Part 16

Yorkshire, upon which we have now entered, is the largest shire or county in England. In one way it seems almost incredibly large, for it has more acres than there are letters (not words) in the Bible. There are 3,882,851 acres in Yorkshire, and 3,566,482 letters in the Bible. Yorkshire does not reveal its full beauty to the traveller along this road. Its abbeys and waterfalls, its river-gorges and romantic valleys, belong rather to the by-ways. Picturesqueness and romance spelt discomfort, and the uneventful road was the one the travellers of old preferred. Thus it is that those who pursue this route to the North, and know nothing else of Yorkshire, might deny this huge county, more than twice the size of Lincolnshire, the next largest, that variety and beauty which, in fact, we know it to possess. For eighty miles the Great North Road goes through Yorkshire with scarce a hill worthy the name, although towards the north the Hambleton Hills, away to the east, give the views from the road a sullen grandeur.

But if the highway and the scenery bordering it are characterless, this is a region of strongly marked character, so far as its inhabitants are concerned. Many wits have been to work on the Yorkshireman’s peculiarities. While they all agree to disregard his hospitality and his frank heartiness, they unite to satirise his shrewdness, and his clannish ways. The old Yorkshire toast is famous:—

“Here’s tiv us, all on us, me an’ all. May we niver want nowt, noan on us, Nor me nawther.”

And this other:—

“Our Native County: t’biggest, t’bonniest, and t’best.”

The character of John Browdie is a very accurate exemplar of the Yorkshire yeoman, and you could not wish to meet a better fellow, but you would rather not have any dealings with the Yorkshireman of popular imagination, whose native wit goes beyond shrewdness and does not halt on the hither side of sharp practice. The Yorkshireman’s armorial bearings are wickedly said to be a flea, a fly, and a flitch of bacon; because a flea will suck any one’s blood, like a Yorkshireman; a fly will drink out of any one’s cup, and so will a Yorkshireman; and a flitch of bacon is no good until it is hung, and no more is a Yorkshireman! No native of the county can be expected to subscribe to this, but no one ever heard of a Yorkshireman objecting to be called a “tyke.”

A “Yorkshire tyke” is a familiar phrase. By it we understand a native of this immense shire to be named. No one knows whence this nickname arose, or whether it is complimentary or the reverse. To be sure, we call a dog a “tyke,” and to describe any one as a dog is not complimentary, unless qualifications are made. Thus, the man who is insulted by being called a dog rather takes it as a compliment to be dubbed a “sad dog” or a “sly dog,” and, like Bob Acres, lets you know, with a twinkle of the eye, that on occasion he can be a “devil of a fellow.”

By common consent, whatever its origin may have been, “tyke,” applied to a Yorkshireman, is taken in the complimentary sense. Indeed, the Yorkshireman’s good conceit of himself does not allow him to think that any other sense could possibly be intended. He generally prides himself, like Major Bagstock, on being “sly, devilish sly.” That he is so, too, those who have tried to overreach him, either in his native wilds or elsewhere, have generally discovered. “He’s a deep ’un,” says a character in one of Charles Reade’s novels, “but we are Yorkshire too, as the saying is.” When tyke meets tyke, then, if ever, comes the tug of war. “That’s Yorkshire,” is a saying which implies much, as in the story of the ostler from the county who had long been in service at a London inn. “How is it,” asked a guest, “that such a clever fellow as you, and a Yorkshireman, remains so long without becoming master of the house?” “Measter’s Yorkshire too,” answered the servant.

It is a sporting—more especially a horsey—county. “Shake a bridle over a Yorkshireman’s grave, and he will rise and steal a horse,” is a proverb which bears a sort of testimony to the fact.

XXXIII

YORKSHIRE and Yorkshiremen, their virtues and vices, bring us to Bawtry, where the High Sheriff and those in authority used to welcome kingly and queenly visitors to Yorkshire, or escort them over the border, on leaving; performing the latter office with the better heart, there can be little doubt, for royal progresses often left a trail of blood and ruin behind them in those “good” old times. Happy Bawtry! for little or no history attaches to the little town, and it lives in the memory only as the home of that saddler who, although famous as a proverb, has come down to us a nameless martyr to the Temperance Cause.

“The saddler of Bawtry was hanged for leaving his ale,” runs the Yorkshire saying; one eminently characteristic of this county of stingo and plurality of acres. The history of this particular saddler, or the crime for which he was condemned, are unknown either here or at York, but his end is a terrible warning to all Blue Ribbonites. It was in this wise that the artificer in pigskin lost his life. Led forth to the fatal tree, the procession halted on the way to present the condemned with the customary parting bowl of ale, an institution on the way to the gallows both in York and London. But the saddler would take none of their farewell courtesies, and refused the drink; whereupon the enraged mob strung him up, double quick. A few minutes later a reprieve arrived, and they cut him down; but he was already dead, a melancholy warning to all future generations of non-convivial souls.

Coaching days made Bawtry a busy townlet, for although the coaches and the postmasters generally made a long stage of fourteen miles between Doncaster and Barnby Moor, or else a nine and a half mile stage between Doncaster and Scrooby Top, the by-roads gave a good proportion of business to the “Angel” and the “Crown.” The “Crown” is still a prominent feature of Bawtry’s now empty street, a street whose width is a revelation of the space once considered necessary and now altogether superfluous; just as the long pillared range of stableyards beyond the old coach archway of the inn itself has now become.

Bawtry to-day is a great emptiness. Four-square red-brick houses of a certain modishness, being indeed built on the model of town houses, look across the void roadway, with a kind of patronising air, upon the peaked, timbered, or lath-and-plaster gabled cottages that border the opposite side of the street. Much older they are, those old cottages, and more akin to the country. They were built long centuries before the coaching age came, bringing a greater prosperity and consequent expansion to Bawtry, and for a time they were quite put out of countenance by the new-fangled brick houses, with their classic porticoes and brass knockers and impudent red faces. But a period of eighty or ninety years, at the most, saw the beginning and the end of this expansion, and this once fashionable air has altered to an aspect of old-world dignity. Both the gabled cottages and these Georgian houses would feel greatly degraded if confronted with examples of the way in which the small country builder runs up his tasteless structures nowadays, but happily Bawtry has nothing of this type to show, and the white stuccoed elevation of the “Crown” alone hints at a later phase in building fashion, typifying the dawn of the nineteenth century and the course of taste in its earlier years. This white-painted frontage marks the close of Bawtry’s busy days. Soon afterwards the place ceased to live a pulsing everyday life of business and activity, and began to merely exist. There are shops here—old bow-windowed, many-paned shops—which have long seen their best days go by. They came into existence under the influence of the beatific Law of Demand and Supply, when all the inns were full of travellers who wanted the thousand and one necessities of civilisation. They did a brave trade in those times, and continued it until the railway snuffed it out in 1842. Since then no one has come to buy, and their stock must contain many curiosities. Probably the stationer has still some of that goffered and perfumed pink notepaper on which the young ladies of sensibility wrote their love-letters in the long-ago, together with a goodly supply of the wafers with which they were sealed; and, doubtless, those who seek could find flint and steel and tinder-boxes elsewhere. Bawtry, in fine, is a monument to the Has Been.

[Picture: The “Crown,” Bawtry]

Austerfield, where William Bradford was born in 1580, is a grim and unlovely village to the left of Bawtry. Here yet stands his birthplace, in its time a manor-house, but now occupied as two cottage-dwellings, it is not a romantic-looking relic to be the place of origin of one who became the first Governor of the Pilgrim colony in New England.

There was once a pond beside the road near Bawtry (where is it now, alas!) to which a history belonged, for into it used to drive the villainous postboys of lang syne, who were in the pay of the highwaymen. They would, as though by accident, whip suddenly into it, and when the occupants of the chaise let down the windows and looked out, to see what was the matter, they were confronted with the grinning muzzle of a pistol, and the dread alternative demand for their money or their lives.

Past this dread spot, and over the rise and dip in the road on leaving the town, the galloping stage is reached, a dead level by the palings of Rossington Park and on to Rossington Bridge, where the tollgate was, and now is not. The inn too, has, like many another, taken down its sign, and retired into private occupation. Off to the left is Rossington village, and in the churchyard, the grave, for those who like to turn aside to see it, of Charles Bosvile, “King of the Gipsies.” Here we are four miles and a half from Doncaster, or, as a Yorkshireman would say, four miles “and a way-bit.”

Ask a Yorkshireman how far it is to any place along the road, and he will most likely answer you, so many miles “and a way-bit.” This is probably his pronunciation of “wee bit.” It is often said that the “way-bit” is generally as long as the rest put together. This expression compares with the Scottish so many miles “and a bittock.”

XXXIV

FROM Rossington Bridge, a long pale rise, bordered by coppices of hazels and silver birches, leads past Cantley to Tophall, where one of the old road wagons was struck by lightning on the 22nd of May 1800. One of the seven horses drawing the wagon was killed, and four others were stunned; while the great lumbering conveyance and its load of woollen cloths, muslins, cottons, rabbit-down and a piano were almost entirely burnt. The disaster was a long-remembered event for miles round, and one of the Doncaster inns was renamed from it, the “Burning Waggon.” This house has long since been renamed the “Ship.”

Passing Tophall, and by a bridge over the railway cutting, Doncaster is seen, with its great church-tower, smoking chimney-stalks, and puffing locomotives, map-like, down below, three miles away. Two miles further, past Hawbush, or Lousybush, Green, on which unaristocratically named spot old-time tramps used to congregate, Doncaster racecourse is reached, on the old Town Moor.

Doncaster, all England over, stands for racing and the St. Leger, just as much as Epsom for the Derby, and racing has been in progress here certainly ever since 1600, and perhaps even before. The renowned St. Leger, which still draws its hundreds of thousands every September, was established in 1778 and named by the Marquis of Rockingham after Lieut.-Colonel Ashby St. Leger. All Yorkshire, and a large proportion of other shires, flocks to witness this classic race, greatly to the benefit of the town, which owns the racecourse and derives the handsome income of some £30,000 per annum from it. Doncaster, indeed, does exceedingly well out of racing, and the Town Council can well afford the £380 annually expended in stakes. But the St. Leger week is a terrible time for quiet folks, for all the brazen-throated blackguards of the Three Kingdoms are then let loose upon the town, and not even this sum of £30,000 in relief of the rates quite repays them for the infliction.

Robert Ridsdale, originally “Boots” at a Doncaster inn, rose to be owner of Merton Hall, about 1830. He was a bookmaker. Betting is a pursuit in which only the bookmakers secure the fortunes.

Dickens, who was here during the St. Leger week in 1857, in company with Wilkie Collins, and stayed at the still extant “Angel,” saw this side of horse-racing fully displayed. Looking down into the High Street from their window, the friends saw “a gathering of blackguards from all parts of the racing earth. Every bad face that had ever caught wickedness from an innocent horse had its representation in the streets,” and the next day after the great race every chemist’s shop in the town was full of penitent bacchanalians of the night before, roaring to the busy dispensers to “Give us soom sal-volatile or soom damned thing o’ that soort, in wather—my head’s bad!” Night was made hideous for all who sojourned at the “Angel” by the “groaning phantom” that lay in the doorway of one of the bedrooms and howled until the morning, like a lost soul; explanation by the landlord in the morning eliciting the fact that the fearsome sounds were caused by a gentleman who had lost £1,500 or £2,000 by backing a “wrong ’un,” and had accordingly drank himself into a _delirium tremens_.

Sir William Maxwell of Menreith, who won the St. Leger with Filho da Puta, in 1815, celebrated his success by thrusting his walking-stick through all the pier-glasses at the “Reindeer”; expressing his regret that there were no more to smash, as an adequate relief to his feelings.

Dean Pigou, once vicar of Doncaster, bears later testimony to the character of a large proportion of the race-crowds, and tells amusingly how the contingents of pickpockets who flock here on these occasions disguise themselves as clergymen, a fact well known to the police, and resulting in the arrest of a genuine cleric on one occasion. “You old rascal!” said the constable; “we’ve been looking for you for a long time.”

Doncaster, out of the season, is a singularly quiet and inoffensive town, and looks as innocent as its native butterscotch. Quiet, because the locomotive and carriage-works of the Great Northern Railway are a little way outside; inoffensive, because it is unpretending. At the same time it is just as singularly devoid of interest. Almost its oldest houses are those on Hall Cross Hill, as the traveller passes the elm-avenue by the racecourse and enters the town from the direction of London; and they are scarce older than the days of the Prince Regent. Very like the older part of Brighton, this southern end of Doncaster is the best the town has to show.

Hall Cross—originally called “Hob Cross”—was destroyed in the seventeenth-century troubles. It was a late Norman structure, and is copied in the existing Cross, set up by the Corporation, as an inscription informs the passer-by, in 1793. A weird structure it is, too, consisting of a stone pillar of five engaged shafts, reflecting credit on neither the original designer nor the restorers. But there it stands, elevated above the modern road, as evidence of a momentary aberration in favour of restoring antiquity of which the Corporation were guilty, a century or so ago. Doncastrians have purged themselves so thoroughly of that weakness in later years that they have left no other vestige of old times in their streets. The finest example of an old inn belonging to the town was destroyed in the pulling down of the “Old Angel” in 1846, in order to clear a site for the Guildhall. Others are left, but, if old-fashioned, they are scarcely picturesque: the “Angel,” “Ram,” “Elephant,” “Salutation,” and “Old George.”

[Picture: Coach passing Doncaster Racecourse]

In old newspaper files we find Richard Wood, of the “Reindeer” and “Ram” inns, High Street, advertising that his coaches were the best—“the horses keep good time—_no_ racing”; from which we conclude that there _had_ been some. It was Richard Wood, then the foremost coach-proprietor in Doncaster, who first gave employment to that celebrated painter of horses and coaches, John Frederick Herring, who, although a Londoner born, lived long and worked much at Doncaster. It was in 1814, when in his nineteenth year, that he first came to the town, the love of horses bringing him all the way. Seeing the “Royal Union” starting at eight o’clock in the morning with “Doncaster” displayed in large letters on its panels, on the inspiration of the moment he took a seat, and arrived in time to witness the horse “William” win the St. Leger.

There is a tale of his observing a man clumsily trying to paint a picture of the Duke of Wellington, seated on his charger, for the panel of a coach to be called after that hero of a hundred fights. He had, somehow, managed to worry through the figure of the Duke, and to secure a recognisable likeness of him—because, for this purpose, all that was necessary was the representation of an ascetic face and a large, beak-like nose—but he boggled at the horse. Herring offered to paint in the horse for him, and did it so well that he earned the thanks of the proprietor, who happened to appear on the scene and commissioned him to paint the insignia of the “Royal Forester,” Doncaster and Nottingham coach; a white lion on one door and a reindeer on the other. These he performed with equal credit, and taking a seat beside the proprietor in question, who, with others, mounted for a ride to “prove” the springs and christen the new coach, he at once offered himself as coachman. Mr. Wood, for it was he, was naturally surprised at the idea of a painter driving a coach, but consented to give him a trial the next day on the “Highflyer,” and to abide by the decision of the regular driver of that famous drag. The result was favourable, and Herring obtained the box-seat, not of the “Royal Forester,” but of the “Nelson,” Wakefield and Lincoln coach. He was, after two years, transferred to the Doncaster and Halifax road, and thence promoted to the “Highflyer,” painting in his leisure hours many of the signs of Doncaster’s old inns. It was when on this road that he attracted the attention of a local gentleman, who obtained him a commission for a picture which laid the foundation of his success.

Nearly all the local signs that Herring painted have disappeared. Some were taken down when he became famous, and added to private collections of pictures; while others were renewed from the effects of time and weather by being painted over by journeyman painters. Some landlords, however, knew the value of these signs well enough. There was, for instance, mine host of the “Doncaster Arms,” who, having come from cow-keeping to the inn-keeping business, determined to change the name of the house to the “Brown Cow.” He induced Herring to paint the new sign, which immediately attracted attention. According to one story, a gentleman posting north chanced to see it and stopped the postboy while he endeavoured to drive a bargain for the purchase. He offered twice as much as mine host had originally paid; ten times as much, but without avail. “Not for twenty times,” said that licensed victualler; and the connoisseur went without it.

The other version makes the traveller a very important man, travelling with four post-horses, and represents the landlord as being away, and the landlady as the obstinate holder. “I’s rare and glad, measter, my husband’s not at home,” she said, “for p’r’aps he’d ha’ let thee hae it; but I wain’t; for what it’s worth to thee it’s worth to me, so gang on.”

A list has been preserved of the signs painted by Herring at Doncaster, but they will be sought in vain to-day. They were—

The Labour in Vain Marsh Gate. The Sloop Marsh Gate. The Brown Cow French Gate. The Stag The Holmes. The Coach and Horses Scot Lane. The White Lion St. George Gate.

The “Labour in Vain” represented the fruitless labour of attempting to wash a black man white.

The old sign of the “Salutation,” painted by a Dutchman in 1766, was touched up by Herring. Many years ago it was removed, but has now been replaced, and may be seen on the front of the house in Hall Cross. It is much weather-worn, and represents, in dim and uncertain fashion, two clumsy looking old gentlemen in the costume of a hundred and forty years ago, rheumatically saluting one another. The sign of the “Stag,” painted on plaster still remains, in a decaying condition.

Herring continued as a coachman for several years, and only left the box in 1830, when he went to reside in London. From that date until his death in 1865 he devoted himself entirely to painting.

Richard Wood, Herring’s first employer, was part-proprietor of the “Lord Nelson” coach, among others. Especial mention must be made of this particular conveyance, because if not the first, it must have been one of the earliest, of the coaches by which passengers were allowed to book through to or from London, and to break their journey where they pleased. To those who could not endure the long agonies of a winter’s journey except in small doses, this arrangement must have been a great boon. To this coach belongs the story of a Frenchman, still preserved by Doncaster gossips.

It was in the early part of the century that he wanted to travel from “Doncastare” to London. Inquiring at the booking-office for the best coach, the clerk mentioned the “Lord Nelson.”

“Damn your Lord Nelson!” says the Frenchman in a rage. “What others are there?”

The names of the others heaped greater offence upon him, for they were the “Waterloo” and the “Duke of Wellington.” So perhaps he posted instead, and saved his national susceptibilities at the expense of his pocket.

Another, and a later, coach-proprietor and innkeeper at Doncaster was Thomas Pye, of the “Angel.” He lived to see railways ruin the coaching business, but he kept the “Angel” for years afterwards, and his family after him. The Queen, on her way to Scotland in 1861, slept there one night, and the loyal family promptly added the title of “Royal” to the old house.

Coaching days were doomed at Doncaster in 1859, when the Midland Railway was opened and diverted the traffic; and nine years later, when the Great Northern Railway came, the last coach was withdrawn.

Few think of Doncaster as a centre of spiritual activity. Racing seems to comprehend everything, and to make it, like a famous winner of the St. Leger a case of “Eclipse first; the rest nowhere!” Even Doncaster butterscotch is more familiar than Doncaster piety, but the Church is particularly active here, nevertheless. That activity only dates from the appointment of Dr. Vaughan as vicar, in 1859. Before his time religion was very dead, so that, when the great parish church of St. George was burnt down in 1853, the then vicar, Dr. Sharpe, on seeing the flames burst out, could at first only think of his false teeth, which he had left in the building, and exclaimed in horror-stricken tones, “Good gracious! and I have left my set of teeth in the vestry.”

The church was rebuilt by Sir Gilbert Scott. It is a magnificent building, but too palpably Scott, and the details of the carving painfully mechanical. Also, the stone was so badly selected that the crockets and enrichments were long ago found to be decaying, and “restoration” of a building not then fifty years old was found necessary.