Passing through the park gate, we entered upon a lawn esplanade looking down upon the ruins of Rievaulx Abbey. This broad terrace extended for apparently a half of a mile, and was as finely carpeted piece of ground as you will find in England. No hair of horse or dog groomed and brushed with the nicest care, and soft and shining with the healthiest vitality, could surpass in delicacy and life of surface the grass coverlet of this long terrace, from which you looked down upon that grand monument of twelfth-century architecture half veiled among the trees of the glen. This was one of the oldest abbeys in the north of England, and the mother of several of them. Some of its walls are still as entire and perfect as those of Tintern, on the Wye. It was founded by the monks of the St. Bernard order, in 1131, according to the historical record. Really those black-cowled masons and carvers must have given the enthusiasm and genius of the early painters of the Virgin to these magnificent structures. I will not go into the subject at large here, leaving it to form an entire chapter, when I have seen most of the old abbeys of the country. In looking up at their walls, arches and columns, one marvels to see the most delicate and elaborate vine and flower-work of the carver’s chisel apparently as perfect as when it engraved the last line; and this, too, in face of the frosts and beating storms of six hundred years. The largest ivy I ever saw buttressed one of the windowed walls with ten thousand cross-folded fingers and foliage of vivid green piled thick and high upon the teeth-marks of time. The trunk was a full foot through at the butt. A few years ago a large mound was uncovered near the ruin, and found to be composed of cinders, showing incontestably that the monks had worked iron ore very extensively, thus teaching the common people that art as well as agriculture. These cinders have been used very largely in repairing the roads for a considerable distance around.
On returning to Thirsk over the Hambleton range of hills, we crossed thousands of acres of moor-land covered with heather in full bloom, looking like a purple sea. It was a splendid sight. My friend, who was an artist, stopped for a while to sketch one or two views of the scene. As we proceeded, we saw several green and golden fields impinging upon this florid waste, serving to illustrate what might be done with the vast tracts of land in England and Scotland now bristling with this thick and prickly vegetation. The heatherland over which we were passing was utilised in a rather singular manner. It yielded pasturage to two sets of industrials—sheep and bees. As the heather blossom is thought to impart a peculiarly pleasant flavor to honey, I was told many bee-stock-raisers of Lincolnshire brought their hives to this section to pasture them for a season on this purple prairie.
The westward view from the precipitous heights of the Hambleton ridge is one of the most beautiful and extensive you will find in England, well worth a special journey to see it. The declining sun was flooding the great basin with the day’s last, best smile, filling it to the golden rim of the horizon with a soft light in which lay a landscape of thirty miles’ depth, embracing full fifty villages and hamlets, parks, plantations and groves, all looking “like emeralds chased in gold.” On the whole, I am inclined to think many tourists would regard this view as even superior to that of Belvoir Vale. It might be justly placed between that and Wharf Vale.
A London gentleman produced a most unique picture on the forehead of one of these hills, which may be seen at a great distance. In the first place, he had a smooth, lawn-like surface prepared on the steep slope. Then he cut out the form of a horse in the green turf, sowing the whole contour of the animal with lime. This brought out in such bold relief the body and limbs, that, at several miles distance, you seem to see a colossal white horse standing on his four legs, perfect in form and feature, even to ear and nostril. The symmetry is perfect, although the body, head, legs and tail cover a space of four acres!
The next day I took staff for Northallerton, reaching that town about the middle of the afternoon. Passed through a highly cultivated district, and saw, for the first time, several reaping machines at work in the fields. I was struck at the manner in which they were used. I have noticed a peculiarity in reaping in this section which must appear singular to an American. The men cut inward instead of outward, as with us. And these machines were following the same rule! As they went around the field, they were followed or rather met by men and women, each with an allotted beat, who rushed in behind and gathered up the fallen from the standing grain so as to make a clear path for the next round. There seemed to be no reason for this singular and awkward practice, except the adhesion to an old custom of reaping. The grain was not very stout, nor was it lodged.
From Northallerton I hastened on to Newcastle-upon-Tyne in order to attend, for the first time in my life, the meetings of the British Association. I reached that town on the 25th of August, and remained there a week, enjoying one of the greatest treats that ever fell to my lot. I will reserve a brief description of it for a separate chapter at the end of this volume, if my Notes on other matters do not crowd it out.
CHAPTER XVI.
HEXHAM—THE NORTH TYNE—BORDER-LAND AND ITS SUGGESTIONS—HAWICK—TEVIOTDALE—BIRTH-PLACE OF LEYDEN—MELROSE AND DRYBURGH ABBEYS—ABBOTSFORD: SIR WALTER SCOTT; HOMAGE TO HIS GENIUS—THE FERRY AND THE OAR-GIRL—NEW FARM STEDDINGS—SCENERY OF THE TWEED VALLEY—EDINBURGH AND ITS CHARACTERISTICS.
On Thursday, Sept. 3rd, I left Newcastle, and proceeded first westward to the old town of Hexham, with the view of taking a more central route into Scotland. Here, too, are the ruins of one of the most ancient of the abbeys. The parish church wears the wrinkles of as many centuries as the oldest in the land. Indeed, the town is full of antiquities of different dates and races,—Roman, Scotch, Saxon, Danish and Norman. They all left the marks of their glaived hands upon it.
From Hexham I faced northward and followed the North Tyne up through a very picturesque and romantic valley, thickly wooded and studded with baronial mansions, parks, castles and residences of gentry, with comfortable farm-houses looking sunny and cheerful on the green hill slopes and on the quiet banks of the river. I saw fields of wheat quite green, looking as if they needed another month’s sun to fit them for harvesting. Lodged in a little village about eight miles from Hexham. The next day walked on to the little hamlet of Fallstones, a distance of about twenty miles. As I ascended the valley, the scene changed rapidly. The river dwindled to a narrow stream. The hills that walled it in on either side grew higher and balder, and the clouds lay cold and dank upon their bleak and sullen brows. The hamlets edged in here and there grew thinner, smaller and shabbier. The road was barred and gated about once in a mile, to keep cattle and sheep from wandering; there being no fences nor hedges running parallel with it. In a word, the premonitory symptoms of a bare border-land thickened at every turn.