Which was a dutifull sight to see
The Maior and Aldermen there to bee
For the setting forth of Archerie,
As well as they doe at London.
“Yorke, Yorke, for my monie,
Of all the citties that ever I see,
For mery pastime & companie,
Except the cittie of London.”
From the minster walk as far as may be along the city walls: you will see the four Bars—Monk, Micklegate, Walmgate, and Bootham; the first-named still retaining the barbican. In some of the narrow lanes near the water-side you may discover old mansions, the residences of the magnates of York two hundred years ago, now tenanted by numbers of working-people, and grand staircases and panelled rooms, looking dingy and squalid. Then go forth and take a turn under the trees of the New Walk on the bank of the Ouse, and see a much-frequented resort of the citizens, who certainly cannot boast that their environs are romantic. You would hardly believe that the stream flowing so placidly by embosoms the rapid rivers we crossed so often while in the mountains. If legends deceive not, any one who came and threw five white pebbles into a certain part of the Ouse as the hour of one struck on the first morning of May, would then see everything he desired to see, past, present, and to come, on the surface of the water. Once a knight returning from the wars desired to see how it fared with his lady-love: he threw in the pebbles, and beheld the home of the maiden, a mansion near Scarborough, and a youth wearing a mask and cloak descending from her window, and the hiding of the ladder by the serving-man. Maddened by jealousy, he mounted and rode with speed; his horse dropped dead in sight of the house; he saw the same youth ascending the ladder, rushed forward, and stabbed him to the heart. It was his betrothed. She was not faithless; still loved her knight, and had only been to a masquerade. For many a day thereafter did the knight’s anguish and remorse appear as the punishment of unlawful curiosity in the minstrel’s lay and gestour’s romance.
Return, and take a walk in that pleasant ground, half park, half garden, which we saw from the tower, and see how enviable a site has fallen to the Yorkshire Philosophical Society for their museum. To have such a scope of smooth green turf, flower-beds, shrubs, and trees in the heart of a city, as the shelter of remarkable antiquities and scientific collections, is a rare privilege. At one side stand the remains of St. Leonard’s Hospital—Norman and early English—sheltering, when I saw it, something far, far more ancient than itself—a huge fossil saurian. The ruins of St. Mary’s Abbey appear on the other side; and between the two the Doric edifice, containing the museum, library, and offices of the Society. In another part of the grounds, the Hospitium of the monks, which in a country village would pass for a mediæval barn, now contains the admirable collection of Roman and British antiquities for which York is celebrated. Seeing the numerous tiles stamped with Latin words and numerals, the tombs and altars, the household utensils, and personal ornaments, your idea of the Roman occupation will, perhaps, become more vivid than before; and again, while you examine the fragment of the wall and tower, supposed to have been built by Hadrian, strong and solid even after the lapse of nineteen centuries. And when you look once more at the Abbey and the Hospital, you will regret the ravages of plunderers. For years the ruins were worked as a quarry by all who wanted stone for building purposes, and, as if to accelerate the waste, great heaps were burnt in a limekiln erected on the spot; and it is said that stone pillaged from St. Mary’s at York was used for the repair of Beverley minster.
However, the spirit of preservation has prevented further dilapidation, and old Time himself is constrained to do his wasting imperceptibly. St. Mary’s Lodge, adjoining the abbey, long neglected, and degraded into a pothouse, was restored some years ago, and occupied as a residence by Professor Phillips, whose connexion with the Society will not soon be forgotten. A charming residence it is; and an evening and a morning spent within it, enable me to affirm that its chambers, though clothed in a modern dress, witness hospitality as generous as that of the monks of the olden time.
CHAPTER XXV.
By Rail to Leeds—Kirkstall Abbey—Valley of the Aire—Flight to Settle—Giggleswick—Drunken Barnaby again—Nymph and Satyr—The astonished Bagman—What do they Addle?—View from Castleber—George Fox’s Vision on Pendle Hill—Walk to Maum—Companions—Horse versus Scenery—Talk by the Way—Little Wit, muckle Work—Malham Tarn—Ale for Recompense—Malham—Hospitality—Gordale Scar—Scenery versus Horse—Trap for Trout—A Brookside Musing—Malham Cove—Source of the Aire—To Keighley.
On the second morning of my stay in York, after a farewell visit to the minster, I travelled by rail to Leeds. I had little time, and, remembering former days, less inclination to tarry in this great, dismal, cloth-weaving town; so after a passing glance at the new town-hall, and some other improvements, I walked through the long, scraggy suburb such as only a busy manufacturing town can create, to Kirkstall Abbey. This also was an abode of the Cistercians, founded in 1152 by Henry de Lacy; and they who can discourse learnedly on such subjects pronounce it to be, as a ruin, more perfect than some which we have already visited. But it stands only a few yards from a black, much-frequented road, and within sight and hearing of a big forge, and the Aire flows past, not pellucid, but stained with the refuse liquor of dye-works. Still the site is not devoid of natural beauty; and an hour may be agreeably passed in sauntering about the ruin. It must have been a delightful haunt when Leeds was Loidis in Elmete.