There are still some fragments of the actual church that was built by the eager hands of the monks from Clairvaux, the monks sent by St. Bernard himself to live their austere lives in this valley; but, of course, this rich triforium, these corbels of elaborate carving, these lancets and moulded arches and clustered columns were never seen by Norman Walter. Nor, indeed, would they have met with approval from the saintly abbot of Clairvaux, whose aspirations, like those of all the early Cistercians, tended to severe simplicity in architecture as in life. The vanished nave, it is thought, was part of the Norman work of Bernard's missionary monks, but this glorious chancel and the refectory with the strange doorway belong entirely to the thirteenth century.
Beautiful as are the details it is by the great chancel-arch that we shall always remember Rievaulx. It is the reposefulness of its simple grandeur that strikes the keynote of peace. Its quiet, stately lines rest the eye, and the memory of it rests the heart whenever we think of this fair daughter of Citeaux and mother of Melrose.
CHANCEL ARCH, RIEVAULX ABBEY.
Long ago there was a second Cistercian abbey on the banks of Rye. The bells of Old Byland and the bells of Rievaulx clashed with one another, which for some reason shocked the Byland monks. Those who live in towns to-day, and Sunday by Sunday hear the bells of seven or eight churches ringing simultaneously in varying keys, will sympathise with them; but there seems to have been some idea in their minds beyond the obvious one, an idea strong enough to make them migrate first to Stocking and then to the spot where we may see the ruins of their abbey. Those who can spare the time will find that the beautiful west front of the second Byland repays them well for driving the few miles between the two ruins. The community that finally settled on this spot had been through a great deal. When they came here it was more than fifty years since the thirteen monks necessary to found a new house had left Furness to wander in their ox-waggon from place to place—from Furness to Cumberland, from Cumberland to Thirsk, from Thirsk to Byland-on-the-Moor, from Byland-on-the-Moor to Stocking, and from Stocking to their final home at last. None of the original thirteen can have seen the trefoiled door and gigantic wheel-window of the west front; for this, the most striking part of the existing ruin, was probably the finishing touch to a very splendid church.
Those who reach Byland may perhaps like to drive about a mile and a half beyond it, to see the interesting church at Coxwold, and the house where Laurence Sterne lived for some time and wrote the greater part of "Tristram Shandy," alternated with many sermons. From Coxwold a series of byways will take them to the high-road at Brandsby.
Those, however, who are unable to go beyond Rievaulx, must return to Helmsley. They may follow the Rye for a little while, and then, turning to the left with a last and lovely view of the abbey, may mount the hill through the woods, the fairy-haunted woods of Rievaulx, where the stems are not wrapped about with a confusion of undergrowth, but rise unhampered from a carpet of ferns and creepers. This climb among the dusky trees is very short, but adds to one's sense of Rievaulx's remoteness. The shadowy stillness of these woods is like a veil dropped between the valley and the world.
After driving through Helmsley we cross the Rye, and presently pass the upper entrance of Duncombe Park, the "Nelson Gate," erected as we see "to the memory of Lord Viscount Nelson, and the unparallelled gallant achievements of the British Navy." Between Helmsley and Sheriff Hutton, whither we are bound, lies some very pretty country of a pastoral kind, and a series of picturesque villages, several of which deserve more attention than we are likely to give them.