:A carriage mercy did provide,That Wesley and his friends might ride.

’Tis nine-and-thirty years, they say,Whoever lives to see next May,Another coach was added thenUnto this all important train.

Jesus is the first engineer,He does the gospel engine steer;We’ve guards who ride, while others standClose by the way with flag in hand.

CHORUS.

“My son, says God, give me thy heart;Make haste, or else the train will start.”

The other, entitledDaniel the Prophet, begins with:

“Where are now the Hebrew children?Where are now the Hebrew children?Where are now the Hebrew children?Saved into the promised land;”

and after enumerating the prophet, the fiery furnace, the lion, tribulation, Stephen, and the Great Apostle, in similar strain, ends:

“Where is now the patriarch Wesley?Where is now the patriarch Wesley?Where is now the patriarch Wesley?Saved into the promised land.”CHORUS.“When we meet we’ll sing hallelujah,When we meet we’ll shout hosannah,When we meet we’ll sing for ever,Saved into the promised land.”

“Where is now the patriarch Wesley?Where is now the patriarch Wesley?Where is now the patriarch Wesley?Saved into the promised land.”

CHORUS.

“When we meet we’ll sing hallelujah,When we meet we’ll shout hosannah,When we meet we’ll sing for ever,Saved into the promised land.”

Though good taste and conventionality may be offended at such hymns as these, it seems to me that if those who sing them had words preached to them which they could understand and hearken to gladly, they would be found not unprepared to lay hold of real truth in the end.

Whitby’s Attractions—The Pier—The River-Mouth—The Museum—Saurians and Ammonites—An enthusiastic Botanist—Jet in the Cliffs, and in the Workshop—Jet Carvers and Polishers—Jet Ornaments—The Quakers’ Meeting—A Mechanics’ Institute—Memorable Names—A Mooky Miner—Trip to Grosmont—The Basaltic Dike—Quarries and Ironstone—Thrifty Cottagers—Abbeys and Hovels—A Stingy Landlord—Egton Bridge—Eskdale Woods—The Beggar’s Bridge.

Whitby, and not Scarborough, would be my choice had I to sojourn for a few weeks on the Yorkshire coast. What it lacks of the style and show which characterize its aristocratic neighbour, is more than made up by its situation on a river and the beauty of its neighbourhood; and I regretted not having time to stay more than one day in a place that offers so many attractions. Woods and waterfalls beautify and enliven the landscape; shady dells and rocky glens lie within an easy walk, and the trip by rail to Pickering abounds with “contentive variety.” And for contrast there is always the wild Black-a-moor a few miles inland; and beyond that again the pleasant hills and vales of Cleveland.

And few towns can boast so agreeable a promenade as that from the bridge, along the spacious quay, and out to the pier-head, a distance of nearly half a mile. Thence can be seen all the life and movement on the river, all the picturesque features of the heights on each side crowded with houses, and to seaward the foaming crests of waves chasing one another towards the land. You can see how, after rolling and plunging on the rocky bar, they rush up the stream with a mighty swell even to the bridge. In blowing weather their violence is such that vessels cannot lie safely in the lower harbour, and must shift to the upper moorings above the bridge. On the pier-head stands a lighthouse, built in the form of a fluted Doric column, crowned by a gallery and lantern; and here, leaning on the encirclingparapet, you can admire the solid masonry, or watch the furious breakers, while inhaling the medicinal breath of the sea. The pier on the opposite side is more exposed, serving the purpose of a breakwater; and at times clouds of spray leap high from its outer wall, and glisten for an instant with rainbow hues in the sunshine.

It surprises a stranger on first arrival to hear what seems to him the south bank of the river spoken of as the east bank, and the north bank as the west; and it is only by taking into account the trend of the coast, and the direction of the river’s course, that the cardinal points are discovered to be really in their true position, and you cease to look for sunrise in the west.

One of the buildings at the rear of the quay contains the Baths, and on the upper floor the Museum, and a good Subscription Library. The Museum, which belongs to the Literary and Philosophical Society, dates from 1823, a time when Whitby, with the sea on one side and wild tracts of moorlands on the other, was in a manner shut out from the rest of the world, and compelled to rely on its own resources. Not till 1759 was any proper road made to connect it with neighbouring towns. Warm hospitality was thereby nourished, and, as regards science, the result is highly meritorious. To say nothing of the collections which represent antiquity, ethnology, natural history, and mineralogy, the fossil specimens are especially worth attention. Side by side with a section of the strata of the coast from Bridlington to Redcar is a collection of the fossils therein contained; among which those of the immediate neighbourhood, such as may be called Whitby fossils, occupy the chief place, all classed and labelled in a way that shows how much may be done with small means when the curator is in earnest. There are saurians in good preservation, one of which was presented to the Museum for 150l., by the nobleman on whose estate it was found embedded in lias. The number of ammonites of all sizes is surprising. These are the headless snakes of St. Hilda’s nuns, and the “strange frolicks of Nature,” of philosophers in later days, who held that she formed them “for diversion after a toilsome application to serious business.” Perhaps it is to some superstitious notion connected with the snake-stones that the town owes the three ammonites in its coat of arms. In all, the fossil specimens in the Museum now amount to nearly nine thousand.

I had the advantage of explanations from Mr. Simpson, the curator, during my visit, and afterwards of accompanying him and some of his friends on a walk. One of the party, a botanist, was the first to discover theEpilobium alpinum(alpine willow herb) in England, while walking one day on the hills near Whitby. No sooner did he set eyes on it, than, as his companions said, they thought he had taken leave of his senses, for he leaped, shouted, danced, sang, and threw his hat up in the air, and made other enthusiastic demonstrations around the plant, which, up to that time, was believed not to exist south of the Tweed. I asked him if he would have exchanged his emotions for California.

“No,” he answered, “that I wouldn’t! At all events, not for the first three minutes.”

Besides its traffic in ship-building, alum, and stone, Whitby has a trade in works of art which makes at least its name known to fashionable society; and for this, as for its fossils, it depends on the neighbouring cliffs. For many miles along the shore, and at places inland, jet is found embedded with other formations. Drayton makes mention of it:

“The rocks by Moulgrave too, my glories forth to set,Out of their crany’d cleves can give you perfect jet.”

And the shaping of this remarkable substance into articles for ornament and use gives employment to five hundred men, women, and children in Whitby. I was favoured with a sight of Mr. Greenbury’s manufactory, and saw the processes from beginning to end. There is nothing mysterious about them. The pattern of the desired object, a scroll, leaf, flower, or whatever else, is scratched with a steel point on a piece of jet sawn to the required dimensions; the workman then with a knife cuts away the waste portions, brings out the rude form, and by using various knives and chisels, according to the delicacy of the design, he in no long time has the article ready for the polisher. The work looks very easy, as you watch the men cutting, apparently with less concern than some folk bestow on the whittling of a stick, and making the chips fly in little heaps. The nature of the jet favours rapidity of hand. It has somewhat the appearance of compressed pitch, and when under the knife sends off a shower of chips and splinters as hard pitch does. Some specimens have been found with fossils so embedded therein, as to confirm theopinion of those who hold jet to be a species of petroleum, contrary to the common belief that it is wood partly converted into coal.

After the knives, the grindstones come into play, to work up and smooth all the accessible surfaces; and next swift-whirling wheels encircled with list, which give the polish. The deep incisions and hollows which cannot be touched by the wheel are polished on narrow slips of list. This is the work of boys: the slips of list are made fast by one end to the bench, and taking hold of the other, and shifting or tightening as the work may require, the boys rub the deep parts of the ornaments backwards and forwards till the polish is complete. The finishing touch, which imparts the brilliance, is given by a sprinkling of rouge, and a light hand with the rubber.

Armlets and bracelets composed of several pieces are cemented together, forming a complete hoop, while in course of manufacture, to ensure accuracy of workmanship, and are separated at last for the drilling of the holes for the elastic cord whereby they are held together in the finished state. The drilling of these holes through each separate piece is a nice operation, for any departure from the true line would appear as an imperfection in the ornament.

What with the drilling lathes, the rapid grindstones and polishing-wheels, and the busy artificers, from those who cut up the jet, to the roughers-out, the carvers, the polishers in their order, to the boys with their list rubbers, and the finishers, the factory presented a busy scene. The boys earn from three-and-sixpence to five shillings a week; the men from three to four times as much. I made an inquiry as to their economical habits, and heard in reply that the landlord of theJetmen’s Armscould give the surest information.

No means have yet been discovered of working up the chips and splinters produced in cutting the jet, so as to form solid available blocks, as can be done with black-lead for pencils; there is, therefore, a considerable amount of waste. The value of jet varies with the quality; from ten to eighteen shillings a pound. According to the report on mineral products, by Mr. Robert Hunt, the value of the jet dug and manufactured in England is twenty thousand pounds a year. Some of the best shops in Whitby and Scarborough are those where jet is sold; and not the least attractive of the displays in Regent-street, is that labelledFinest Whitby Jet, and exhibited as vases, chains, rings, seals, brooches, taper-stands, and obelisks. Here in Whitby you may buy a small ammonite set in jet.

Jet is not a new object of luxury. It was used for ornamental purposes by the ancient Britons, and by their conquerors, as proved by articles found in their tombs. A trade in jet is known to have existed in Whitby in 1598. Camden, translating from an oldTreatise of Jewels, has

“Jeat-stone almost a gemm, the Lybians find,But fruitful Britain sends a wondrous kind;’Tis black and shining, smooth, and ever light,’Twill draw up straws if rubb’d till hot and bright,Oyl makes it cold, but water gives it heat.”

The amber mines of Prussia yield a species of jet which is burnt as a coal.

Whitby presents signs of a social phenomenon which is observable in other places: the decline of Quakerism. I was invited to look at the Mechanics’ Institute, and found it located in the Quakers’ Meeting House. The town was one of George Fox’s strongholds, and a considerable number of Quakers, including some of the leading families, remained up to the last generation. Death and secession have since then brought about the result above-mentioned. Is it that Quakerism has accomplished its work? or that it has been stifled by the assiduous painstaking to make itself very comfortable?

I went up once more to the Abbey, and to enjoy the view from the churchyard steps. The trouble of the ascent is abundantly repaid by such a prospect: one should never tire of it. On moonlight nights, and in a certain state of the atmosphere, there is another attraction. It is a sight of Saint Hilda. Incredulous as you may be, there are maidens in Whitby who will tell you that the famous Abbess is still to be seen hovering near the Abbey she loved so well. And when the moon is in the right place, and a thin, pale mist floats slowly past, then, in one of the windows, appears the image of the saintly lady. Scott and other writers mention it; and Professor Rymer Jones tells me that he once saw it, and with an illusion so complete, as might easily have deceived a superstitious beholder.

While looking down on the river you will hardly fail to remember that Cook sailed from it, to begin his apprenticeship to a seafaring life; and profiting in later years by hisearly experience, he chose Whitby-built ships for his memorable voyage of discovery. And from the Esk sailed the two Scoresbys, father and son—two of the latest names on the list of Yorkshire Worthies.

During the summer many an excursion train, or ‘chape trip,’ as the natives say, brings thousands of the hardworking population of the West Riding, to enjoy a brief holiday by the sea. There once arrived a party of miners two of whom hastened down to the beach to bathe. As they undressed one said to the other “Hey, Sam, hoo mooky thou is!” “Aw miss’d t’ chape trip last year,” was the laconic and significant reply.

Towards evening I took a trip by railway to Grosmont (six miles), or the Tunnel Station as it is commonly called, for a glance at the pretty scenery of the lower part of Eskdale. The river bordered by rocks and wooded hills enlivens the route. From the Tunnel I walked about half a mile down the line to a stone quarry, where a section of that remarkable basaltic dike is exposed, which, crossing the country in a north-westerly direction for about seventy miles, impresses the observer with a sense of wonder at the tremendous force by which such a mass was upheaved through the overlying strata. Here it has the form of a great wedge, the apex uppermost; and the sandstone, which it so rudely shouldered aside, is scorched and partially vitrified along the line of contact. The labourers, who break up the hard black basalt for macadamising purposes, call it ‘chaney metal.’

This is a pleasant spot to loiter in; but its sylvan character is marred by the quarrying, and by the great excavations where busy miners dig the ironstone which abounds in the district, after the rate, as is estimated, of twenty-two thousand tons to the acre; no unimportant item in the exports of Whitby, until blast furnaces shall be built to make the iron on the spot.

“The path ’ll tak’ ye up to a laan,” said the quarryman, with a Dutch pronunciation of lane; “and t’ laan ’ll bring ye doon to Egton, if ye don’t tak’ t’ wrang turning.” So up through the wood I went, and came presently to the lane, where seeing a lonely little cottage, and a woman nursing a few flowers that grew near the door, I tarried for a short talk. ’Twas but a poor little place, she said, and vera lonesome; and she thought a few flowers made it look cheerful-like.The rent for the house and garden was but a pound a year; but ’twas as much as she could afford, for she had had ten children, and was thankful to say, brought ’em all up without parish help. ’Twas hard work at times; but folk didn’t know what they could do till they tried. It animated me to hear such honest words.

A little farther there stands a long low cottage with a garden in front, an orchard at the side, and a row of beehives in a corner, presenting a scene of rural abundance. I stopped to look at the crowding flowers, and was drawn into another talk by the mistress, who came out on seeing a stranger. I could not help expressing my surprise at the prosperous look of the garden, and the shabby look of the house, which appeared the worse from a narrow ditch running along the front. “’Tis a miserable house,” she answered, “damp and low; but what can we do? It’s all very well, sir, to talk about the beautiful abbeys as they used to build in the old days, but they didn’t build beautiful cottages. I always think that they built the wall till they couldn’t reach no higher standing on the ground, and then they put the roof on. That’s it, sir; anything was good enough for country-folk in them days.” Some modern writers contend that the abbeys and cathedrals were but the highest expression of an architecture beautiful and appropriate in all its degrees; but I doubt the fact, and hold by the Yorkshirewoman’s homely theory.

I suggested that the landlord might be asked to build a new house. “Ah, sir, you wouldn’t say that if you knew him. Why, he won’t so much as give us a board to mend the door; he’ll only tell us where to go and buy one.” I might have felt surprised that any landlord should be willing to allow English men and women to dwell in such a hovel; but she told me his name, and then there was no room for surprise.

Ere long the view opens over the valley, and a charming valley it is; hill after hill covered with wood to the summit. Then the lane descends rapidly, and we come to the romantically situated hamlet of Egton Bridge. This is a place which, above all others, attracts visitors and picnic parties from Whitby, and theOak Treeis the very picture of a rustic hostelry. Here you may fancy yourself in a deep wooded glen; and, if limited for time, will have an embarrassing choice of walks. Arncliffe woods offer cool green shades, and a fine prospect from the ridge beyond, with the opportunityto visit an ancient British village. But few can resist the charm of the Beggar’s Bridge, a graceful structure of a single arch, which spans the Esk in a sequestered spot delightful to the eye and refreshing to the ear, with the gurgling of water and rustling of leaves. There is a legend, too, for additional charm: how that a young dalesman, on his way to say farewell to his betrothed, was stopped here by the stream swollen with a sudden flood, and, spite of his efforts to cross, was forced to retrace his steps and sail beyond the sea to seek fortune in a distant land. He vowed, if his hopes were gratified, to build a bridge on his return; and, to quote Mrs. George Dawson’s pretty version of the legend,

“The rover came back from a far distant land,And he claimed of the maiden her long-promised hand;But he built, ere he won her, the bridge of his vow,And the lovers of Egton pass over it now.”

A pleasant twilight walk among the trees, within hearing of the rippling Esk, brought me back to the Tunnel in time for the last train to Whitby.

To Upgang—Enter Cleveland—East Row—The first Alum-Maker—Sandsend—Alum-Works—The huge Gap—Hewing the Alum Shale—Limestone Nodules: Mulgrave Cement—Swarms of Fossils—Burning the Shale—Volcanic Phenomena—From Fire to Water—The Cisterns—Soaking and Pumping—The evaporating Pans—The Crystallizing Process—The Roching Casks—Brilliant Crystals—A Chemical Triumph—Rough Epsoms.

It was yet early the next morning when I descended from the high road to the shore at Upgang, about two miles from Whitby. Here we approach a region of manufacturing industry. Wagons pass laden with Mulgrave cement, with big, white lumps of alum, with sulphate of magnesia; the kilns are not far off, and the alum-works at Sandsend are in sight, backed by the wooded heights of Mulgrave Park, the seat of the Marquis of Normanby. Another half-hour, and crossing a beck which descends from those heights, we enter Cleveland, of which the North Riding is made to say,

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