as in the old time, alas!) and curled oat
meal-cakes. "We can see our blousy faces
in your polished pewter dishes. And we promise
ourselves some of the pendent oatmeal, with
your freshest butter, and clearest ale, before we
trust ourselves in the Valley of Desolation.

Ah! that is "jolly good ale, and old!" and
now for the Desolate Valley. We'll scud across
the meadows towards the grey ruins of Bolton
Abbey, under the shadow of the bare brown
mountain on our right, dotted with deep grey,
tumbled stones. Let us turn our back upon his
grace's shooting-box, built from the abbey ruins,
a thing to turn one's back upon, and dip our
fingers in the holy water cup that clings still to
the crumbling walls. Dead leaves lie in the
rain-water, and tint it with a deep yellow. Ay,
in this cup the shrivelled and plump fingers of
hooded monks have been dipped, as the reverend
gentlemen passed solemnly on their way to pray
for the dead boy of Egremond. Tumbled columns
all around, grass upon the altar steps. The
battle between ivy and lichen silently going on.
A most irregular burial-ground in the shadow of
the ruins; there the moss has grown into the
names of long-dead villagers and squires. With
the Wharfe, eddying and rushing and foaming
past, as it foamed when it held in its liquid coils
the corpse of the boy of Egremond, when the wail
of the childless Lady Adeliza just floated upon
the air, when the masons first turned the earth,
and lay the foundations of the abbey, that pious
men might chant near the river which had
drowned the boy! The very murmur that now
floats upon my ears under my wide-awake, beat
against the tympanum of disconsolate Lady
Adeliza, and will hold on, when over me lies
heavily a stone notched and green as this at
my feet, with moss in my name, and when the
worms have done their worst with the body of
which I am so careful, and to strengthen which
I am here at this moment.

How here and there the dead would speak to
us from the earth under our feet, printing their
words deep in the stones upon their bosoms!
George Demayne, who was laid here in 1797, is
still saying,

     Remember, you that do come nigh,
     As you are now, so once was I;
     As I am now, so may you be—
     Prepare yourselves to follow me.

But Time is almost even with him. Into the
"remember" he has poked enough moss, almost,
to obliterate it. A grey mould lies in patches
athwart George Demayne's name, which Time,
with his blurring finger, has smeared there, and
which is to eat into the syllables. The old man
has notched the stone also with his scythe, and
in other ways intends to show that he will have
the upper hand in this world always.

But we are yet more than a stone's throw
from the Valley of Desolation, as our red
Yorkshire coachman, who is waving his whip to us
from the road, high up the hill, would have us
bear in mind. Let us follow the boiling,
eddying, frolicsome Wharfe, where the willows
dip into its little waves; where sturdy rocks
peep above its tide, and defy the force of its
current; where overhanging banks of green
deepen the tints of its bosom, and cast dead
leaves upon it. Ay, through this dense wood,
between the hills, to the fatal Strid, or Stride.
Along paths winding round rocks covered with
a thousand mosses and cushioned upon a thousand
feathery ferns; where the branches of
overhanging trees must be pushed aside—where
to the right and left there are impenetrable
depths of green shade; treading upon damp,
dead leaves, that yield an indescribable—a
chilling fragrance. And all the leafy wilderness
alive with the songs of birds, the twittering of
insects in the underwood, the burr of the bees
seeking anemones. The splendid natural tracery
of embracing branches overhead, the ivy climbing
about the elms, and the moss gathering
upon the ivy, and the tiny beetles in the moss-
cups! Let us stare through spectacles, or peer
through the microscope, and still be glad in the
vast and varied harmonies of this abounding
nature. The roar of the foaming Strid breaks
through the dense and almost pathless wilderness
upon our ears. Begone, ruddy coachman!
and wait for us at the opening to the road.

Through the tangled branches we may notice
a white mist in the distance. This mist is from
the splashing Strid. It was there when the
drowning cry of the boy echoed through this
ancient forest. It was there when a poor gentle
girl stood upon the slippery rock, and the boiling
waters fascinated her giddy head, and she
cast herself into the torrent. We see the Strid,
with its vast coils of waters, gliding, like great
merciless serpents, round the tumbled rocks
to the narrow precipice. Very daintily tread
we the splendid confusion of rocks—here smooth
with the polish of the passing current, there
deeply bored by the sharp eddies, and there again
smeared with an olive slime—to the very edge of
the precipice, where stood the boy with his hound,
and thought the Stride narrow enough for a safe
jump—where stood the gentle, giddy girl. At
our feet a chaos of jarring, foaming waters,
roaring with the anger that has lasted a thousand
years. In these immortal rocks, some
"G. H. Leeds" has cut the initials by which his
vulgar soul is known—in these immortal rocks,
with the roaring Strid to contemplate, and the
echo of the boy's wail to be heard in the distant
woods!

True, this is a picnic place, where woollen
workers disport themselves, perched high above
us; where the trees shoot horizontally from the
hill is the moss-house—roof, walls, table, seats,
all green, soft moss. From this romantic
height spreads the broad valley to Bolton, with
the bold, bare, brown Arthur's Seat, dotted with
sheep, and ragged with grey rock that crops out
from its stony heart, shutting in the prospect.
Water is gurgling down the mountain sides in
all directions—now a silver thread, and now a
ferruginous, golden coil. An old postage stamp
lying upon the moss-table deadens to us the
echoes of the boy's voice; champagne corks,