From John O'Groats to Land's End Part 67

_Sunday, November 19th._

Sir Matthew Hale was a member of Cromwell's Parliament and Lord Chief Justice of England in 1671. His "Golden Maxim" is famous:

A Sabbath well spent brings a week of content, And health for the toils of to-morrow; But a Sabbath profaned, whate'er may be gained, Is a certain forerunner of sorrow!

Anxious as we were to reach our home as soon as possible, our knowledge of Sir Matthew's maxim and of the Commandment "_Remember_ that thou keep holy the Sabbath Day," prevented us from travelling on Sunday.

Penzance is said to have a temperature cooler in summer and warmer in winter than any other town in Britain, and plants such as dracaenas, aloes, escollonia, fuchsias, and hydrangeas, grown under gla.s.s in winter elsewhere, flourished here in the open air, while palms or tree ferns grow to a wonderful height, quite impossible under similar conditions in our more northern lat.i.tude, where they would certainly be cut down by frost. We also noted that the forest trees were still fairly covered with autumnal leaves, but when we arrived home two days later similar trees were quite bare.

After a short walk we returned to the hotel for breakfast, over which we discussed the disappearance of our friend of yesterday, wondering what the business could be that had occupied his time for a whole week in the neighbourhood of Penzance, and why he should have an engagement on the Sunday "some miles in the country," when we could have done so well with his company ourselves. But as there seemed to be some mystery about his movements, we came to the conclusion that there must be a lady in the case, and so, as far as we were concerned, the matter ended.

We attended morning service in accordance with our usual custom, and listened to a sermon from a clergyman who took for his text the whole of the last chapter in the Book of Ecclesiastes, with special emphasis on the first word:

REMEMBER

Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.

He began by informing us that we had nearly arrived at the end of the religious year, and that the season of Advent, when the Church's new year would begin, was close at hand. He then pa.s.sed on to his text and began to describe the days of our youth. We listened intently as he took us by degrees from our youth up to old age and to the years when we might have to say we had no pleasure in them. He was a powerful preacher, and we almost felt ourselves growing older as we followed his references to each verse in the short chapter he had taken for his text.

Then he described the failure of the different organs of the human mind and body: the keepers of the house trembling; the strong men bowing their heads towards the earth to which they were hastening; the grinders, or teeth, ceasing because they were few; the eyes as if they were looking out of darkened windows; the ears stopped, as if they were listening to sounds outside doors that were shut; followed by the fears of that which was high "because man goeth to his long home"; and finally when the silver cord was loosed or the golden bowl broken, the dust returning to the earth as it was, and the spirit unto G.o.d Who made it!

We waited for the peroration of his fine sermon, which came with startling suddenness, like our accident yesterday, for he concluded abruptly with the following words:

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear G.o.d and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For G.o.d shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

My brother took shorthand notes of portions of the sermon for future reference, for we were both greatly impressed by what we had heard, and conversed about some of the points raised as we returned to the hotel.

Later in the day we attended the Wesleyan chapel, where we formed two units in a large congregation, as we had done in the far-off Wesleyan chapel of the Shetland Islands. Here again we appreciated the good service, including the fine congregational singing.

Early on Monday morning we started by train for home; but travelling by rail was much slower in those days, and although we journeyed the whole of the day and late into the night which followed, we did not reach our home at Thelwall until Tuesday, November 21st, at two o'clock in the morning, where we awoke the sleepers by singing "Home, Sweet Home"

beneath a bedroom window on the east side of Cuerden Hall, where we knew our father and mother would be waiting for us--as they are now, but in no earthly home.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ROCKERIES AT THELWALL.]

The news of our arrival soon spread through the surrounding country, where we were well known, and for a time we were lionised and visited by a host of friends, and our well-worn sticks, which at one time we thought of leaving in the sea at Land's End, were begged from us by intimate friends and treasured for many years by their new owners in the parish of Grappenhall.

Considerable interest had naturally been taken locally in our long walk, for we had been absent from our customary haunts for seventy-five days, having travelled by land and sea--apart from the actual walk from John o' Groat's to Land's End--a distance nearly a thousand miles. Everybody wanted to be told all about it, so I was compelled to give the information in the form of lectures, which were repeated in the course of many years in different parts of the country where aid for philanthropic purposes was required. The t.i.tle of the lecture I gave in the Cobden Hall at Hull on January 25th, 1883, was "My journey from John o' Groat's to Land's End, or 1,372 miles on foot," and the syllabus on that occasion was a curiosity, as it was worded as follows:

John O' Groat's House and how we got there--Flying visit to Orkney and Shetland--Crossing Pentland Firth in a sloop--Who was John o'

Groat?--What kind of a house did he live in?--A long sermon--The great castles--Up a lighthouse--The Maiden's Paps--Lost on the moors--Pictish towers--Eating Highland porridge--The Scotch la.s.sie and the English--A Sunday at Inverness--Loch Ness--The tale of the heads--Taken for shepherds--Fort William--Up Ben Nevis--The Devil's Staircase--Glencoe--A night in Glen-Orchy--Sunday at Dalmally--Military road--The Cobbler and his Wife--Inverary and the Duke of Argyle--Loch Lomond--Stirling Castle--Wallace's Monument--A bodyless church--Battle of Bannockburn-Linlithgow Palace--A Sunday in Edinburgh, and what I saw there--Roslyn Castle--Muckle-mouthed Meg--Abbotsford, the residence of Sir Walter Scott--Melrose Abbey--A would-not-be fellow-traveller--All night under the stairs--Lilliesleaf--Hawick--A stocking-maker's revenge--Langholm--Taken for beggars--In a distillery--A midnight adventure in the Border Land--A night at a coal-pit--Crossing the boundary--A cheer for old England--Longtown and its parish clerk--Hearing the bishop--Will you be married?--Our visit to Gretna-Green--Ramble through the Lake District--Sunday at Keswick--Furness Abbey--A week in the Big County--Stump Cross Cavern--Brimham rocks--Malham Cove--Fountains Abbey--The Devil's Arrows--Taken for highwaymen--Tessellated pavements--York Minster--Robin Hood and Little John--A Sunday at Castleton--Peveril of the Peak--The cave illuminated--My sore foot and the present of stones--March through Derbyshire--Lichfield Cathedral--John Wiclif--High Cross--A peep at Peeping Tom at Coventry--Leamington--Warwick Castle--Beauchamp chapel--In Shakespeare's House at Stratford-on-Avon--Inhospitable Kineton--All night in the cold--Banbury Cross--A Sunday at Oxford--March across Salisbury Plain--Stonehenge--Salisbury Cathedral--Where they make carpets--Exeter Cathedral--Bridport--Honiton--Dawlish--A Sunday at Torquay--Devonshire lanes--Totnes--Dartmouth--Plymouth and the Big Bridge--Our adventure with the 42nd Highlanders--Tramp across Dartmoor--Lost in the dark--Liskeard--Truro--Tramp through the land of the saints--St. Blazey--St. Michael's Mount--A Sunday at Penzance--Catching pilchards--The Logan Rock--Druidical remains--The last church--Wesley's Rock--Land's End--narrow escape--Home, sweet home--G.o.d save the Queen.

To this lengthy programme the secretary added the following footnote:

Mr. Naylor is probably one of the few men living, if not the only one, who has accomplished the feat of walking from one end of the kingdom to the other, without calling in the aid of any conveyance, or without crossing a single ferry, as his object was simply pleasure. His tour was not confined to the task of accomplishing the journey in the shortest possible time or distance, but as it embraced, to use his own words, "going where there was anything to be seen," his ramble led him to view some of the most picturesque spots in the kingdom.

After this lecture I wired my brother, "I only got as far as York." As he knew I had gone to Hull by train, he read the telegram to mean I had only been able to reach York that day, and he imagined how disappointed my friends in Hull would be when I did not arrive there in time to give the lecture. But he was relieved when he afterwards discovered that my wire referred to the lecture itself. He thought I had done well to get as far as York, for "John o' Groat's to Land's End" was much too large a subject to be dealt with in the course of a single lecture.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LAND'S END.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: [signature of] John Naylor]

IN MEMORIAM

Time plays many pranks with one's memory. The greatness of the journey is no longer with me, and my companion has been called away. But this much stands out clearly in my recollections: my brother was the leading spirit of the adventure--his was the genius which conceived it and it was his courage and perseverance which compelled us to keep on in spite of many difficulties.

I have now set out our peregrinations at length from the diaries we kept during the journey. The record, such as it is, I give to those who knew us as a tribute to his memory.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BEESTON TOWERS.]

JOHN NAYLOR.

BEESTON TOWERS, CHESHIRE, 1916.