A Month in Yorkshire

by Walter White

Tho’ boreas blast and neptune waves
Hath toss’d me too and fro’,
By God’s decree you plainly see,
I’m harbour’d here below,
But here I do at anchor ride
With many of our fleet,
And once again I must set sail,
My Saviour Christ to meet.

Of a good old wife, we read something for which the sex would be the better were it true of all:

She was not puff’d in mind,
She had no scornful eye,
Nor did she exercise herself
In things that were too high.

Childhood claims a tender sentiment; and parents mourn thus for their little ones:

One hand they gave to Jesus, one to Death,
And looking upward to their Father’s throne,
Their gentle spirits vanish’d with their breath,
And fled to Eden’s ever blooming zone.

The road runs along the high ground near enough to the sea for you to hear its roar, and note the outline of the cliffs, while inland the country rolls away hilly to the dreary region described by old writers as “Black-a-moor.” Another half-hour, and having passed through Hawsker, you see a strange-looking building a long way off. It is the Abbey of Whitby. And now a view opens into the Vale of Pickering; and there, in the fields on the left, are the stones which mark where the arrows fell, when Robin Hood and Little John, who had been treated to a dinner at the Abbey, went up on the roof to gratify the monks with a specimen of their skill, and proved the goodness of their bows, and their right to rank as foremost of English archers. As your eye measures the distance, more than a mile, your admiration of the merry outlaws will brighten up, unless like the incredulous antiquary, you consider such stories as only fit to be left “among the lyes of the land.”

Seen from the road, over the wall-top, the abbey reveals but few of the beautiful features which charm your eye on a nearer view. To gain admission you have to pass through an old mansion belonging to the Cholmley family, in which, by the way, there are rooms, and passages, and a stair, weapons, furniture, and tapestry that remind you of the olden time; and in the rear a delightful garden, with a prospect along the vale of Esk. From the garden you enter a meadow, and may wander at will about the ruin.

I saw it to perfection, for the sky had cleared, and the evening sun touched the crumbling walls and massy columns and rows of graceful arches with wondrous beauty, relieved by the lengthening shadows. The effect of the triple rows of windows is singularly pleasing, and there are carvings and mouldings still remaining that will bear the closest inspection, although it was a mason of the thirteenth century who cut them. Three distinct styles are obvious, and you will notice that the whitest stone, which is the oldest, is the least decayed. An aisle still offers you the shelter of its groined roof, the transept still shows the corbels and niches, and carved roses that fed the eyes of Robin Hood’s entertainers, and on the sedilia where they sat you may now repose. Every moment you discover some new beauty, something to increase your admiration, and wonder that so much should be left of a building which has not a tree to shelter it from the storms of the sea.

For twelve hundred years the ground has been consecrated. Here the blessed St. Hilda founded a monastery, and dedicated it to St. Peter, in 658. Here it was that the famous debate was held concerning the proper time of Easter between the Christians who were converted by Culdee missionaries from Ireland before St. Augustine’s visit, and those of the later time. It was St. John and the practice of the Eastern Church against St. Peter and the Western; and through the eloquent arguments of Wilfrid of Ripon, the latter prevailed.

Here Cœdmon, one of the menial monks, was miraculously inspired to write the poem which immortalises his name; and here St. John of Beverley was educated. Then came the Danish pirates under Ubba, and destroyed the monastery, and the place lay waste till one of William the Conqueror’s warriors, grieved to the heart on beholding the desolation, exchanged his coat of steel for a Benedictine’s gown, and rebuilt the sacred house.