"Stern on the angry confines Naworth rose,
In dark woods islanded; its towers looked forth
And frowned defiance on the angry North."
Here lived, with a host of retainers, the famous "belted Will"—Lord William Howard, son of the fourth Duke of Norfolk—who in the early part of the seventeenth century finally brought peace to the border by his judicious exercise for many years of the Warden's powers. It is of this famous soldier and chivalrous knight, whose praises are even yet sung in the borderland, that Scott has written—
"Howard, than whom knight
Was never dubbed more bold in fight,
Nor, when from war and armor free.
More famed for stately courtesy."
III.
LIVERPOOL, THROUGH THE MIDLAND COUNTIES, TO LONDON.
The Peak of Derbyshire—Castleton—Bess of Hardwicke—Hardwicke Hall—Bolsover Castle—The Wye and the Derwent—Buxton—Bakewell—Haddon Hall—The King of the Peak—Dorothy Vernon—Rowsley—The Peacock Inn—Chatsworth—The Victoria Regia—Matlock—Dovedale—Beauchief Abbey—Stafford Castle—Trentham Hall—Tamworth—Tutbury Castle—Chartley Castle—Alton Towers—Shrewsbury Castle—Bridgenorth—Wenlock Abbey—Ludlow Castle—The Feathers Inn—Lichfield Cathedral—Dr. Samuel Johnson—Coventry—Lady Godiva and Peeping Tom—Belvoir Castle—Charnwood Forest—Groby and Bradgate—Elizabeth Widvile and Lady Jane Grey—Ulverscroft Priory—Grace Dieu Abbey—Ashby de la Zouche—Langley Priory—Leicester Abbey and Castle—Bosworth Field—Edgehill—Naseby—The Land of Shakespeare—Stratford-on-Avon—Warwick—Kenilworth—Birmingham—Boulton and Watt—Fotheringhay Castle—Holmby House—Bedford Castle—John Bunyan—Woburn Abbey and the Russells—Stowe—Whaddon Hall—Great Hampden—Creslow House.
THE PEAK OF DERBYSHIRE.
The river Mersey takes its sources—for it is formed by the union of several smaller streams—in the ranges of high limestone hills east of Liverpool, in North Derbyshire. These hills are an extension of the Pennine range that makes the backbone of England, and in Derbyshire they rise to a height of nearly two thousand feet, giving most picturesque scenery. The broad top of the range at its highest part is called the Kinderscout, or, more familiarly, "The Peak." The mountain-top is a vast moor, abounding in deep holes and water-pools, uninhabited excepting by the stray sportsman or tourist, and dangerous and difficult to cross. Yet, once mounted to the top, there are good views of the wild scenery of the Derbyshire hills, with the villages nestling in the glens, and of the "Kinder Fall," where much of the water from the summit pours down a cataract of some five hundred feet height, while not far away is the "Mermaid's Pool," where, if you go at the midnight hour that ushers in Easter Sunday, and look steadily into the water, you will see a mermaid. The man who ventures upon that treacherous bogland by night certainly deserves to see the best mermaid the Peak can produce. This limestone region is a famous place. In the sheltered valley to the westward of the Kinderscout is the village of Castleton, almost covered in by high hills on all sides. It was here upon a bold cliff to the southward of the village that "Peveril of the Peak" built his renowned castle at the time of the Norman Conquest, of which only the ruins of the keep and part of the outer walls remain. Almost inaccessible, it possessed the extraordinary powers of defence that were necessary in those troublous times, and here its founder gave a grand tournament, to which young knights came from far and near, the successful knight of Lorraine being rewarded by his daughter's hand. In the time of Edward III. this "Castle of the Peak" reverted to the Crown, but now it is held by the Duke of Devonshire. Under the hill on which the ruins stand is the "Cavern of the Peak," with a fine entrance in a gloomy recess formed by a chasm in the rocks. This entrance makes a Gothic arch over one thousand feet wide, above which the rock towers nearly three hundred feet, and it is chequered with colored stones. Within is a vast flat-roofed cavern, at the farther side being a lake over which the visitors are ferried in a boat. Other caverns are within, the entire cave extending nearly a half mile, a little river traversing its full length. There are more and similar caverns in the neighborhood.