A Month in Yorkshire Part 6

There is no difficulty in obtaining admittance; you sign your name in a book, and are forthwith conducted up to the lantern by the chief or one of his aids. The light is revolving, alternately white and red, and can be seen at a distance of thirty miles. But here, elevated two hundred and fifty feet above the sea, you feel most interested in the prospect.

No "shadowy pomp of woods" arrests the eye looking landwards, but a region bleak and bare in aspect rolling away to the distant wolds, the line of uplands which, sweeping round, approaches the coast about Scarborough. The village with its windmill, and the few farms that are in sight, look naked and comfortless: not an inviting territory for an invader given to the picturesque. But seawards, and along the rugged front of the cliffs, grandeur and variety exert their charm. Here the up-piled chalk flings out a bold perpendicular b.u.t.tress, solid from base to summit; there the jutting ma.s.s is isolated by yawning cracks and chasms, and underneath, as we shall presently see, is fretted into fantastic shapes, pierced through and through, or worn into caverns by the headlong billows. In places a broken slope of rocky hummocks and patches of gra.s.s, weeds, and gravel descends, more or less abruptly, to the beach, opening a view of the long weed-blackened reefs that, stretching out from the Head, afford a measure of the amazing encroachments of the sea. Northwards, the bluff crowned by Scarborough Castle, backed by higher elevations, closes the view; to the south you have the low, fading coast of Holderness; and all the while brigs, ships, and schooners are sailing past, more than a hundred in sight, some of them so near that you fancy they will hardly escape the lurking points of the dark reef. One small vessel, the keeper told me, had touched the day before, and lay fast and helpless till, the weather being calm, she floated off by the succeeding tide. You can look down into Selwicks Bay, and see men and boys quarrying chalk, and donkeys laden with heavy panniers of the lumps, toiling painfully up the steep winding road which forms the only approach. The farther horn of the little bay is arched and tunnelled, and, taken with the waterfall plunging down in its rear and the imposing features of the points beyond, invites to further exploration.

The residents at the lighthouse enjoy an abundant supply of water from a spring within their enclosure: their garden produces cabbages and potatoes; the neighbours are friendly, and visitors numerous. Hence life is more cheerful to them than to the amphibious hermits who dwell at the Spurn.

While looking for a practicable descending-place, I noticed many tufts of thrift as thick with flowers as in an antiquated garden where the old favourites are still cherished.

"Even here hath Nature lavished hues, and scent, And melody; born handmaids of the ocean: The frowning crags, with moss and rock-flowers blent, Dazzle the eyes with sunlight, while the motion Of waves, the breezes fragrant from the sea, And cry of birds, combine one glorious symphony!"

The time--dead low water--being favourable for a stroll on the beach, I scrambled down a rough slope to the south of the lighthouse, and across the rougher beach to the rocks beyond the outmost point, where, turning round, I could view the cliffs in either direction. And a striking scene it is! A wild beach, as rugged with water-worn lumps of chalk as any lover of chaos could desire. Here the cliff jutting proudly, the white patches gleaming brightly where ma.s.ses of chalk have recently fallen, and the harder portions presenting a smooth, marble-like appearance; there receding into the shade, and terminating in darksome hollows, the mouths of gullies and caverns; and everywhere broken up with b.u.t.tresses, piers, and columnar projections, the bases of which are garnished with a belt of sh.e.l.ly incrustation, and a broad brown fringe of weed. Above, the white surface is varied by streaks and stains of yellow and green; and seafowl innumerable crowd on all the ledges, or wheel and dart in restless flight, as if proud to show their white wings to the sun.

The reef stretches out a quarter of a mile, as one may guess, worn here and there with channels narrow and deep, along which the water rolls with intermittent rush and roar, reminding the loiterer here in the slumberous July weather of tremendous energies lulled to repose. I walked round the Matron--an isolated pyramid of chalk--and patted her on the back; and strode from one little pool to another, taking an unscientific lesson in natural history while watching the animal and vegetable occupants, and those that seemed to be as much one as the other.

I picked up a fine specimen of the hermit crab, and proved the strength of local attachment: it would not be coaxed from its hermitage--the sh.e.l.l of a whelk. I saw a limpet give its sh.e.l.l half a rotation, then grow tall for an instant, and then shut itself snugly down upon the rock. At times, while I stood quite still, 'ninnyc.o.c.ks,' that is, young lobsters, would venture out from their crevices, and have a frolic in their weedy basin; but they would tolerate no intruder, and darted into undiscoverable retreats on my slightest movement. And the animated flowers that displayed their orange and crimson petals at the bottom of the basin were equally mistrustful, and shut themselves up if I did but put my hand in the water, even after they had looked on without winking at the gambols of the ninnyc.o.c.ks.

There are times when ignorance has a charm, and this was one of them.

How much happier to sit and watch a crowd of weeds, a very forest in miniature, tenanted by creeping things innumerable, and to have your faculty of wonder excited as well as admiration while observing them in full liberty, than to come prepared to call one an ascidian, another an entomostracan, and so on, and to a.s.sign to each its place in the phycological handbook, or the zoological catalogue!

In some of the smallest and deepest caverns which curve as they enter the cliff, you get effects of cross lights from their inner extremity, and see the glistening of the walls, which, worn smooth by the water, appear to be varnished. In all the floor rises more or less rapidly; and in one, a hundred paces deep, the rush and roar of the surge outside comes only as a gentle murmur, and a slow drip-drip from the crevices has an impressive sound there in the gloom where the entrance cannot be seen.

I took advantage of the opportunity, and explored most of the openings, catching sight now and then of belemnites and other curious fossils in the chalk, wading at times knee-deep in weed, and scrambled round the bays on each side of the point, and failed not to salute the venerable King and Queen.

Having rambled about till the rising tide began to cut off the way round the promontories, and the crabbers came in from their raid on the reefs, I climbed the rough slope, and paced away for the North Landing. Beyond Selwicks Bay the cliff is more broken and cut up into romantic coves and bays, with confused landslips here and there, and in places the green turf rushing half way down masks the chalk; and everywhere are thousands of birds, with their ceaseless cry and clang. Isolated ma.s.ses are numerous; and from one point I could count eight headlands, each pierced by an arch. And here the water, no longer stained with clay, shows green and bright along the base of the cliff, beautifully pellucid where it rolls over a bottom of chalk, contrasting strangely with darksome gulfs and broad beds of weed. And mingling with the cry of birds, there comes from time to time to your ear the noisy report of the guns, or the chant of the fishermen, as rocked on the swell, they sit watching their nets.

The North Landing is a gap similar to the South, but broader, and with an outlet wide enough to be described as a bay. Here I saw some sixty or eighty boats perched from top to bottom of the steep slope; and groups of fishermen with their families, men, women, and children, all busy with preparations for the herring fishery. While some sorted the nets, others lifted in big stones for ballast, or set up the masts, and others pushed their boats down to meet the tide, and all in high good humour; while all about there prevailed a strong fishy smell. And besides the fishermen, there were parties of young men with their guns embarking for a sporting cruise; some armed only with parasols and accompanied by ladies, setting off for a sail round the Head; for this is the chief port of Flamborough, and the _North Star_, a public-house at the top of the hill, is convenient for victual.

The advance of the tide prevented my seeing Robin Lyth's Hole, a cavern on the eastern side of the Landing; named, as some say, after a certain smuggler who kept his unlawful merchandise therein; or to commemorate the name of a man who was caught in the cavern by the tide, and saved his life by clinging to the topmost ledge till the water fell. Another cavern is known as the Dovecote; another as Kirk Hole, and of this the tradition runs that it extends far underground to the village churchyard.

I climbed up the western side of the gap, and continued my way along the cliffs, which maintain their elevation. Soon I came to the northern end of the Dike, a height of three hundred feet, and from the top beheld the whole territory of Little Denmark, and the sea all the way round to the lighthouse, and the southern end of the Dike. According to Professor Phillips, this remarkable bank was probably already in existence when the Danes landed: "perhaps earlier than the Anglian invasion," he says; "perhaps it is a British work, like many other of the entrenchments on these anciently peopled hills."

A mile farther, and the cliff rises to a height of more than four hundred feet. In some places the bank which encloses the fields is broad enough for a footpath; but you must beware of the landslips. The fences, which are troublesome to climb, project beyond the edge of the cliff to keep the cows, as an old farmer said, "from persevering after the gra.s.s and tumbling over." Then at Speeton the chalk turns inland away from the coast, and the cliff makes a deep hollow curve, chiefly gravel and dark blue clay, abounding in fossils. To avoid the curve, I zigzagged down to the beach; but was presently stopped by a point against which the waves were dashing breast high. I scrambled over it, and was struck by its curious appearance. It seemed to be a high clay b.u.t.tress, which had fallen perhaps within a few weeks, and was broken up into ma.s.ses of somewhat regular form, resembling big loaves, and the long gra.s.s that had once waved on the surface now looked like dishevelled thatch. It was an interesting example of the way in which the sea commences its ravages.

Farther on the cliffs diminish in height, and are furrowed by numerous streamlets, and the rugged, stony beach changes to smooth, yielding sand. Filey comes in sight, and Filey Brig, a long black bar stretching into the sea from the extreme point of the great bay, half concealed at times by a quivering ridge of foam. Then we pa.s.s from the East to the North Riding, and ere long we look up at Filey--a _Royal Hotel_, a crescent, and rows of handsome houses, coldish of aspect, a terrace protected by a paved slope, and gravelled paths and a stair for easy access to the beach. The terrace commands a view over the bay, and of the cliffs all the way to Flamborough.

CHAPTER X.

Old and New Filey--The Ravine--Filey Brig--Breaking Waves-- Ragged Cliffs--Prochronic Gravel--Gristhorp Bay--Insulated Column--Lofty Cliffs--Fossil Plants--Red Cliff--Cayton Bay--Up to the Road--Bare Prospect--Cromwell Hotel and Oliver's Mount-- Scarborough--The Esplanade--Watering-Place Phenomena--The Cliff Bridge--The Museum--The Spa--The Old Town--The Harbour--The Castle Rock--The Ancient Keep--The Prospect--Reminiscences: of Harold Hardrada; of Pembroke's Siege; of the Papists' Surprise; of George Fox; of Robin Hood--The One Artilleryman--Scarborough Newspapers--Cloughton--The Village Inn, and its Guests--Tudds and Pooads.

Here at Filey you begin to see a special characteristic of these sea-side resorts;--the contrast between the new and old--the nineteenth century looking proudly across a narrow debatable ground at the sixteenth and seventeenth, putting even still earlier periods out of countenance. Were it not for its churches, the olden time would on occasions be made to feel ashamed of itself.

A breezy commanding outlook in front; a large handsome church, with low square tower, in the rear; a few shops trying to reconcile themselves to the new order of things while supplying the wants of fifteen hundred inhabitants; more than a few true to the old order, and here and there behind the dim panes, eggs of sea-birds, and sh.e.l.ls, and marine stores, in the literal sense; and two or three quiet-looking, respectable inns, open to visitors whom the style of the _Royal Hotel_ intimidates; the new town on the south, and a wooded ravine on the north; and such is old Filey.

Into this ravine I descended from the church. Heavy rain had fallen nearly all night, and the paths were so sticky and slippery, that I wondered so pretty a spot, so capable with bushes and trees and a little brook of contributing to recreation, should not be better kept. There is no lack of material for solid paths in the neighbourhood; but judging from appearances the ravine gets none of it. The path follows the course of the brook, and brings you out upon a beach where fishing-boats, and nets, and lobster-pots, and heaps of ballast, and a smoky fire, and fishy refuse and a smell of tar, and st.u.r.dy men and women, make up divers pictures for the eye, and odours for the nostrils.

As, on approaching Flamborough, we saw the chalk begin to appear at the base of the cliff, so here we see a stratum of sandstone slanting up beneath the clay, rising higher towards the northern horn of the bay, and thence stretching out for three furlongs into the sea, forming the remarkable reef known as Filey Brig. Camden describes it as "a thin slip of land, such as the old English called File; from which the little village Filey takes its name." We may suppose that the cliff once projected as far, sheltering an indentation so deep that Ptolemy might well call it the _well-havened bay_; though on this particular there are different opinions among the learned. Even now, stripped of its cap of clay, the reef forms a natural breakwater, of which the effect is best seen in the quiet of the small vessels at anchor behind it.

I was fortunate in the time, for a strong north wind was blowing, and the great waves, checked in their career, dashed headlong against the stony barrier, and broke into little mountains of foam, bursting up here and there in tall white intermittent jets as from a geyser; here one solid surge tumbling over another, mingling with rush and roar in a wide drift of spume; there flinging up gauzy whiffs of spray as if mermaids in frolic were tossing their veils. So mighty were the shocks at times as to inspire a feeling of insecurity in one who stood watching the magnificent spectacle.

You can walk out to the end of the reef, and get good views of Scarborough, about six miles distant in one direction, and away to Flamborough on the other. The floor is generally level, interrupted in places by great steps, channels, and boles; and by huge blocks of many tons' weight scattered about, testifying mutely to the tremendous power of the sea.

It is a wild scene, and wilder beyond the point, where the whole beach is strewn with broken lumps, and ledge succeeds to ledge, now high, now low, compelling you to many an up-and-down, stooping under a rude cornice, or scrambling over a slippery ridge. In places the cliff overhangs threateningly, or, receding, forms an alcove where you may sit and feast your eye with the wondrous commotion, and your ear with the thundering chorus of many waters.

The upper stratum of clay is worn by the twofold action of rain and spray into singularly fantastic forms, and where it has been deeply excavated, there, kept in by the rim of stone, lies a salt-water pool so bright and pellucid that the temptation to bathe therein is irresistible. I thought to get round to Gristhorp Bay, but came presently to a recess where the breakers rushing half way up the cliff barred all further progress. To lean against the rocky wall and feel it throb with the shock within the shower of spray, produced an almost painful emotion; and it seemed to me that the more tumultuous the sea the better did it harmonize with a promontory so rugged and grim.

I retraced my steps to a stair that zigzags up the cliff on the inner side of the point. Near this certain visitors have cut their initials in the hard rock floor, of such dimensions that you can only imagine a day must have been spent in the task with mallet and chisel. Vain records!

The sea will wash them out some day. When on the summit I was struck more than before by the contrast between the rage and uproar on the outside of the ridge, and the comparative calm inside; nor was it easy to leave a view to which, apart from all the features of the sh.o.r.e, the restless sea added touches of the sublime, wherein wrought fascination.

And all the while men, looking like pigmies in the distance, were groping for crabs along each side of the far-stretching reef.

A little way north of the point a rustic pavilion standing in a naked garden indicates where the visitor will find a jutting b.u.t.tress whence to contemplate the scene below. More exposed on this side, the cliff is more cut up and broken in outline, jutting and receding in rugged ledges, and in every hollow rests one of those limpid pools, so calm and clear that you can see the creeping things moving between the patches of weed at the bottom. And the beach is thickly strewn with boulders of a size which perhaps represents the gravel of the "prochronic" era.

The elevation increases as we advance, and by-and-by looking round on Filey, we see how it lies at the mouth of a broad vale which it requires no great effort of imagination to believe may have been an estuary at some very remote period, near to the time

"When the Indian Ocean did the wanton play Mingling its billows with the Balticke sea, And the whole earth was water."

And far as you can see inland the prospect is bare, even to the distant hills and wolds which loom large and mountainous through the hazy atmosphere.

Now the cliff shows bands of colour--brown, gray, and ochre, and the lower half capped by a green slope forms a thick projecting plinth to the perpendicular wall above. Scarborough begins to be visible in detail, and soon we descend into Gristhorp Bay, where rough walking awaits us. At its northern extremity stands an insulated columnar ma.s.s, somewhat resembling the Cheesewring, on a rude pedestal shaped by the waves from the rocky layers. Situate about fifty yards from the point, it marks the wear of the cliff from which it has been detached, while the confused waste of rocks left bare by the ebb suggests ages of destruction prior to the appearance of the stubborn column.

The cliffs are of imposing height, nearly three hundred feet: a formidable bulwark. It is heavy walking along their base, but as compensation there are strata within reach in which you may find exhaustless deposits of fossil plants, giant ferns, and others. And so the beach continues round Red Cliff into Cayton Bay, where another chaos of boulders will try your feet and ability to pick your way. To vary the route, I turned up at Cayton Mill, past the large reservoir from which Scarborough is supplied with water, along the edge of the undercliff to the high road, leaving Carnelian Bay unvisited. At the hill-top you come suddenly upon a wide and striking prospect--a great sweep of hilly country on one hand, on the other the irregular margin of the cliffs all the way to the town, and a blue promontory far beyond the castle bluff, which marks our course for the morrow.

The road is good and the crops look hopeful; but the hedgerows are scanty and stunted, and not improved by the presence of a few miserable oaks; nor do the plantations which shelter the farm-houses and stingy orchards appear able to rejoice though summer be come. In some places, for want of better, the banks are topped by a hedge of furze. On the left of the road, long offshoots from the bleak uplands of the interior terminate with an abrupt slope, presenting the appearance of artificial mounds. Another rise, and there is Scarborough in full view, crowding close to the sh.o.r.e of its bay, terminated by the castle rock, the most striking feature. Bright, showy houses scattered on the south and west indicate the approaches to the fashionable quarter, and of those farthest from the sea you will not fail to notice the _Cromwell Hotel_--a new building in Swiss-like style of architecture, at the foot of Oliver's Mount. The Mount--so named from a tradition that the Protector planted his cannon there when besieging the castle--is another of those truncated offshoots, six hundred feet in height, and the summit, which is easily accessible and much visited, commands an interesting prospect. You see the tree-tops in the deep valley which divides the New Town from the Old, and rearwards, broken ground sprinkled with wood, imparting some touches of beauty to the western outskirts.

Then, turning to the right, you come upon a stately esplanade, and not without a feeling of surprise after a few days' walking by yourself. For here all is life, gaiety, and fashion. Long rows of handsome houses, of clean, light-coloured sandstone, with glittering windows and ornamental balconies, all looking out on the broad, heaving sea. In front, from end to end, stretches a well-kept road, where seats, fixed at frequent intervals, afford a pleasurable resting-place; and from this a great slope descends to the beach, all embowered with trees and shrubs, through which here and there you get a glimpse of a gravelled path or the domed roof of a summer-house. And there, two hundred feet below, is the Spa--a castellated building protected by a sea-wall, within which a broad road slopes gently to the sands. You see visitors descending through the grove for their morning draught of the mineral water, or a.s.sisting the effect by a 'const.i.tutional' on the promenade beneath; while hundreds besides stroll on the sands, where troops of children under the charge of nursemaids dig holes with little wooden spades. And here on the esplanade elegant pony barouches, driven by natty little postilions, are starting every few minutes from the aristocratic looking hotel to air gay parties of squires and dames around the neighbourhood.

And turning again to the beach, there you see rows of bathing-machines gay with green and red stripes, standing near the opening of the valley, and now and then one starts at a slow pace laden with bathers to meet the rising tide. And beyond these the piers stretch out, and the harbour is crowded with masts, and two steamers rock at their moorings, waiting for 'excursionists:' the whole backed by the houses of the Old Town rising picturesquely one above the other, and crowning the castle heights.

Nearly an hour pa.s.sed before I left that agreeable resting-place, whence you get the best view of Scarborough and its environment. Of all the strollers I saw none go beyond what appeared to be a conventional limit; Nature without art was perhaps too fatiguing for them. In the whole of my walk along the coast, I met but two, and they were young men, who had ventured a few miles from head-quarters for a real walk on the cliffs.

A bridge, four hundred feet long and seventy-five high, offers a level crossing for foot pa.s.sengers from the esplanade to the opposite side of the deep valley above mentioned, on payment of a toll. It is at once ornamental and convenient, saving the toil of a steep ascent and descent, and combining the advantage of an observatory. From the centre you get a complete view of the bay, one which the eye rests on with pleasure, though you will hardly agree with a medical author, that it is a "Bay of Naples." In the other direction, you look up the wooded valley, and down upon the Museum, a Doric rotunda, built by the members of the Scarborough Philosophical Society, for the preservation of geological specimens. The contents are admirably cla.s.sified, rocks and fossils in their natural order; amid them rests the skeleton of an ancient British chief; and near the entrance you may see the clumsy oak coffin in which it was found, about twenty-five years ago, in a barrow at Gristhorp.

Descend into the valley, and you will find pleasure in the sight of the bridge, and miles of water seen through the light and graceful arches.

Then take a walk along the sands, and look up at the leafy slope, crowned by the esplanade, and you will commend the enterprise which converted an ugly clay cliff into a hanging wood. And enterprise is not to stop here: Sir Joseph Paxton, as I heard, has been consulted about the capabilities of the cliff to the south. Some residents, however, think that Scarborough is already overdone.

In a small court within the Spa you may see the health-giving waters flowing from two mouths, known from their position as North Well and South Well. The stream is constant, and, after all the wants of the establishment are supplied, runs across the sand to the sea. The water has a flavour of rusty iron and salt, differing in the two wells, although they are but a few feet apart; and the drinkers find it beneficial in cases of chronic debility and indigestion with their remorseless allies.

The contrast is more marked between New and Old than at Filey. There is, however, a good, respectable look about the streets of the Old Town, and signs of solid business, notwithstanding the collections of knick-knackery and inharmonious plate-gla.s.s. From the broad main street you descend by a narrow crooked street--from old through oldest to the harbour, where old anchors, old boats, old beams and b.u.t.tresses dispute possession with the builders of new boats, who make the place noisy with their hammering. Here as a Yorkshireman would say, were a.s.sembled all the 'ragabash' of Scarborough, to judge by what they said and did. Boys and men were fishing from the pier-head under the lighthouse, watched by grizzly old mariners, who appeared to have nothing better to do than to sit in the sun; children paddled in the foamy shallows of the heavy breakers; carts rumbled slowly to and from the coal brigs, followed by stout fellows carrying baskets of fish; a sight which might have shamed the dissolute throng into something like industry.

Enclosed by the three piers which form the harbour stands a detached pile of masonry, seemingly an ancient breakwater--all weather-beaten, weedy, and gra.s.s-grown, with joints widely gaping, looking as if it had stood there ever since Leland's day--a remarkable object amid the stir of trade and modern constructions, but quite in harmony with the old pantile-roofed houses that shut in the port. Among these you note touches of the picturesque; and your eye singles out the gables as reminiscences of the style which, more than any other, satisfies its desire.

But let us go and look down on the scene from the castle rock. The ascent is steep, yet rich in recompense. St. Mary's church, near the summit, and the fragments of old walls standing amidst the graves, remind us of its former dimensions, and of the demolitions it suffered during the siege. And there rises in ma.s.sive strength, to a height of ninety feet, a remnant of the castle keep--an imposing ruin full before us, as we cross the drawbridge, pa.s.s under the barbican, and along the covered way, to the inner court. But the court is a large, rough pasture, fenced on the north and east, where the cliff is bare and perpendicular, and towards the town shut in by a range of old wall, pierced by a few embrasures, some low buildings, and the remains of an ancient chapel. There is no picturesque a.s.semblage of ruins; but little indeed besides the shattered keep, and that appears to best effect from without. Near the chapel, Our Lady's Well, a spring famous from time immemorial, bubbles silently up in a darksome vault.

Northwards the view extends along the rugged coast to the Peak, a lofty point that looks down on Robin Hood's Bay, and to hazy elevations beyond Whitby. To get a sight of the town you must return to the barbican, where you can step up on the wall and securely enjoy a bird's-eye view: from the row of cannon which crown the precipice sheer down to the port and away to the Spa, all lies outspread before the curious eye.

A great height, as we have already proved, appears to be favourable to musing, especially when the sun shines bright. And here there is much to muse about. Harold Hardrada, when on his way to defeat and death at Stamford Brig, landed here, and climbing the "Scarburg" with his wild sea-rovers, lit a huge bonfire, and tossed the blazing logs over the cliff down upon the town beneath. The burg, or fortress, was replaced in the reign of Stephen by a castle, which, renewed by Henry II., became one of the most important strongholds of the kingdom. Piers Gavestone defended it vigorously against the Earl of Pembroke, but was starved into a surrender, with what result we all know. The Roman Catholics attempted it during their Pilgrimage of Grace, but were beaten off. In 1554, however, when Queen Mary was trying to accomplish the Pilgrims'

work, a son of Lord Stafford and thirty confederates, all disguised as rustics, sauntered unsuspected into the outer court, where on a sudden they surprised the sentries, and immediately admitting a reserve party carrying concealed arms, they made themselves masters of the place. The success of this surprise is said to have given rise to the adage "Scarborough warning; a word and a blow, and the blow first." But after three days the Earl of Westmoreland regained possession, and Mr.

Stafford underwent the same sharp discipline as befel Edward the Second's favourite. At length came the struggle between Prerogative and People, and in the triumph of the right the castle was well-nigh demolished; and since then, time and tempest have done the rest.