a long chapter on the top of a tower. Let me end, therefore, while descending, with a scrap of etymology. Beaver lake, that is, the lake of floating islands, sacred to the Druids, is said by one learned scribe to be the origin of the name Beverley. Another finds it in the beavers that colonized the river Hull, with lea for a suffix, and point to an ancient seal, which represents St. John seated, resting his feet on a beaver. Did not the wise men of Camelford set up the figure of a camel on the top of their steeple, as a weathercock, because their river winds very much, and camel is the aboriginal British word for crooked? Other scholars trace Beverley through Bevorlac, back to Pedwarllech—the four stones.
And here, by way of finish, are a few lines from Athelstan’s charter:
“Yat witen all yat ever been
Yat yis charter heren and seen
Yat I ye King Athelstan
Has yaten and given to St. John
Of Beverlike yat sai you
Tol and theam yat wit ye now
Sok and sake over al yat land
Yat is given into his hand.”
CHAPTER VI
The Great Drain—The Carrs—Submerged Forest—River Hull—Tickton—Routh—Tippling Rustics—A Cooler for Combatants—The Blind Fiddler—The Improvised Song—The Donkey Races—Specimens of Yorkshiremen—Good Wages—A Peep at Cottage Life—Ways and Means—A Paragraph for Bachelors—Hornsea Mere—The Abbots’ Duel—Hornsea Church—The Marine Hotel.
About a mile from the town on the road to Hornsea, you cross one of the great Holderness drains, broad and deep enough for a canal, which, traversing the levels, falls into the sea at Barmston. It crosses the hollow lands known as ‘the Carrs,’ once an insalubrious region of swamp and water covering the remains of an ancient forest. So deep was the water, that boats went from Beverley to Frothingham, and some of the farmers found more profit in navigating to and fro with smuggled merchandise concealed under loads of hay and barley than in cultivating their farms. For years a large swannery existed among the islands, and the “king’s swanner” used to come down and hold his periodical courts. The number of submerged trees was almost incredible: pines sixty feet in length, intermingled with yew, alder, and other kinds, some standing as they grew, but the most leaning in all directions, or lying flat. Six hundred trees were taken from one field, and the labourers made good wages in digging them out at twopence a piece. Some of the wood was so sound that a speculator cut it up into walking sticks. Generally, the upper layer consists of about two feet of peat, and beneath this the trees were found densely packed to a depth of twenty feet, and below these traces were met with in places of a former surface: the bottom of the hollow formed by the slope from the coast on one side, from the wolds on the other, to which Holderness owes its name. The completion of the drainage works in 1835 produced a surprising change in the landscape; green fields succeeded to stagnant water; and the islands are now only discoverable by the ‘holm’ which terminates the name of some of the farms.
A little farther, and there is the river Hull, flowing clean and cheerful to the muddy Humber. Then comes Tickton, where, looking back from the swell in the road, you see a good sylvan picture—the towers of the minster rising grand and massy from what appears to be a great wood, backed by the dark undulations of the wolds.
In the public-house at Routh, where I stayed to dine on bread-and-cheese, the only fare procurable, I found a dozen rustics anticipating their tippling hours with noisy revelry. The one next whom I sat became immediately communicative and confidential, and, telling me they had had to turn out a quarrelsome companion, asked what was the best cure “for a lad as couldn’t get a sup o’ ale without wanting to fight.” I replied, that a pail of cold water poured down the back was a certain remedy; which so tickled his fancy that he rose and made it known to the others, with uproarious applause. For his own part he burst every minute into a wild laugh, repeating, with a chuckle, “A bucket o’ water!”
There was one, however, of thoughtful and somewhat melancholy countenance, who only smiled quietly, and sat looking apparently on the floor. “What’s the matter, Massey?” cried my neighbour.
“Nought. He’s a fool that’s no melancholy yance a day,” came the reply, in the words of a Yorkshire proverb.
“That’s you, Tom! Play us a tune, and I’ll dance.”
“Some folk never get the cradle straws off their breech,” came the ready retort with another proverb.
“Just like ’n,” said the other to me. “He’s the wittiest man you ever see: always ready to answer, be ’t squire or t’ parson, as soon as look at ’n. He gave a taste to Sir Clifford hisself not long ago. He can make songs and sing ’em just whenever he likes. I shouldn’t wunner if he’s making one now. He’s blind, ye see, and that makes ’n witty. We calls ’n Massey, but his name’s Mercer—Tom Mercer. Sing us a song, Tom!”
True enough. Nature having denied sight to him of the melancholy visage, made it up with a rough and ready wit, and ability to improvise a song apt to the occasion. He took his fiddle from the bag and attempted to replace a broken string; but the knot having slipped two or three times, three or four of his companions offered their aid. The operation was, however, too delicate for clumsy fingers swollen with beer and rum, and as they all failed, I stepped forward, took the fiddle in hand, and soon gave it back to the minstrel, who, after a few preliminary flourishes, interrupted by cries of “Now for ’t!” struck up a song. With a voice not unmusical, rhythm good, and rhyme passable, he rattled out a lively ditty on the incidents of the hour, introducing all his acquaintances by name, and with stinging comments on their peculiarities and weaknesses. The effect was heightened by his own grave demeanour, and the fixed grim smile on his face, while the others were kicking up their heels, and rolling off their seats with frantic laughter.
“Didn’t I tell ye so!” broke in my neighbour, as he winced a little under a shaft unusually keen from the singer’s quiver.
I was quite ready to praise the song, which, indeed, was remarkable. The cleverest ‘Ethiopian minstrel’ could not chant his ditty more fluently than that blind fiddler caught up all the telling points of the hour. He touched upon the one who had been turned out, and on my hydropathic prescription, and sundry circumstances which could only be understood by one on the spot. Without pause or hesitation, he produced a dozen stanzas, of which the last two may serve as a specimen:
“Rebecca sits a shellin’ peas, ye all may hear ’em pop:
She knows who’s comin’ with a cart: he won’t forget to stop:
And Frank, and Jem, and lazy Mat, got past the time to think,
With ginger-beer and rum have gone and muddled all their drink.
With a fol lol, riddle, liddle, lol, lol, lol!
“Here’s a genelman fro’ Lunnon; ’tis well that he cam’ doun;
If he’d no coom ye rantin’ lads would happen had no tune:
Ye fumbled at the fiddle-strings; he screwed ’em tight and strong;
Success to Lunnon then I say, and so here ends my song.
With a fol lol, riddle, liddle, lol, lol, lol!”
Lusty acclamations and a drink from every man’s jug rewarded the fiddler, and a vigorous cry was set up for “The Donkey Races,” another of his songs, which, as lazy Mat told me, “had been printed and sold by hundreds.” The blind man, nothing loth, rattled off a lively prelude, and sang his song with telling effect. The race was supposed to be run by donkeys from all the towns and villages of the neighbourhood: from Patrington, Hedon, Hull, Driffield, Beverley, and others, each possessed of a certain local peculiarity, the mention of which threw the company into ecstacies of merriment. And when the “donkey from York” was introduced along with his “sire Gravelcart” and his “dam Work,” two of the guests flumped from their chairs to laugh more at ease on the floor. The fiddler seemed to enjoy the effect of his music; but his grim smile took no relief; the twinkle of the