“As we travelled,” says George Fox in his Journal, “we came near a very great hill, called Pendle Hill, and I was moved of the Lord to go up to the top of it; which I did with difficulty, it was so very steep and high. When I was come to the top, I saw the sea bordering upon Lancashire. From the top of this hill the Lord let me see in what places he had a great people to be gathered. As I went down, I found a spring of water in the side of the hill, with which I refreshed myself, having eaten or drunk but little for several days before.” The spring is still there, and known in the neighbourhood as George Fox’s Well.
After breakfast I set out to walk to Malham, about seven miles distant, and was mounting the hill at an easy pace behind the town, when two men came up, and presently told me they also were going to Maum—as they pronounced it. So we joined company, all alike strangers to the road, and came soon to the bye-path of which the ostler at the Lion had advised me: “It would save a mile or more if I could only find the way.” A greater attraction for me was, that it led across the silent pastures on the top of the hills. As I got over the stile, an old man who was passing strongly urged us to keep the road; we should be sure to lose ourselves, and happen never to get to Maum at all. To which I replied, that if a Londoner and two Yorkshiremen could not find their way across six miles of hill-country they deserved to lose it; and away we went across the field. Ere long we were on breezy slopes, which, opening here and there on the left, revealed curious rocky summits beyond, and as we trod the springy turf, my companions told me they had come by rail from Bentham, and were going to Malham for no other purpose than to see a horse which one of them had sent there “to grass” a few weeks previously. They were as much amused at my admiration of the scenery as I was at their taking so long a journey to look at a quadruped. They would not go out of their way to see Malham Cove, or Gordale Scar, not they: a horse was worth more than all the scenery. And yet, judging by their dress and general conversation, they were men in respectable circumstances. Presently, as we passed a rocky cone springing all yellow and gray from a bright green eminence, I stopped and tried to make them understand why it was admirable, pointing out its form, the contrasts of colour, and its relation to surrounding objects: “Well!” said one, “I never thought of that. It do make a difference when you look at it in that way.”
Neither of them had ever been to London, and what pleased them most was to hear something about the great city. They were as full of wonder, and as ready to express it, as children; and not one of us found the way wearisome. We had taken a new departure when in sight of Stockdale, a solitary farm-house down in a hollow, as instructed, and gained a rougher elevation, when the track, which had become faint, disappeared altogether, and at a spot where no landmark was in sight to guide us. “The old man was right,” said the Yorkshiremen; “we have lost the way;” and they began a debate as to the course now to be followed. At length one strode off in a direction that would have taken him in time to the top of Penyghent. I looked at the sun, and declared for the east. But no, the other remained resolute in his opinion, and would not be persuaded. “Let him go,” I said to his companion, who sided with me; “little wit in the head makes muckle work for the heels;” and we took a course to the east.
After a while the other repented, and came panting after us; and before we had gone half a mile we saw Malham Tarn, broad and blue, at a distance on the left; then the track reappeared; then Malham came in sight, lying far down in a pleasant valley; and then we came into a rough, narrow road, descending steeply, and the Yorkshireman acknowledged his error.
“Eh! that’s Maum Cove, is it?” he said, as a turn in the road showed us the head of the valley; “that’s what we’ve heard so much talk about. Well, it’s a grand scar.” He seemed to repent of even this morsel of admiration, and helped his neighbour with strong resolutions not to turn aside and look up at the cliff from its base.
We each had a glass of ale at the public-house in the village. Before I was aware, one of my companions paid for the three, nor would he on any terms be persuaded otherwise.
“Hoot, lad,” he rejoined, “say nought about it. I’d pay ten times as much for the pleasure of your talk.” And with that he silenced me.
Although Gordale Scar is not more than a mile from Malham, they refused to go and see it. However, when we came to the grazier’s house, and they heard that the Scar lay in the way to the pasture where the horse was turned out, they thought they wouldn’t mind taking a look just, as they went. The good wife brought out bread, cheese, butter, and a jug of beer, and would have me sit down and partake with the others; regarding my plea that I was a stranger, and had just taken a drink, as worthless. A few minutes sufficed, and then her son accompanied us, for without him the horse would never be found. We followed a road running along the base of the precipitous hills which cross the head of the valley, to a rustic tenement, dignified with the name of Gordale House; and there turned towards the cliffs by the side of a brook. At first there is nothing to indicate your approach to anything extraordinary: you enter a great chasm, where the crags rise high and singularly rugged, sprinkled here and there with a small fir or graceful ash, where the bright green turf, sloping up into all the ins and outs of the dark gray cliff, and the little brook babbling out towards the sunshine, between great masses of rock fallen from above, enliven the otherwise gloomy scene. You might fancy yourself in a great roofless cave; but, ascending to the rear, you find an outlet, a sudden bend in the chasm, narrower, and more rocky and gloomy than the entrance. The cliffs rise higher and overhang fearfully above, appearing to meet indeed at the upper end; and there, from that grim crevice, rushes a waterfall. The water makes a bound, strikes the top of a rock, and, rushing down on each side, forms an inverted /\ of splash and foam. And now you feel that Gordale Scar deserves all the admiration lavished upon it.
“Well!” exclaimed one of the Yorkshiremen, “who’d ha’ thought to see anything like this? And we living all our life within twenty mile of it! ’Tis a wonderful place.”
“So, you do believe at last,” I rejoined, “that scenery is worth looking at, as well as a horse?”