A Month in Yorkshire

by Walter White

The morning was dull and drizzly, and by the time I had crossed to Ingleton Fell, from the North to the West Riding, a swift, horizontal rain came on, laborious to walk against, and drove me for shelter into the Gearstones Inn. Of the two or three houses hereabouts, one is a school; and in this wild spot a Wednesday market is held. Ingleborough is in sight; the hills around form pleasing groups, and had we time to explore them, we should find many a rocky glen, and curious cave, Catknot Hole, Alum Pot, Long Churn, and Dicken Pot; and many a sounding ghyll, as the folk here call it—that is, a waterfall. Not far from the inn is Gale beck, the source of the Ribble; and as we proceed down the now continuous descent, so do the features of the landscape grow more romantic.

For more than an hour did the rain-storm sweep across the hills, holding me prisoner. At length faint gleams of sunshine broke through; I started afresh, and three miles farther was treading on classic ground—Chapel-le-Dale. Turn in at the second gate on the right beyond the public-house, and you will soon have speech with Mr. Metcalfe, who keeps the key of Weathercote cave. Standing on a sheltered valley slope, with a flower-garden in front and trees around, his house presents a favourable specimen of a yeoman’s residence. No lack of comfort here, I thought, on seeing the plenteous store of oaten bread on the racks in the kitchen. Nor is there any lack of attention to the visitor’s wishes on the part of Mr. Metcalfe. He unlocks a door, and leads the way down a steep, rude flight of steps into a rocky chasm, from which ascends the noise of falling water. A singularly striking scene awaits you. The rocks are thickly covered in places with ferns and mosses, and are broken up by crevices into a diversity of forms, rugged as chaos. A few feet down, and you see a beautiful crystalline spring in a cleft on the right, and the water turning the moss to stone as it trickles down. A few feet lower and you pass under a natural bridge formed by huge fallen blocks. The stair gets rougher, twisting among the big, damp lumps of limestone, when suddenly your guide points to the fall at the farther extremity of the chasm. The rocks are black, the place is gloomy, imparting thereby a surprising effect to the white rushing column of water. A beck running down the hill finds its way into a crevice in the cliffs, from which it leaps in one great fall of more than eighty feet, roaring loudly. Look up! the chasm is so narrow that the trees and bushes overhang and meet overhead; and what with the subdued light, and mixture of crags and verdure, and the impressive aspect of the place altogether, you will be lost in admiration.

To descend lower seems scarcely possible, but you do get down, scrambling over the big stones to the very bottom, into the swirling shower of spray. Here a deep recess, or chamber at one side, about eight feet in height, affords good standing ground, whence you may see that the water is swallowed up at once, and disappears in the heap of pebbles on which it falls. Conversation is difficult, for the roar is overpowering. After I had stood some minutes in contemplation, Mr. Metcalfe told me that it was possible to get behind the fall and look through it, taking care to run quickly across the strong blast that meets you on starting from the recess. I buttoned my overcoat to my chin, and rushed into the cavity, and looked upwards. I was in a pit 120 feet deep, covered by a tumultuous curtain of water, but had to make a speedy retreat, so furiously was I enveloped by blinding spray. To make observations from that spot one should wear a suit of waterproof.

Through the absence of sunshine I lost the sight of the rainbow which is seen for about two hours in the middle of the day from the front of the fall. It is a horizontal bow with the convex side towards the water, shifting its position higher or lower as you mount or descend.

Although it might now be properly described as a pit, the chasm gives you the impression of a cave of which the roof has fallen in. If this be so, the fall was once entirely underground, roaring day and night in grim darkness. It may still be regarded as an underground fall, for the throat from which it leaps is more than thirty feet below the surface. In the cleft above this throat a thick heavy slab is fixed in a singular position, just caught, as it seems, by two of its corners, so that you fancy it ready to tumble at any moment with the current that shoots so swiftly beneath it. As you pause often on returning to look back at the roaring stream, and up to the impending crags, you will heartily confirm Professor Sedgwick—who by the way is a Yorkshireman—in his opinion, that if Weathercote Cave be small, it is a very gem. Nor will you grudge the shilling fee for admission.

The extreme length of the pit is about 180 feet. In rainy weather it becomes a sink-hole into which the streams pour from all the slopes around, at times filling it to the brim and running over. Mr. Metcalfe shewed me the stem of a tree entangled in the crevices near the top, which had been floated there by the floods of the previous winter. While coming slowly up, I could not fail to notice the change of temperature, from the chill damp that made me shiver, to a pleasant warmth, and then to the heavy heat of a dull day in July.

A little way below the house, going down the narrow dale, you come to another mossy crevice in the rocks among the trees to which the country folk have given the name of Gingle, or Jingle Pot, because of a certain jingling sound produced by stones when thrown therein. To my ear there was no ring in the sound. It is quite dry, with a bottom sloping steeply and making a sudden turn to a depth of eighty feet. Mr. Metcalfe had let himself down into the Pot by a rope, two days before my arrival, to look for a young cow that had fallen in while on the gad, and disappeared in the lowest hole. He saw the animal dead, and so tightly wedged in under the rock, that there he left it. This was his second descent. The first was made in winter some years ago to rescue his ducks, which, perhaps deceived by the dark crevice, that looked like a deep narrow pond when all the ground was white with snow, took all together a sudden flight to settle on it, and of course went to the bottom. Mr. Metcalfe was driving them home at the time; he looked over the edge of the Pot, and invited the silly birds to fly out. But no, they would not be persuaded to use their wings, and remained crowded together on the highest part of the slope, stretching their necks upwards. So there was nothing for it but to fetch them out. Their owner let himself down; yet after all his trouble the ungrateful creatures refused as long as possible to be put into the bag.

Farther down again, and you come to Hurtle Pot, a gloomy cavity overhung by trees, and mantled with ivy, ferns, and coarse weeds. At the bottom rests a darksome pool, said to be twenty-seven feet deep, which contains small trout, and swallows up rocks and stones, or whatever may be thrown into it, without any perceptible diminution of the depth. You can get down to the edge of the water by an inconvenient path, and feel the gloom, and find excuses for the rustics who believe in the existence of the Hurtle Pot Boggart. In olden time his deeds were terrible; but of late years he only frightens people with noises. Both this and Jingle Pot are choked with water from subterranean channels in flood time, and then there is heard here such an intermittent throbbing, gurgling noise, accompanied by what seem dismal gaspings, that a timorous listener might easily believe the Boggart was drowning his victims. One evening a loving couple, walking behind the trees above the Pot, heard most unearthly noises arise from the murky chasm; never had the like been heard before. Surely, thought the turtle-doves, the Boggart is coming forth with some new trick, and they fled in terror. A friend of Mr. Metcalfe’s was playing his flute down on the edge of the pool.

Again farther, and there is the little chapel from which the dale takes its name. As I have said, we are here on classic ground. That is the edifice, and this is the place described by Southey. Here dwelt that worthy yeoman, Daniel Dove’s father, and his fathers before him, handing down their six-and-twenty acres, and better yet, an honest name, from one to the other through many generations—yea, from time immemorial. One of those good old families which had ancestors before the Conquest. Give me leave, good-natured reader, to complete my sketch by the description as it appears, with masterly touches, in The Doctor.

“The little church called Chapel-le-Dale, stands about a bowshot from the family house. There they had all been carried to the font; there they had each led his bride to the altar; and thither they had, each in his turn, been borne upon the shoulders of their friends and neighbours. Earth to earth they had been consigned there for so many generations, that half of the soil of the churchyard consisted of their remains. A hermit who might wish his grave to be as quiet as his cell, could imagine no fitter resting-place. On three sides there was an irregular low stone wall, rather to mark the limits of the sacred ground, than to enclose it; on the fourth it was bounded by the brook, whose waters proceed by a subterraneous channel from Weathercote Cave. Two or three alders and rowan-trees hung over the brook, and shed their leaves and seeds into the stream. Some bushy hazels grew at intervals along the lines of the wall; and a few ash-trees as the winds had sown them. To the east and west some fields adjoined it, in that state of half cultivation which gives a human character to solitude: to the south, on the other side the brook, the common with its limestone rocks peering everywhere above ground, extended to the foot of Ingleborough. A craggy hill, feathered with birch, sheltered it from the north.