Chapter 30

We learned that what we had noted as the Greenhow Cave was known by the less euphonius name of the "Stump Cross Cavern." It appeared that in ancient times a number of crosses were erected to mark the limits of the great Forest of Knaresborough, a royal forest as far back as the twelfth century, strictly preserved for the benefit of the reigning monarch. It abounded with deer, wild boars, and other beasts of the chase, and was so densely wooded that the Knaresborough people were ordered to clear a passage through it for the wool-carriers from Newcastle to Leeds. Now we could scarcely see a tree for miles, yet as recently as the year 1775 the forest covered 100,000 acres and embraced twenty-four townships. Before the Reformation, the boundary cross on the Greenhow side was known as the Craven Cross, for Craven was one of the ancient counties merged in what is called the West Riding. The Reformers objected to crosses, and knocked it off its pedestal, so that only the stump remained. Thus it gradually became known as the Stump Cross, and from its proximity the cavern when discovered was christened the Stump Cross Cavern. We were informed that the lead mines at Greenhow were the oldest in England, and perhaps in the world, and it was locally supposed that the lead used in the building of Solomon's Temple was brought from here. Two bars of lead that had been made in the time of the Romans had been found on the moors, and one of these was now to be seen at Ripley Castle in Yorkshire, while the other was in the British Museum.

Eugene Aram, whose story we heard for the first time in the inn, was born at a village a few miles from Greenhow. The weather had been showery during the afternoon, but we had missed one of the showers, which came on while we were in the cavern. It was now fine, and the moon shone brightly as we descended the steep hill leading to Pateley Bridge. We had crossed the River Dibb after leaving Grassington, and now, before crossing the River Nidd at Pateley Bridge, we stayed at the "George Inn," an old hostelry dating from the year 1664.

(_Distance walked twenty-one and a half miles_.)

_Sunday, October 22nd._

We spent a fairly quiet day at Pateley Bridge, where there was not a great deal to see. What there was we must have seen, as we made good use of the intervals between the three religious services we attended in exploring the town and its immediate neighbourhood. We had evidently not taken refuge in one of the inns described by Daniel Defoe, for we were some little distance from the parish church, which stood on a rather steep hill on the opposite bank of the river. Near the church were the ruins of an older edifice, an ancient description running, "The old Chappel of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Pateley Brigg in Nidderdale." We climbed the hill, and on our way came to an old well on which was inscribed the following translation by Dryden from the Latin of Ovid [43 B.C.-A.D. 18]:

Ill Habits gather by unseen degrees, As Brooks run rivers--Rivers run to Seas.

and then followed the words:

The way to church.

We did not go there "by unseen degrees," but still we hoped our good habits might gather in like proportion. We went to the parish church both morning and evening, and explored the graveyards, but though gravestones were numerous enough we did not find any epitaph worthy of record--though one of the stones recorded the death in July 1755 of the four sons of Robert and Margaret Fryer, who were born at one birth and died aged one week.

In the afternoon we went to the Congregational Chapel, and afterwards were shown through a very old Wesleyan Chapel, built in 1776, and still containing the old seats, with the ancient pulpit from which John Wesley had preached on several occasions.

It was curious to observe how anxious the compilers of the histories of the various places at which we stayed were to find a remote beginning, and how apologetic they were that they could not start even earlier. Those of Pateley Bridge were no exception to the rule. The Roman Occupation might perhaps have been considered a reasonable foundation, but they were careful to record that the Brigantes were supposed to have overrun this district long before the Romans, since several stone implements had been found in the neighbourhood. One of the Roman pigs of lead found hereabouts, impressed with the name of the Emperor "Domitian," bore also the word "Brig," which was supposed to be a contraction of Brigantes. A number of Roman coins had also been discovered, but none of them of a later date than the Emperor Hadrian, A.D. 139, the oldest being one of Nero, A.D. 54-68.

Previous to the fourteenth century the River Nidd was crossed by means of a paved ford, and this might originally have been paved by the Romans, who probably had a ford across the river where Pateley Bridge now stands for the safe conveyance of the bars of lead from the Greenhow mines, to which the town owed its importance, down to the beginning of the nineteenth century. But though it could boast a Saturday market dating from the time of Edward II, it was now considered a quiet and somewhat sleepy town.

The valley along which the River Nidd runs from its source in the moors, about ten miles away, was known as Nidderdale. In the church book at Middlesmoor, about six miles distant, were two entries connected with two hamlets on the banks of the Nidd near Pateley Bridge which fix the dates of the christening and marriage of that clever murderer, Eugene Aram. We place them on record here:

RAMSGILL.--Eugenious Aram, son of Peter Aram, bap. ye 2nd of October, 1704. LOFTUS.--Eugenius Aram and Anna Spence, married May 4th, after banns thrice pub. 1731.

We retired to rest early. Our last week's walk was below the average, and we hoped by a good beginning to make up the mileage during the coming week, a hope not to be fulfilled, as after events proved.

SIXTH WEEK'S JOURNEY

A WEEK OF AGONY

_Monday, October 23rd._

We left Pateley Bridge at seven o'clock in the morning, and after walking about two miles on the Ripley Road, turned off to the left along a by-lane to find the wonderful Brimham rocks, of which we had been told. We heard thrashing going on at a farm, which set us wondering whether we were on the same road along which Chantrey the famous sculptor walked when visiting these same rocks. His visit probably would not have been known had not the friend who accompanied him kept a diary in which he recorded the following incident.

They were walking towards the rocks when they, like ourselves, heard the sound of thrashing in a barn, which started an argument between them on their relative abilities in the handling of the flail. As they could not settle the matter by words, they resolved to do so by blows; so they made their way to the farm and requested the farmer to allow them to try their hand at thrashing corn, and to judge which of them shaped the better. The farmer readily consented, and accompanied them to the barn, where, stopping the two men who were at work, he placed Chantrey and his friend in their proper places. They stripped for the fight, each taking a flail, while the farmer and his men watched the duel with smiling faces. It soon became evident that Chantrey was the better of the two. The unequal contest was stopped, much to the chagrin of the keeper of the diary, by the judge giving his verdict in favour of the great sculptor. This happened about seventy years before our visit, but even now the old-fashioned method of thrashing corn had not yet been ousted by steam machinery, and the sound of the flails as they were swung down upon the barn floors was still one of the commonest and noisiest that, during the late autumn and winter months, met our ears in country villages.

When the time came for the corn to be thrashed, the sheaves were placed on the barn floor with their heads all in the same direction, the binders which held them together loosened, and the corn spread out. Two men were generally employed in this occupation, one standing opposite the other, and the corn was separated from the straw and chaff by knocking the heads with sticks. These sticks, or flails, were divided into two parts, the longer of which was about the size of a broom-handle, but made of a much stronger kind of wood, while the other, which was about half its length, was fastened to the top by a hinge made of strong leather, so that the flail was formed into the shape of a whip, except that the lash would not bend, and was as thick as the handle. The staff was held with both hands, one to guide and the other to strike, and as the thrashers were both practically aiming at the same place, it was necessary, in order to prevent their flails colliding, that one lash should be up in the air at the same moment that the other was down on the floor, so that it required some practice in order to become a proficient thrasher. The flails descended on the barn floors with the regularity of the ticking of a clock, or the rhythmic and measured footsteps of a man walking in a pair of clogs at a quickstep speed over the hard surface of a cobbled road. We knew that this mediæval method of thrashing corn would be doomed in the future, and that the old-fashioned flail would become a thing of the past, only to be found in some museum as a relic of antiquity, so we recorded this description of Chantrey's contest with the happy memories of the days when we ourselves went a-thrashing corn a long time ago!

What Chantrey thought of those marvellous rocks at Brimham was not recorded, but, as they covered quite fifty acres of land, his friend, like ourselves, would find it impossible to give any lengthy description of them, and might, like the auctioneers, dismiss them with the well-known phrase, "too numerous to mention."

To our great advantage we were the only visitors at the rocks, and for that reason enjoyed the uninterrupted services of the official guide, an elderly man whose heart was in his work, and a born poet withal.

The first thing we had to do was to purchase his book of poems, which, as a matter of course, was full of poetical descriptions of the wonderful rocks he had to show us--and thoroughly and conscientiously he did his duty. As we came to each rock, whether we had to stand below or above it, he poured out his poetry with a rapidity that quite bewildered and astonished us. He could not, of course, tell us whether the rocks had been worn into their strange forms by the action of the sea washing against them at some remote period, or whether they had been shaped in the course of ages by the action of the wind and rain; but we have appealed to our geological friend, who states, in that emphatic way which scientific people adopt, that these irregular crags are made of millstone grit, and that the fantastic shapes are due to long exposure to weather and the unequal hardness of the rock. Our guide accompanied us first to the top of a great rock, which he called Mount Pisgah, from which we could see on one side a wilderness of bare moors and mountains, and on the other a fertile valley, interspersed with towns and villages as far as the eye could reach. Here the guide told my brother that he could imagine himself to be like Moses of old, who from Pisgah's lofty height viewed the Promised Land of Canaan on one side, and the wilderness on the other! But we were more interested in the astonishing number of rocks around us than in the distant view, and when our guide described them as the "finest freak of nature of the rock kind in England," we thoroughly endorsed his remarks. We had left our luggage at the caretaker's house, which had been built near the centre of this great mass of stones in the year 1792, by Lord Grantley, to whom the property belonged, from the front door of which, we were told, could be seen, on a clear day, York Minster, a distance of twenty-eight miles as the crow flies. As may be imagined, it was no small task for the guide to take us over fifty acres of ground and to recite verses about every object of interest he showed us, some of them from his book and some from memory. But as we were without our burdens we could follow him quickly, while he was able to take us at once to the exact position where the different shapes could be seen to the best advantage. How long it would have taken that gentleman we met near Loch Lomond in Scotland who tried to show us "the cobbler and his wife," on the top of Ben Arthur, from a point from which it could not be seen, we could not guess, but it was astonishing how soon we got through the work, and were again on our way to find "fresh fields and pastures new."

We saw the "Bulls of Nineveh," the "Tortoise," the "Gorilla," and the "Druids' Temple"--also the "Druids' Reading-desk," the "Druids' Oven," and the "Druid's Head." Then there was the "Idol," where a great stone, said to weigh over two hundred tons, was firmly balanced on a base measuring only two feet by ten inches. There was the usual Lovers' Leap, and quite a number of rocking stones, some of which, although they were many tons in weight, could easily be rocked with one hand. The largest stone of all was estimated to weigh over one hundred tons, though it was only discovered to be movable in the year 1786. The "Cannon Rock" was thirty feet long, and, as it was perforated with holes, was supposed to have been used as an oracle by the Ancients, a question asked down a hole at one end being answered by the gods through the priest or priestess hidden from view at the other. The different recesses, our guide informed us, were used as lovers' seats and wishing stones. The "Frog and the Porpoise," the "Oyster Rock," the "Porpoise's Head," the "Sphinx," the "Elephant and Yoke of Oxen," and the "Hippopotamus's Head" were all clearly defined. The "Dancing Bear" was a splendidly shaped specimen, and then there was a "Boat Rock," with bow and stern complete. But on the "Mount Delectable," as our guide called it, there was a very romantic courting and kissing chair, which, although there was only room for one person to sit in it at a time, he assured us was, in summer time, the best patronised seat in the lot.

We remunerated him handsomely, for he had worked hard and, as "England expects," he had done his duty. He directed us to go along a by-lane through Sawley or Sawley Moor, as being the nearest way to reach Fountains Abbey: but of course we lost our way as usual. The Brimham Rocks were about 1,000 feet above sea-level, and from them we could see Harrogate, which was, even then, a fashionable and rising inland watering-place. Our guide, when he showed us its position in the distance, did not venture to make any poetry about it, so we quote a verse written by another poet about the visitors who went there:

Some go for the sake of the waters-- Well, they are the old-fashioned elves-- And some to dispose of their daughters, And some to dispose of themselves.

But there must be many visitors who go there to search in its bracing air for the health they have lost during many years of toil and anxiety, and to whom the words of an unknown poet would more aptly apply:

We squander Health in search of Wealth, We scheme, and toil, and save; Then squander Wealth in search of Health, And only find a Grave. We live! and boast of what we own! We die! and only get a STONE!

Fortunately we happened to meet with a gentleman who was going part of the way towards Fountains Abbey, and him we accompanied for some distance. He told us that the abbey was the most perfect ruin in England, and when we parted he gave us clear instructions about the way to reach it. We were walking on, keeping a sharp look out for the abbey through the openings in the trees that partially covered our way, when suddenly we became conscious of looking at a picture without realising what it was, for our thoughts and attention had been fixed upon the horizon on the opposite hill, where for some undefined reason we expected the abbey to appear. Lo and behold, there was the abbey in the valley below, which we might have seen sooner had we been looking down instead of up. The effect of the view coming so suddenly was quite electrical, and after our first exclamation of surprise we stood there silently gazing upon the beautiful scene before us; and how grand the fine old ruin appeared calmly reposing in the beautiful valley below! It was impossible to forget the picture! Why we had expected to find the abbey in the position of a city set upon a hill which could not be hid we could not imagine, for we knew that the abbeys in the olden times had to be hidden from view as far as possible as one means of protecting them from warlike marauders who had no sympathy either with the learned monks or their wonderful books. Further they required a stream of water near them for fish and other purposes, and a kaleyard or level patch of ground for the growth of vegetables, as well as a forest--using the word in the Roman sense, to mean stretches of woodland divided by open spaces--to supply them with logs and with deer for venison, for there was no doubt that, as time went on, the monks, to use a modern phrase, "did themselves well." All these conditions existed near the magnificent position on which the great abbey had been built. The river which ran alongside was named the Skell, a name probably derived from the Norse word _Keld_, signifying a spring or fountain, and hence the name Fountains, for the place was noted for its springs and wells, as--

From the streams and springs which Nature here contrives, The name of Fountains this sweet place derives.

The history of the abbey stated that it was founded by thirteen monks who, wishing to lead a holier and a stricter life than then prevailed in that monastery, seceded from the Cistercian Abbey of St. Mary's at York. With the Archbishop's sanction they retired to this desolate spot to imitate the sanctity and discipline of the Cistercians in the Abbey of Rieval. They had no house to shelter them, but in the depth of the valley there grew a great elm tree, amongst the branches of which they twisted straw, thus forming a roof beneath which they might dwell. When the winter came on, they left the shelter of the elm and came under that of seven yew-trees of extraordinary size. With the waters of the River Skell they quenched their thirst, the Archbishop occasionally sent them bread, and when spring came they built a wooden chapel. Others joined them, but their accession increased their privations, and they often had no food except leaves of trees and wild herbs. Even now these herbs and wild flowers of the monks grew here and there amongst the old ruins. Rosemary, lavender, hyssop, rue, silver and bronze lichens, pale rosy feather pink, a rare flower, yellow mullein, bee and fly orchis, and even the deadly nightshade, which was once so common at Furness Abbey. One day their provisions consisted of only two and a half loaves of bread, and a stranger passing by asked for a morsel. "Give him a loaf," said the Abbot; "the Lord will provide,"--and so they did. Marvellous to relate, says the chronicle, immediately afterwards a cart appeared bringing a present of food from Sir Eustace Fitz-John, the lord of the neighbouring castle of Knaresborough, until then an unfriendly personage to the monks.

Before long the monks prospered: Hugh, the Dean of York, left them his fortune, and in 1203 they began to build the abbey. Other helpers came forward, and in course of time Fountains became one of the richest monasteries in Yorkshire. The seven yew trees were long remembered as the "Seven Sisters," but only one of them now remains. Many great warriors were buried beneath the peaceful shade of Fountains Abbey, and many members of the Percy family, including Lord Henry de Percy, who, after deeds of daring and valour on many a hard-fought field as he followed the banner of King Edward I all through the wilds of Scotland, prayed that his body might find a resting-place within the walls of Fountains Abbey. Lands were given to the abbey, until there were 60,000 acres attached to it and enclosed in a ring fence. One of the monks from Fountains went to live as a hermit in a secluded spot adjoining the River Nidd, a short distance from Knaresborough, where he became known as St. Robert the Hermit. He lived in a cave hewn out of the rock on one side of the river, where the banks were precipitous and covered with trees. One day the lord of the forest was hunting, and saw smoke rising above the trees. On making inquiries, he was told it came from the cave of St. Robert. His lordship was angry, and, as he did not know who the hermit was, ordered him to be sent away and his dwelling destroyed. These orders were in process of being carried out, and the front part of the cave, which was only a small one, had in fact been broken down, when his lordship heard what a good man St. Robert the Hermit was. He ordered him to be reinstated, and his cave reformed, and he gave him some land. When the saint died, the monks of Fountains Abbey--anxious, like most of their order, to possess the remains of any saint likely to be popular among the religious-minded--came for his body, so that they might bury it in their own monastery, and would have taken it away had not a number of armed men arrived from Knaresborough Castle. So St. Robert was buried in the church at Knaresborough.

St. Robert the Hermit was born in 1160, and died in 1218, so that he lived and died in the days of the Crusades to the Holy Land. Although his name was still kept in remembrance, his Cave and Chapel had long been deserted and overgrown with bushes and weeds, while the overhanging trees hid it completely from view. But after a lapse of hundreds of years St. Robert's Cave was destined to come into greater prominence than ever, because of the sensational discovery of the remains of the victim of Eugene Aram, which was accidentally brought to light after long years, when the crime had been almost forgotten and the murderer had vanished from the scene of his awful deed.