A Month in Yorkshire Part 5

Towards evening the picturesque reappears with the lights falling in the opposite direction.

A short distance south of the hotel, a stream runs from the mere to the sea. The land is low here, so low that unusually high tides have forced their way up the channel of the stream to the lake, and flooded the grounds on both sides; and the effect will be, as Professor Phillips says, the entire drainage of the mere, and production of phenomena similar to those which may be seen on the other parts of the coast of Holderness: a depression in the cliffs exposing a section of deposits such as are only formed under a large surface of standing water. The result is a mere question of time; and if it be true that Hornsea church once stood ten miles from the sea, within the historical period, the scant half-mile, which is now all that separates it from the hungry waves, has no very lengthened term of existence before it. More than a mile in breadth along the whole coast from Bridlington to Spurn has been devoured since the Battle of the Standard was fought.

An old man of eighty who lives in the village says there are no such high tides now as when he was a boy; and if he be not a romancer, the low ground from the sea to the mere must, at least once, have presented the appearance of a great lake. But the wasting process is carried on by other means than the sea. I saw threads of water running down the cliffs, produced by yesterday's rain, and not without astonishment at the great quant.i.ties of mud they deposit at the base, forming in places a narrow viscous stream, creeping in a raised channel across the sand, or confused pasty heaps dotted with pools of liquid ochre. Mr. Coniton, the proprietor of the hotel, told me that he believed the rain had more influence than the sea in causing the waste of land, and he showed me the means he employed to protect his territory from one and the other.

To prevent the loss by rain, which he estimates, where no precautions are taken, at a foot a year, he at first sloped his cliff at such an angle that the water runs easily down and with scarcely appreciable mischief. Then, to protect the base, he has driven rows of piles through the sand into the clay beneath, and these, checking the natural drift of the sand to the southward, preserve the under stratum. Where no such barrier exists, the waves in a winter storm sweep all the sand clean off, and lay bare the clay, and tumbling upon it with mighty shocks, sometimes wear it down a foot in the course of a tide. By this lowering of the base, the saturated soil above, deprived of support, topples over, leaving a huge gap, which only facilitates further encroachments; and in the course of a few tides the fallen ma.s.s is drifted away to enlarge the shoals in the estuary of the Humber.

Mr. Coniton entered into possession fifteen years ago, and in all that time, so effectual are the safeguards, has lost none of his land. The edge, he says, has not receded, and, to show what might be, he points to his neighbour's field, which has shrunk away some yards to the rear.

The s.p.a.ce between the hotel and the edge of the cliff is laid out as a lawn, which, sheltered by a bank on the north, forms an agreeable outlook and lounging-place, while gravelled paths lead to an easy descent to the sands at each extremity of the premises. The house is well arranged; there is no noise, no slackness in the service; and families may live as privately as in a private residence. The charge for adults is four shillings a day; for young children, half a guinea a week, without stint as to the number of meals: to which must be added the cost of rooms and attendance. The charges to casual guests are as reasonable as could be desired, contrasting favourably in this particular with my experiences at Hull and in certain of the inland towns and villages. Ninepence a day for service and boots is charged in the bill; hence you can depart without being troubled to "remember"

anybody. An omnibus arrives every day from Beverley during the season--May to November. The distance is thirteen miles.

The falling tide had left a breadth of comparatively firm sand by the time I was ready to start, and along that I took my way to Bridlington: another stage of thirteen miles. The morning was bounteous in elements of enjoyment: a bright sun, great white clouds sailing high across the blue, a south-westerly breeze, which made the sea playful and murmurous: all gratifying to the desire of a wayfarer's heart. I could not help pitying those farmers at Beverley, who saw no pleasure in walking. No pleasure in the surest promotion of health and exercise! No pleasure in the steady progressive motion which satisfies our love of change without hindering observation! No pleasure in walking, that strengthens the limbs and invigorates the lungs! No pleasure in arming the sling against the giant! No pleasure in the occasion of cheerful thoughts and manifold suggestions which bring contentment to the heart! Walking is an exercise which in our days might replace, more commonly than it does, the rude out-door recreations of former times; and if but a few of the many hundreds who put on their Sunday clothes to lounge the hours away at the corner of a street, would but take a ten miles' walk out to the country lanes or breezy moorlands, they would find benefit alike to their manhood and morals. If I remember rightly, it is one of the old Greeks who says that walking will almost cure a bad conscience; and, for my part, I am never so ready to obey the precept of neighbourly love as when my sentiments are harmonized by walks of seven or eight leagues a day.

The sands are of varying consistency. In some places you leave deep footprints; and nowhere is the firmness equal to that we shall find farther north, except on the wet border from which the wave has just retired. Mile after mile it stretches before you, a broad slope of sand, sparely roughened here and there by pebble drifts. At times you see numerous rounded lumps lying about of many sizes, which at a distance resemble sleeping turtles, and on a nearer view prove to be nothing but ma.s.ses of hardened clay, water-worn, and as full of pebbles as a canon's pudding is of plums. These are portions of the bottoms of lakes overrun by the sea; stubborn vestiges, which yield but slowly. At times the shortest route takes you through watery flats, or broad shallow streams, where little rivers are well-nigh swallowed by the sand as they run across to the sea. A little farther and you come to a low bank, everywhere cut up by glistening ripple-marks, or to a bare patch of clay, which feels like india-rubber under your foot.

And the cliffs taken thus furlong by furlong offer a greater variety than appears at first sight. Here, the clay is cracked in such a way as to resemble nothing so much as a pile of huge brown loaves; now it falls away into a broken hollow patched with rough gra.s.s; now it juts again so full of perpendicular cracks that you liken it to a ma.s.s of starch; now it is grooved by a deep gully; now a b.u.t.tress terminates in a crumbling pyramid--umber mottled with yellow; now it is a rude stair, six great steps only to the summit; now a point, of which you would say the extremity has been shaped by turf-cutters; now a wall of pebbles, hundreds of thousands of all sizes, the largest equal in bigness to a child's head; now a shattered ruin fallen in a confused heap. Such are some of the appearances left by the waves in their never-ending aggressions.

In one hollow the disposition of the clay was so singular, and apparently artificial, and unlike anything which I had ever seen, that I could only imagine it to be a recess in which a party of a.s.syrian brickmakers had been at work and left great piles of their bricks in different degrees of finish. It was easier to imagine that than to believe such effects could be produced by the dash of the sea.

The greatest elevation occurs about Atwick and Skirlington, places interesting to the palaeontologist, on account of fossils--an elephant's tusk, and the head and horns of the great Irish elk--found in the cliffs. Farther on the cliff sinks to a mere bank, six feet in height, but, whether high or low, you need not fear a surprise by the rising tide, for you can scramble up anywhere out of reach of the water.

Looking inland from these points you see always the same character of scenery, and where a path zigzags up you will notice large trays used for carrying up the heaps of pebbles there acc.u.mulated, for the construction of drains, fences, and walls. Among remarkable curiosities are two large boulders--one of a slaty rock, the other of granite half embedded in the sand. From what part of the country were they drifted to their present position?

Here and there I fell in with a villager taking a quiet walk on the beach, and leading two or three little children. One of them told me that the Stricklands, a well-known family in Holderness, derived their name from Strikeland; that is, they were the first to _strike_ the _land_ when they came over. Collectors of folk-lore will perhaps make a note of this rustic etymology. He remembered hearing his father talk of the alarm that prevailed all along the coast when there was talk of "Bonypart's" invasion; and how that Paul Jones never sailed past without firing a ball at Rolleston Hall, that stood on a slope in sight of the sea, where dwelt Mr. Brough, who, as Marshal to the Court of Admiralty, had to direct the proceedings on the trial of Admiral Byng.

Here and there are parties of country lads bathing; or trying which can take the longest jump on the smooth sand; or squatting in soft places idly watching the waves, and exasperating their dogs into a fight.

After pa.s.sing Skipsea, and the northern end of the Barmston drain, the lone house in the distance catches your eye; the last house of Auburn, a village devoured by the sea. The distance is deceptive along the level sh.o.r.e; but when at length you come to the spot, you see a poor weather-beaten cottage on the top of the cliff, and so close to the edge that the eastern wall forms but one perpendicular line with the cliff itself. You can hardly help fancying that it will fall at any moment, even while you are looking; but so it has stood for many years; a fact the more remarkable, as in this place the cliff projects as if in defiance of the ruthless waters. Look at the old maps, and you will read: "Here Auburn washed away by the sea;" and the lone house remains a melancholy yet suggestive monument of geological change.

Now Bridlington comes in sight, and immediately beyond you see a change in the aspect of the cliffs. The chalk formation which stretches across England from Hampshire to Yorkshire, makes its appearance here as a thin white band under the clay, becoming thicker and thicker, till at length the whole cliff is chalk from base to summit, and the great promontory, of snowy whiteness, gleams afar in the sunlight along the sh.o.r.es and across the sea. The chalk opposes a barrier, which, though far less stubborn than the volcanic rocks of Cornwall, is yet more enduring than the clay: hence the land rushes proudly out on the domain of ocean.

Nearness, however, while it shows you the mouths of caverns and gullies, like dark shades in the chalk, markedly shortens the headland to the eye.

The last mile of cliff, as you approach Bridlington is diversified by a pale chalky stratum, about four feet thick along the top. It dips down in places basin-like, and contrasts strangely with the clay.

Bridlington Quay, as the seaward part of the town is named, though situated at the very rear of the Head, is, as I saw on turning the last point, not safe from the sap and shock of the breakers. The cliff, sunken in places, exhibits the effect of landslips in rough slopes and ugly heaps. Two legs of the seat fixed at the corner overhang the edge and rest upon nothing, and you see that the remainder are doomed to follow, notwithstanding the numerous piles driven in for protection.

The two arms of the pier enclose a small harbour, one of the few places of refuge for vessels caught by easterly gales on the Yorkshire coast--a coast deficient in good and easily-accessible harbours. A chalybeate spring bursts from the cliff on the northern side; and near the middle of the port an artesian well throws up a constant stream, varying with the rise and fall of the tide. The noisy brook which you cross, on entering the princ.i.p.al street, has its sources in those remarkable springs which, known as 'the Gipseys,' gush out from the foot of the wolds.

Bridlington attracts numbers of that cla.s.s of visitors for whom Hornsea is too quiet and Scarborough too gay. In fine weather, steamers arrive with pleasure parties from Hull and Whitby, Flamborough Head being the great attraction. The boatmen ask fifteen shillings a day for a boat to sail round the Head, and give you opportunity to peer into caverns, or to shoot seafowl should your desire be for "sport." And besides their pay, the tough old fellows like to have a voice in provisioning the boat, resolute to demonstrate how much your pleasure depends on "laying in plenty of bottled porter."

The church, situate in the town about half a mile from the Quay, was at one time as large and handsome as the minster of Beverley; but of late years the visitor has only been able to see the remains of beauty through grievous dilapidations, in which the hand of man was more implicated than the weather. Paul Jones is still held responsible for some of the mischief. Now, however, the work of restoration is commenced, and ere long the admirable details and proportions of the edifice will reappear.

Here it was that, attended by a convoy of seven Dutch vessels of war, commanded by Van Tromp, Queen Henrietta Maria landed in 1643; and there are people yet living who remember the terror inspired by the redoubtable privateer aforementioned, while the North-American colonies were battling for their liberties. On the 20th of September, 1779, a messenger came in hot haste from Scarborough to Bridlington with news that an enemy had been espied off the coast, and in the evening of the same day the Yankee squadron was in sight from Flamborough Head.

Preparations were at once made to send the women and children into the interior; money and valuables were hastily packed, and some of the inhabitants, panic-stricken, actually fled. The drum beat to arms; the Northumberland militia, then quartered in the neighbourhood, were called out; and all the coasting-vessels bore up for Bridlington Bay, and crowded for protection into the little harbour. Scarcely a town or village on the Yorkshire coast but has its story of alarms and unwelcome visitations from the American privateers.

On the 24th the timid population witnessed a sea-fight from the cliffs.

Jones, with the _Bonhomme Richard_, and the _Pallas_ and _Alliance_ frigates, intercepted the _Serapis_, of forty-four, and _Countess of Scarbro'_, of twenty-two guns, convoying a fleet of merchant-vessels, and at once commenced action. The two largest ships grappled, and fired into each other for two hours, the two frigates meanwhile sailing round, and doing their best to cripple the Englishman. The American at length struck; but only as a feint, for when the crew of the _Serapis_ boarded, they fell into an ambush prepared for them, and suffered so much loss, that the _Serapis_ hauled down her colours, and the _Countess of Scarbro'_ was taken by the _Pallas_. The victory, however, was dearly won: the _Bonhomme Richard_ lost three hundred men in killed and wounded, and was so grievously cut up in her hull, that the next day she went to the bottom. Captain Pearson, of the _Serapis_, in his despatch to the Admiralty announcing the capture of his ship, had good reason to write, "I flatter myself with the hopes that their lordships will be convinced that she has not been given away."

The scene of three of Montgomery's sonnets is laid at Bridlington. Turn to the volume and read them, before you go farther.

CHAPTER VIII.

What the Boarding-House thought--Landslips--Yarborough House-- The Dane's Dike--Higher Cliffs--The South Landing--The Flamborough Fleet--Ida, the Flamebearer--A Storm--A talk in a Limekiln--Flamborough Fishermen--Coffee before Rum--No Drunkards--A Landlord's Experiences--Old-fashioned Honesty.

The party--four gentlemen and one lady--at the boarding-house where I tarried to dine, agreed unanimously that to pa.s.s a whole Sunday morning in walking, was especially blameworthy. Besides being wrong in itself, it was "setting such a bad example;" nor would they hear reason on the question. With them, indeed, it was no question: they quoted the fourth commandment, and that settled it. Any departure from that was decidedly wrong, if not sinful. And then, perhaps out of a benevolent desire for my spiritual welfare, they urged me to stay till the morrow, when I might join them in a boat-trip to the Head and help to fire guns at the seafowl. It surprised me somewhat to hear them discuss their project with as much animation as if they had not just administered a homily to me, or the day had not been Sunday. The possibilities of weather, the merits of cold pies, sandwiches, and lively bottled drinks, powder and shot moreover, and tidal contingencies, were talked about in a way that led me to infer there was nothing at all wrong in consuming the holy day with antic.i.p.ations of pleasure to come in the days reckoned unholy. Then one of the party set off to walk to a village three miles distant; and presently, when I started for Flamborough, the other three accompanied me as far as the path along the cliff was easy to the foot. So I could only infer again that there is nothing wrong in short walks on a Sunday.

It is simply the distance that const.i.tutes the difference between good and evil. Some folk appear to believe that if they only sit under a pulpit in the morning, they have earned a dispensation for the rest of the day.

The cliffs now are sixty feet in height, broken by frequent slips in the upper stratum of clay, and numerous cracks running along the path marks the limits of future falls. One of the slips appeared to be but a few hours old, and the lumps, of all dimensions, with patches of gra.s.s and weeds sticking out here and there, lying in a great confused slope, suggested the idea of an avalanche of clay. Ere long you come to Yarborough House, a stately mansion standing embowered by trees about a furlong from the sh.o.r.e. Holding that an Englishman has an inherent right of way along the edge of his own country, I gave no heed to the usual wooden warning to trespa.s.sers, erected where the path strikes inland at the skirt of the grounds, and kept along the pathless margin of the cliff. Nothing appeared to be disturbed by my presence except a few rabbits, that darted as if in terror to their burrows. Once past the grounds you come into large fields, where the grain grows so close to the brink of the precipice, that you wonder alike at the thrift of the Yorkshire farmers, and the skill with which they drive their ploughs in critical situations.

As you proceed, the cliffs rise higher, interrupted in places by narrow gullies, one of which is so deep and the farther bank so high as to appear truly formidable, and shut out all prospect to the east. After a difficult scramble down, and a more difficult scramble up, you find yourself on the top of a ridge, which, stretching all across the base of the headland from sea to sea, along the margin of a natural ravine, remains a monument, miles in length, of the days

"When Denmark's Raven soar'd on high, Triumphant through Northumbrian sky."

It is the "Dane's Dike," a barrier raised by our piratical Scandinavian forefathers to protect their settlements on the great promontory. With such a fence, they had always a refuge to fall back upon where they could hold their own, and command the landing-places till more ships and marauders arrived with succours. As the eye follows the straight line of the huge gra.s.s-grown embankment, you will feel something like admiration of the resolute industry by which it was raised, and perhaps think of the fierce battles which its now lonely slopes must have once witnessed.

Still the cliffs ascend. Farther on I came to a broader and deeper ravine, at the mouth of which a few boats lay moored; and others hauled up on the beach, and coming nearer, I saw boat after boat lodged here and there on the slopes, even to the level ground above, where, judging from the number, the fleet found its rendezvous. It was curious to see so many keels out of their element, most of them gay with stripes of blue and red, and bearing the names of the wives and daughters of _Flambro'_. The little bay, however, known as the South Landing, is one of the two ports of Flamborough: the other, as we shall see after pa.s.sing the lighthouse, is similar in formation--a mere gap in the cliffs. They might be called providential landing-places, for without them the fishermen of Flamborough would have no access to the sea, except by ladders down the precipice. As it is, the declivity is very steep; and it is only by hauling them up to every available spot, that room is found for the numerous boats.

Here it was that Ida, the Flamebearer, is supposed to have landed, when he achieved the conquest of Northumbria; and here the galleys of the Sea-Kings found a precarious shelter while the daring Northmen leapt on sh.o.r.e to overrun the land in later centuries, when tradition alone preserved the remembrance of the former invaders and their warlike deeds.

I was prowling hither and thither in the ravine, entertained with the Present while imagining the Past, when the clouds, grown every minute blacker since noon, let fall their burden with something like tropical vehemence. For some time there was no perceptible pause in the lightning or thunder, and against the accompanying rain an umbrella was but as gauze. I rushed into the arch of a neighbouring limekiln, and once in, was kept there two hours by the roaring storm. Presently two fishermen, speeding up from the landing, made for the same shelter, and of course, under the circ.u.mstances, we fraternised at once, and talked the time away.

Clean and well clad, they were favourable--and as I afterwards saw--not exceptional specimens of their cla.s.s. In their opinion the Flamborough fishermen bear as good a character as any in Yorkshire--perhaps better.

About seven years ago they all resolved to work but six days a week, and on no account to go to sea on Sundays. They held to their resolve, and, to the surprise of most, found themselves the better. They earn quite as much as before, if not more, and go to work with better spirit. During the herring season it is a common practice with them to put into Scarborough on Sat.u.r.day evening, and journey home by rail for the Sunday, taking advantage of the very low fares at which return tickets are issued to fishermen. And as for diet, they take a good store of bread and meat, pies even, in their boats, seeing no reason why they should not live as well as their neighbours. A gla.s.s of rum was acceptable, especially in cold and blowing weather: but so far as they knew, there were very few fishermen who would not "choose hot coffee before rum any day."

There was none of that drinking among fishermen now as there used to be formerly. You could find some in Flamborough "as liked their gla.s.s," but none to be called drunkards. There is a national school in the village; but not so well attended as it might be, and perhaps would be if they had a better schoolmaster. The people generally had pretty good health, which is possibly the occasion why the last two doctors, finding time hang heavy on their hands, drank themselves to death. There is, or rather was in July, 1857, an opening for a doctor in Flamborough.

The rain still fell heavily when we left our shelter, and it kept on till past midnight. Luckily the village was not a mile distant, and there I took a comfortable chair by the kitchen fire of _The Ship_. The landlord corroborated all that the fishermen had told me, with the reservation that he found it difficult to clear his room of tipplers on Sat.u.r.day night, although none could be set down as drunkards. At times he put on his clock ten minutes, to ensure a clearance before the Sunday morning, resolutely refusing to refill the gla.s.ses after twelve. The guests would go away growling out a vow never to return to such an inhospitable house; but not one kept the vow more than a fortnight.

When, nineteen years ago, he determined not to open his house on Sunday to any but strangers who might chance to arrive from a distance, the village thought itself scandalized, and the other public-houses predicted his ruin. They were, however, mistaken. _The Ship_ still flourishes; and the host and his family "find themselves none the worse for going to a place of worship, and keeping the house quiet one day in seven."

"Sometimes," he ended, "we don't think to fasten the front door when we go to bed; but it's all the same; n.o.body comes to disturb us." Which may be taken as an indication that honesty has not yet abandoned Flamborough.

CHAPTER IX.

Men's and Women's Wages--The Signal Tower--The pa.s.sing Fleet-- The Lighthouse--The Inland View--Cliff scenery--Outstretching Reefs--Selwick's Bay--Down to the Beach--Aspect of the Cliffs-- The Matron--Lessons in Pools--Caverns--The King and Queen-- Arched Promontories--The North Landing--The Herring-Fishers-- Pleasure Parties--Robin Lyth's Hole--Kirk Hole--View across little Denmark--Speeton--End of the Chalk--Walk to Filey.

A fresh, bright morning succeeded the stormy night, and it was but a few hours old when, after a look at the old Danish tower at the west of the village, I walked across the fields to the lighthouse. A woman trudging in the same direction with a hoe on her shoulder said, after I had asked her a few questions, she wished she were a man, for then she would get nine shillings a week and her meat, instead of one shilling a day and feeding herself, as at present. However, 'twas better than nothing.

Presently her daughter came up, a buxom maiden, wearing her bonnet in a way which saved her the affliction of shrugs and the trouble of tying.

It was front behind: a fashion which leaves no part of the head exposed, shelters the poll, and looks picturesque withal. It prevails, as I afterwards noticed, among the rustic la.s.ses everywhere.

As I pa.s.sed the old stone tower near the coast-guard station, the signal-man was busy raising and lowering his flag, for a numerous fleet of coasting-vessels was running by to the southward, each telling its name as it came within signal distance. The man sends a daily list of the names to London for publication, whereby coal-merchants and others hear of cargoes on the way, and calculate the time of their arrival. It is a peculiarity of Flamborough Head, an enlivening one, that ships can keep so close in that the men on their decks are distinctly seen, and their voices heard by one standing on the cliff.

The lighthouse, a circular white tower, eighty-two feet in height, stands on the verge of the cliff, displaying inside and out all that admirable order and cleanliness characteristic of British lighthouses.