WALKS AND TALKS WITH ENGLISH PEASANTS.
I.
A Yorkshire Dale.
(Golden Hours, 1872.)
"And he had trudged through Yorkshire dales,
Among the rocks and winding scars;
Where deep and low the hamlets lie,
Beneath their little patch of sky
And little lot of stars."—Wordsworth.
In the wild sublimity of its mountain cradle, and the romantic beauty of its falls, the Swale need not fear comparison with its sisters, the Ure and the Greta.
Shut in by two long ranges of opposing cliffs, rising at times to the altitude of nearly 2000 feet, Swaledale has preserved longer than elsewhere the interesting and often valuable customs of the fore-elders. The ancient town of Richmond, at the entrance to the dale, is its only direct communication with the outer world. To go north, or south, or west, the dalesmen must traverse precipitous and lonely roads, across lofty fells, or wild illimitable moors. Thus shut in, they acquire that stay-at-home character, than which nothing so strengthens local idiosyncracy. At the present day there are people in the dale who have never even gone so far from their homes as Richmond.
"They know no other torrent
Than that which waters with its silver current
Their native meadows; and that very earth
Shall give them burial which first gave them birth."
The only public conveyance in the dale is the carrier's cart,
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