[A] St. Wilfrid, Archbishop of York and Apostle of Sussex (634-709) and his friend St. Willibrord, Archbishop of Utrecht and Apostle of Holland.
“Hail, smiling morn!” I exclaimed, on seeing at an early hour the bright sunshine stream through my chamber windows. On this day of rest and gladness will I hie me to the sites of the ancient roof-trees of those whose graves, parted by long distances of space and time, are known to-day, for the most part, no longer to Man, but to Nature merely.
Not to you and to me, gentle reader, are those graves to-day known (save with one exception), but to the verdant grass, the crimson-tipped daisy, the golden celandine, who are pre-eminently faithful watchers by the
dead. For steadfastly will they remain watching until the daybreak of an endless day.[A]
[A] This exception is the grave of Mary Ward, the daughter, it will be remembered, of Marmaduke Ward and Ursula Wright, and, consequently, the niece of Christopher Wright and, I maintain, of Thomas Ward, the guide, philosopher, and friend of Lord Mounteagle. Mary Ward died at the old Manor House, Heworth, on the 20th January, 1645-46, and is buried at Osbaldwick, near York, where a stone, bearing a simple but touching inscription, is still to be seen by an increasing number of her admirers, Protestant and Catholic, the former of whom have ever styled her “that good lady, Mary Ward.” The inscription on the gravestone bears out this view of this great-hearted, truly human, English gentlewoman. It runs thus: “To love the poore, persever in the same and live, dy, and rise with them was all the ayme of Mary Ward, who, having lived 60 years and 8 days, dyed the 20 of Jan., 1645.” That gravestone might also fittingly bear a second inscription, consisting of those triumphant words of victory over death: “Credo; Spero; Amo” (“I believe; I hope; I love”). The Rev. F. Umpleby, the Vicar of Osbaldwick, and his churchwardens guard the gravestone of Mary Ward with the most commendable care.
Having duly paid my orisons to heaven in the ancient manner, and having broken my fast with such fare as my place of sojourning bestowed, I set out upon my quest.
I set forth alone, yet not alone; for mine was the companionship of lively historical ideas. But as soon as I had journeyed about one mile to the south-east of Ripon, I perforce came to a halt. For my footsteps, on a sudden, had been arrested by the ear being struck with that most musical of natural sounds — the sound of living, gurgling, murmuring waters.
I hearkened again, being infinitely pleasured by such natural music. And, mending my pace somewhat, soon found myself at Bridge Hewick, looking down from the parapet of the old grey bridge upon the rushing, boulder-broken, glancing waters of the Ure, which, after gladdening fruitful Wensleydale, flows through Ripon; and after skirting Givendale and Newby, and laving
“the green fields of England,” in front of Mulwith, hurries on towards Boroughbridge; thence to Myton, where, by the junction of the Ure and Swale, the Ouse[A] is formed, that majestic flood, which, with broad swelling tide, flows past the towers of York, the far-famed Imperial City, whose only peer in the western world is Rome.
[A] The winding Nidd, known to St. Wilfrid and dear to St. Robert, pours itself into the Ouse at Nun Monkton, a few miles above York, and not far from historic Marston Moor.