CHAPTER XXIX.
A SHORT CHAPTER TO END WITH
Here, reader, we part company. The last day of July has come, and whatever may be my inclinations or yours, I must return to London, and report myself to-morrow morning at head-quarters. There will be time while on the way for a few parting words.
If the reading of my book stir you up to go and see Yorkshire with your own eyes and on your own legs, you will, I hope, be able to choose a centre of exploration. For the coast, Flamborough and Whitby would be convenient; for Teesdale, Barnard Castle; for Craven, with its mountains, caves, and scars, Settle; and for the dales, Kettlewell and Aysgarth. Ripon is a good starting-point for Wensleydale; and York, situate where the three Ridings meet, offers railway routes in all directions. My own route, as you have seen, was somewhat erratic, more so than you will perhaps approve; but it pleased me, and if a man cannot please himself while enjoying a holiday, when shall he?
A glance at the map will show you how large a portion of the county is here unnoticed; a portion large enough for another volume. The omissions are more obvious to you than to me, because I can fill them up mentally by recollections of what I saw during my first sojourn in Yorkshire. A month might be well spent in rambles and explorations in the north-west alone, along the border of Westmoreland; Knaresborough and the valley of the Nidd will generously repay a travel; Hallamshire, though soiled by Sheffield smoke, is full of delightful scenery; and if it will gratify you to see one of the prettiest country towns in England, go to Doncaster. And should you desire further information, as doubtless you will, read Professor Phillips’s Rivers, Mountains, and Sea Coast of Yorkshire—a book that takes you all through the length and breadth of the county. It tells you where to look for rare plants, where for fossils; reveals the geological history; glances lovingly at all the antiquities; and imparts all the information you are likely to want concerning the inhabitants, from the earliest times, the climate, and even the terrestrial magnetism. I am under great obligations to it, not only for its science and scholarship, but for the means it afforded me, combined with previous knowledge, of choosing a route.
As regards distances, my longest walk, as mentioned at the outset, was twenty-six miles; the next longest, from Brough to Hawes, twenty-two; and all the rest from fourteen to eighteen miles. Hence, in all the rambles, there is no risk of over-fatigue. I would insert a table of distances, were it not best that you should inquire for yourself when on the spot, and have a motive for talking to the folk on the way. As for the railways, buy your time-table in Yorkshire; it will enlighten you on some of the local peculiarities, and prove far more useful than the lumbering, much-perplexed Bradshaw.
Of course the Ordnance maps are the best and most complete; but considering that the sheets on the large scale, for Yorkshire alone, would far outweigh your knapsack, they are out of the question for a pedestrian. Failing these, you will find Walker’s maps—one for each Riding—sufficiently trustworthy, with the distances from town to town laid down along the lines of road, and convenient for the pocket withal.
Much has been said and written concerning the high cost of travelling in England as compared with the Continent, but is it really so? Experience has taught me that the reverse is the fact, and for an obvious reason—the much shorter distance to be travelled to the scene of your wanderings. In going to Switzerland, for example, there are seven hundred and fifty miles to Basel, before you begin to walk, and the outlay required for such a journey as that is not compensated by any trifling subsequent advantage, if such there be. Some folk travel as if they were always familiar with turtle and champagne at home, and therefore should not complain if they are made to pay for the distinction. But if you are content to go simply on your own merits, wishing nothing better than to enjoy a holiday, it is perfectly possible, while on foot, to travel for four-and-sixpence a day, sometimes even less. And think not that because you choose the public-house instead of the hotel you will suffer in regard to diet, or find any lack of comfort and cleanliness. The advantage in all these respects, as I know full well, is not unfrequently with the house of least pretension. Moreover, you are not looked on as a mere biped, come in to eat, drink, and sleep, by a waiter who claims his fee as a right; but a show of kindly feeling awaits you, and the lassie who ministers to your wants accepts your gift of a coin with demonstrations of thankfulness. And, again, the public-house shows you far more variety of unsophisticated life and character than you could ever hope to witness in an hotel. Certain friends of mine, newly-wedded, passed a portion of their honeymoon at the Jolly Herring at Penmaenmawr, with much more contentment to themselves than at the large hotels they afterwards visited in the Principality, and at one-half the cost.
The sum total of my walking amounts to three hundred and seventy-five miles. If you go down to Yorkshire, trusting, as I hope, to your own legs for most of your pleasure, you will perhaps outstrip me. At any rate, you will discover that travelling in England is not less enjoyable than on the Continent; maybe you will think it more so, especially if, instead of merely visiting one place after another, you really do travel. You require no ticket-of-leave in the shape of a passport from cowardly emperor or priest-ridden king, and may journey at will from county to county and parish to parish, finding something fresh and characteristic in each, and all the while with the consciousness that it is your own country:
“Our Birth-land this! around her shores roll ocean’s sounding waves;
Within her breast our fathers sleep in old heroic graves;
Our Heritage! with all her fame, her honour, heart, and pow’rs,
God’s gift to us—we love her well—she shall be ever ours.”