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CHAPTER X.

ANOTHER fine May morning dawned upon old Antwerp,—hot, bright, and cloudless again.  It was Whit-Sunday, too,—a great Catholic festival, and chimes and booming calls to prayer rang out from the steeples of the city on all sides.

    There was a Sunday feeling on everything; but the hum of Antwerp was not so much subdued, as it was changed in character.  The bustle of week-day business was succeeded by the bustle of a holiday, in which some of the milder features of a country fair were visible here and there.  The rattle of carts had left the streets; but the square in front of the hotel swarmed with people in their best clothes; the restaurants were all open, and the chairs and tables under the white awnings, in front of them, were filled with gay-looking occupants, drinking in a mild way, and smoking a good deal.  The favourite drink seemed to be the light, brisk Bavarian beer, which is not very intoxicating.  The crowd was altogether sober, and orderly, and cheery-looking; their behaviour to one another was marked by natural politeness; and their attentions to strangers were courteous.  In such a mixed crowd, in England, we should meet with a good deal of studied supercilious stolidity, or else with downright rudeness.  Altogether the scene in the square of Antwerp on that bright May day,—although touched with something of human cheerfulness,—contrasts favourably with the gin-shop and ale-house scenes in our own English cities on a Sunday.  As to the observance of the Sabbath,—Belgium is a Catholic country, and the Roman Catholic religion does not interfere so much with the use of Sunday as other religions do.  A mild religious observance of the fore part of the day seems to be all that it really exacts,—after forenoon mass the people seem to be left to do very much as they like, either in the shape of work or play.

    Entering the breakfast-room of the hotel, about nine o'clock, we found "Camomile " and Sam up in a corner, the centre of a knot of admiring waiters.  One of these waiters, who could speak a little English, had been making excuses for "Camomile's" extraordinary efforts, by saying that "the gentleman could not be expected to understand Belgian, as he was a foreigner."  This happened just as we were entering the room.

    "Me a foreigner!" exclaimed "Camomile," as we walked in; "me a foreigner!  Nought o'th sort!  I'm an Englishman!  It's thee at's a foreigner, mon! . . . .  Doesto yer that, Sam?  He says I'm a foreigner!  Me!  An Englishman,—an' born i' Lancashire, too!  I'm noan beawn to ston that, noather;" and then, seeing us enter the room, he cried out, "Heigh!  Done yo yer this?  He says I'm a foreigner!  I co' that a good un!  An' me born i' Englan', too!  By the mass, I've met wi' nought else but foreigners sin' I coom to this country!  I say, just tell 'em wheer I come fro', wi'n yo!  They talken nought but French here—childer an' o'."

    After breakfast we entered the Cathedral.  High mass had just began; and, certainly, the scene altogether was solemnly striking.  The great nave of the Cathedral was crowded with rapt devotees; and the glittering altar, all rich in flowers and jewels, where a crowd of priests, in gorgeous robes, were performing the ancient, imposing ceremonial of high mass, was the centre point of every eye.  The vast interior of that grand old building, with its wonderful cross-lights; the glittering altars, and shrines, and side-chapels; the stolid priests; the clouds of incense; the silver bells, tinkling weirdly in the silence of the rapt multitude; the grand bursts of sacred music from the choir; the awful associations crowding upon the mind,—altogether it was a scene not to be forgotten.  When the service was over, we lingered awhile amongst a crowd, gazing on the two great master-pieces by Rubens,—the "Descent from the Cross," and the "Elevation of the Cross;" and many of the people crossed themselves before the pictures as before the great symbolic altars of their faith.

    We lingered about an hour in the Cathedral, after service was over, gazing at the grand old pictures, and wandering from chapel to chapel, and from altar to altar, amongst a company of other sauntering sight-seers; and when we came forth into the blazing sunshine again, we found the scene gradually becoming more and more lively.  The company in the square was fast increasing,—especially at the little tables, under the awnings, in front of the restaurant.  The majority of these had been to high mass; and many of them had evidently come from a long distance.  The varied costumes of the crowd,—amongst which there was a great variety of smart-looking soldiers in different styles of uniform,—gave a picturesque appearance to the scene.

    The service had been a long one; it was dinnertime with the church-goers; and the thoughts of men,—especially those who had tramped in through the dusty sunshine from the outlying country,—were returning to the flesh-pots.  And yet, in spite of the increasing crowd, all was clean, and remarkably orderly, and sweet-looking,—and one could feel that it was Sunday still.  Black-robed priests, in a kind of glossy-black cocked hat and buckled shoes, were flitting to and fro; and old people and quiet-looking women were wending homeward with prayer-books in their hands, and children by their sides, or timidly taking their seats at the al fresco tables.  Here and there some antique style of dress,—especially of head-dress,—came wandering through the more modern crowd, like a figure from some mediæval picture, which was very striking.

    As we sat there, under the awning, there came lounging across the square, a sturdy, brown-faced, simple-looking country lass, girt about by her five stalwart brothers, all strong-built, hardy lads, and as tanned as gipsies.  It was evident, at a glance, that they were the girl's brothers, and that they came from the green country, and were workers in the land.  That girl's head-dress was the most singular thing of the kind I met with.  It was a kind of crown, of open, twisted, gilt wire, with large ornaments of the same kind hanging below the ears.  Nobody seemed to take any notice of the thing but ourselves; but if that girl had appeared in the open streets of Manchester, she would have been followed about by thousands, as if she had been a barbarian queen.

    Amongst other things that came by, there was a funeral, reminding one, in the midst of the lively scene, that it is "all change here,"—as they say at the railway stations.  The coffin was borne in a kind of hammock, slung by poles upon men's shoulders, and was thickly strewn with flowers.  A company of young people walked in front of the body, with flowers in their hands, and as the procession went slowly along the street, the mourners broke out, by fits, into a low, plaintive song.

    We spent the last two hours of our stay in Antwerp in the square.  At five o'clock in the afternoon we left the hotel to catch the train to Cologne, just as the strains of a fiddle struck up in front of one of the restaurants near the Cathedral.

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CHAPTER XI.

THE chimes of Antwerp softened upon the ear in silvery cadence as we rode away to the station for Cologne.  The sun was still high in the heavens; there was not a breath of air stirring; and we were glad to creep into the shade of the railway carriages, though they were as hot as bakers' ovens.

    The first place of importance on our route was the ancient city of Malines, which is about fourteen miles beyond Antwerp; or, as the guidebook vaguely says, "22 to 40 minutes,"—as if they were not sure of the distance, and were very doubtful about the punctuality of the trains.  And I found it the same all through our journey; the distances between place and place were not often distinctly given, but generally indicated, in a slipshod way, by time, as,—"Railway from Brussels to Louvain, in 2¼ to 3 hours."

    It was a few minutes past five in the afternoon when we rolled away from Antwerp into the green country beyond.  "Camomile" and Sam were in the next carriage, all alone, gazing dreamily through the windows, and crooning—

    And now began my first real peep at a foreign land.  The whole country between Antwerp and Malines was one fertile level of well cultured land.  The farm-houses were good, and well-built; and everything connected with them seemed in good and orderly condition.  Again and again, as we travelled on, the country reminded me of the rich plains of Middle England,—the same careful farming, the same smiling fertility was visible everywhere.

The peasants, too, hanging about the red-tiled farm-houses, or lounging near the line, were hardy, and healthy-looking, and well dressed; and although it was "good Sunday," as we say in England, I saw a company of them practising archery in a field near the railway.

    Pleasant, and English-looking as the landscape was, there are some things which, by their absence, continually reminded me that I was not in my own land.  In the first place, there were no fine old trees in sight; the trees were all slim, and young.  In the second place, there were no song-birds; not one chirp of feathered minstrelsy could I hear, aloft or aloes.  In England, on such a day, the lark would have been up in the dazzling sunshine, raining his matchless carol down upon the listening world; and on every hedge, and in every grove, from shady bush, and swinging bough, the blended lyrics of wandering choirs would have rung out in fitful bursts of unpremeditated glee, like " tipsy jollity, that reels with tossing head."  But all was silent in this wide green landscape,—silent as a church when service is over.  Another thing which I noticed in the open country as we went along, was the utter absence of green hedges.  The beautiful old hedge-rows and shady green lanes of England,—there is nothing of the same kind in this Belgian land.  How comes it that they are not here; and how comes it that we have them in England?  Probably they originated in England, in the Saxon period,—when the land was divided into small holdings,—before the great Norman lords came swooping down upon the soil.

    Forty minutes run along this great green level,—with here and there a substantial farmstead; here and there a windmill; and here and there the steeple of a village church, to break the fertile sameness of the scene,—brought us to the town of Malines. . . . At Malines, we are a quarter of a mile from the town; and, therefore we see nothing of it,—not even the top of the tower of its famous cathedral; although that is 320 feet high.

    Malines is one of the most celebrated cathedral towns of Belgium; it is a town of "broad and regular streets, handsome squares, and fine buildings;" and yet it is a dull, sleepy place, totally deserted by the trade, which gives life to most of the great towns of Belgium.  The allusion to Malines in the old monkish rhyme, in which the place is spoken of as "Mechlinia stultis," or "Malines for fools," was perhaps first suggested in 1551, when the magistrates protested against the then projected canal from Antwerp passing near the town; and were successful.  The same policy was pursued by the authorities of the place in the case of the canal from to Louvain two centuries later; when again they succeeding in impoverishing the place.  And lastly, when the present railway was constructed, the corporation refused to allow the station to be built within the walls.  "Mechlinia stultis," says the old monkish rhyme; but, the same kind of folly is not wholly unknown in practical England.  However, I did not see Malines, and therefore I shall say no more about it, except that it is a fine old town, with a noble cathedral, "imposing, and worthy of its archiepiscopal dignity," as the guidebook says; and that its lace,—the famous Mechlin lace,—disputes the palm with the lace of Brussels; and that its churches are adorned with many fine pictures, the finest of which is an alter-piece by Van Dyck.

    The guide-book warns travellers to beware of the changes at this station, and well it may.  It says, "the convenience of those who have to change carriages is not much consulted here, as the passenger frequently alights in the midst of a sea of rails, at a considerable distance from the salle d'attente, and may easily mistake the trains."  And we found this to be quite true.  The shuntings, and the shoutings, and the sidings, and the cross-lines, and the shiftings to and fro, were quite bewildering; and we were not surprised to learn that the lines at this station had proved "the ribs of death" to many a confused wanderer.

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CHAPTER XII.

AS we drew away from the shade of Maline's station, the cathedral tower rose into sight,—grey monarch of all the verdant plain; and we caught sight of the outskirts of the old town, now shrunken within the circuit of its ancient walls,—like the mouldy kernel of a shrivelled nut.  The landscape looked gloriously rich, as far as we could see in the dazzling sunshine.  Away we went, through the same wide, smiling level of well-cultured, thinly-wooded land,—crossed, here and there, with good roads, seemingly well travelled.  Away we went, past the same substantial farm-houses, and clustering cottages, with their plots of orchard and garden about them; past little nest-like villages, with their grey church towers peeping up above the surrounding red-tiled roofs; and past little companies of clean-looking, healthy, Sunday-clad peasants, lounging by the line, or halting in their field-rambles to watch us go by.  Our line crossed the river Dyle; and for a distance of about two miles, it ran hard by the Antwerp-Louvain Canal, upon which pleasure boats were plying, filled with holiday folk.  This fine canal is one that the magistrates of Malines would not have near their sacred rookery.  The banks of the canal, as far as I saw it,—that is about two miles,—were lined with tall trees.

    Forty minutes run from Malines brought us to the ancient town of Louvain,—"Louvain for learning," as the old monkish rhyme says.  Here again, the line only skirts the town, and we see very little of the place beyond the railway station, and the raw-looking modern utilities thereunto belonging.  Louvain is not only famous for learning; they now brew a peculiar kind of beer there, which is highly esteemed by many of the Belgians,—but I understand that the rest of the world doesn't think it nice.  The name of Louvain comes from Loo, a wooded height, and veen, a marsh.  It is a walled town of about 34,000 inhabitants; and there is now within the walls,—"a world too wide for its shrunk shanks,"—a great deal of arable land, which once was covered with people.  In the fourteenth century, when it was the capital of Brabant, and the residence of the Dukes, it was a much more opulent and populous place than now.  Belgium was an industrial land in those days; and its artizans were a bold, turbulent, and liberty-loving people,—as their frequent insurrections sufficiently evinced.  But, even then, Louvain was one of the most flourishing seats of the woollen trade in all the land; and it is said to have contained no less than two thousand cloth manufactories,—which, when we think of the cloth manufactories of to-day, one can hardly understand.  However, between the nobles, and the workmen, and their employers, this healthy source of its ancient prosperity was fooled away for ever; and the woollen trade of Louvain flitted to the West Riding of Yorkshire, and other parts of the world,—to return no more.

    The weavers of Louvain seem to have been as rough as the roughest in Belgium; and, like their brethren of Ghent and Bruges, they were exceedingly jealous of the nobles in their civic administration.  "During an insurrection in 1378, thirteen magistrates of noble family were thrown from the window of the Hotel de Ville, and received by the populace below on the points of their spears."  Such things as these inevitably bring reprisals, sooner or later, as it was in this case.  The power of the nobles soon rose into dominance again; and their tyranny became such that thousands of the workmen of Louvain emigrated to England, where, wisely encouraged by the king, they gave rise to our cloth manufactories in different parts of the kingdom.  Since that time Louvain has declined; and it is now a lifeless place, chiefly famous for its ancient Town Hall,—"a very rich and beautiful example of late Gothic architecture,"—said to surpass all the town halls of Belgium in elegance and harmony of design, built in 1448-63; for its fine old churches, rich in Flemish pictures; for its ancient Cloth Hall, erected as a warehouse for the Cloth-makers' Guild, in 1317; and its University, founded in 1426, which in the "sixteenth century was reckoned the most famous in Europe,—hence the old proverb, "Louvain for learning."  The number of students, then, is said to have been more than 6,000.  It is now exclusively ecclesiastical in character; and is attended by 1,000 students.

    Another run of about thirty minutes brings us to the town of Tirlemont, another decayed old place, of about 12,000 inhabitants, left, now, like a poor fish, feebly flapping its tail upon a moist bank, from which the sea has retired.  Like Louvain, and many other ancient towns of Belgium, it was a much more important place centuries ago than it is now.  Here, too, as in the case of Louvain, the walls, nearly six miles in circuit, enclose a good deal of arable land; and the inhabitants roll about within that wide environment, like a handful of peas in a ten-gallon barrel.

    Two or three minutes stay at Tirlemont, and on we go.  We now begin to leave the great green plain behind; and the landscape becomes picturesquely undulant.  A quarter of an hour or so, and we are at the ancient village of Landen.  On our way from Tirlemont to Landen we cross the battle-plain of Neerwinden, where the French, under Marshal Luxembourg, defeated William III., of England, in 1693; and where the French, under Dumouriez and Louis Philippe (then General Egalité) were defeated by the Austrians and driven out of Belgium.  The whole country here, stretching far away on both sides of the line, is sprinkled with names that remind one of battle and bloodshed,—Maestricht, Liége, Namur, Wavre, Brussels, Waterloo, and many others, of like memory.  In all directions, the land has been trampled by contending hosts, and steeped in the red rain of war, for centuries gone by.

    Landen is historically interesting as the birth-place of Pepin, the major-domo of the royal domains of the Frankish king, Clotaire II.  Pepin lies buried at the foot of a hill which yet bears his name.  His fifth lineal descendant was,—Charlemagne.

    Leaving Landen, village after village flits by,—with their red tiles, and orchards, and gardens,—and the hues of the smiling rural landscape deepen in beauty as the sun declines.  About thirty minutes' run, and we are at Ans, —where the aspect of the scene changes considerably.  Here we seem suddenly to leave rural life behind, and enter upon a land of industrial enterprise,—coal mines, foundries, machine-shops, and manufactories of different kinds,—and shale, and cinders, and sooty rubbish lie about, here and there, reminding one of the iron districts of England.

    Ans is 490 feet above the city of Liége, of which place it may almost be called a suburb.  We are now in the country of the Walloons,—a people of Celtic origin,—who are still reckoned a distinct race among the surrounding Belgians.  From Ans the line descends a steep incline, affording a fine view of the famous city of Liége,—which lies all under the eye,—and of the beautiful valley of the Meuse, all thronged with life and business.

    Of Liége, where we called on our return journey, I shall something further on.  We had some time to wait at the station; and we were glad to leave the hot carriages, and stretch our legs a little.  "Camomile" and Sam, too, got out from their carriage, with three others who had been their companions on the way.  The three latter were evidently native Belgians and as they walked away, one of the three was still talking and gesticulating in an excited manner.  "Camomile" and Sam stood together, quietly watching the three Belgians as they left the platform.

    "Yon's a jumped-up camplin' whelp o' somebry's," said Camomile.

    "He's raither fast-gaited, for sure," replied Sam.

    "He's an ill-contrive't pousement, an' nought else," continued "Camomile."

    "Who is he?" said Sam.

    "Nay, I know nought who he is, now what he is, nor where he comes fro',— nor where he's gooin' to; but,—if I've ony skill o' butcher's meight,—he's a boilin'-piece, an' noan so fresh, noather.  If he'd said hauve as mich to me as he's said to yon chap i'th blue shirt, I'd ha' set him one on,—an' I towd him so."

    "Why, what did he say?"

    "Nay; I know nought what it wur about; but I never yerd a bit o' feawer talk slatter't off the edge of a mortal lip nor yon craitur coom out wi'!"

    "He wur raither peeort, for sure."

    "Peeort!  He'll ha' to come to his cake an' milk afore aught's long,—as who lives to see it,—mark my words!"

    "He wants takkin' down a peg or two."

    "Takkin' down!  I could like th' job! . . . I towd him that he'd no business to come away fro whoam bi his-sel'. . . . Here; come wi' me.  I could like to have a bit of a do wi' yon chap.  He snapped at me once or twice when we were i'th railway carriage."

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CHAPTER XIII.

IT was about an hour past sunset when, with eyes riveted upon the landscape before us, we left the Station des Guillemins, at Liége, on our way to Colonge.

    The sky was cloudless, and the air was clear.  Twilight was beginning to "remove from sight day's mutable distinctions," and, as its mystic influence deepened upon the scene, a strange spell of beauty stole over the ancient city of Liége, and the lovely valley in which it lies, folded from view all round by the green historic hills.  The rising moon, too, had begun to tinge the declining light with her romantic radiance, as we rolled away into the country where the renown of Charlemagne lingers like a charm upon every hill and dale.

    It took us nearly two hours to reach Herbestal, the first station upon the Prussian frontier,—but those two hours were delightfully spent; for the whole country between Liege and that place is remarkable for its picturesque beauty, its ever-varying charms of hill and dale, and wood and water,—its prosperous villages, and busy manufactories,—its pleasant modern mansions, and its ancient castles, and churches, and places of great historic interest.  As we rolled along in the moonlight, I felt, again and again, as if I might have been riding through Derbyshire, upon the Midland route.  The line frequently crosses a picturesque winding stream, called the Vesdre; and, here and there, on each side of our way, its moonlit waters gleamed up far till lost in the receding shades of beautiful little wooded glens.  I do not wonder that Baedeker says, "This is the most beautiful part of the journey between England and Germany, and should, if possible, be performed by daylight."

    On our way to the Prussian frontier, we passed several places of interest, of which, of course, we caught no more than moonlight glimpses as we flew by, or when we lingered a few minutes at the station.  The first of these was Chaufontaine, a beautiful little watering place, much frequented by the citizens of Liége.  The next station is Pepinster, or "Pepin's terra," "the country of Pepin," the famous ancestor of the still more famous Charlemagne.  Leaving this, we passed by a little town, or village, hard by the line, where every window was illuminated, in celebration of some festival of the church.  Our next halting-place was the town of Verviers.  This was the last station on the Belgian side.  Verviers is a busy place, of about 33,312 inhabitants.  It is entirely of modern origin; and it consists almost entirely of extensive cloth manufactories and their dependencies.  Upwards of 350,000 pieces are annually manufactured here; and the uniforms of the Belgian army are made of cloth manufactured in this town,—whose active prosperity seems to revive something of the ancient fame of Belgium as a cloth country.

    Beyond Verviers, the train runs through seven tunnels, and crosses several bridges, in a short distance.  And now, in the strong moonlight, we flitted along, through a country rich in historic romance; and the picturesque features of the scene,—though only caught in flying glimpses,—kept us awake all the way.

    Dolbain is a village, picturesquely situated in the valley of the Vesdre, in full view from the line.  On the height above Dolbain stands the Castle of Limburg, the ancestral seat of the ancient ducal family of Limburg, "from which the Counts of Luxembourg, and the German Emperors Henry VII., Charles IV., Wenceslaus, and Sigismund were descended.  The castle belonged to the ancient capital of the fertile Duchy of Limburg, of which but few traces now remain.  The city possessed a cathedral and five other churches,, and occupied the entire breadth of the valley of Dolbain."  Such was the ancient city of Limburg.  But, "wild war's deadly blast" swept over the populous valley, and Limburg has now almost entirely disappeared.  "In 1288 it was sacked by Duke John I. of Brabant, after the battle of Worringen; it was subsequently captured and pillaged, at different periods, by the Dutch, the Spaniards, and the French; and was at length entirely destroyed by Louis the Fourteenth, in 1675."  The moon shines now, on its ruined fortifications; but nature has taken back most of the site of the ancient city into her arms again.

    A few minutes' run from this spot brings us to Herbestal,— the first station beyond the frontier.  Here the Prussian blue rises up before us like a wall, and we are entering upon a land where all the world seems to be in training for war.  We are detained at this station by the custom-house formalities; but the authorities are very civil and not very inquisitive; and there is a rough sort of a refreshment room, half filled with soldiers, where we get a draught of Bavarian beer, whilst the luggage is being examined.  At this place, too, I met with a rough-looking fellow who was as drunk as an Englishman.  We had prevented him leaping from the carriage, when the train began to slacken on its approach to Herbestal,—for which service he rewarded us with a burst of impassioned eloquence, in an unknown tongue.  At the station he was walked off by a file of soldiers, because he couldn't find his ticket.  He bade us farewell with gleaming eyes.

    Leaving Herbestal, we pass Assenet, Troutzen, and the castle of Walkenhausen,—we cross the valley of the Geul, by a fine viaduct 128 feet high,—we rush out of the moonlight into a tunnel about 600 feet long; and after that into another tunnel, nearly three times as long; and finally, as we descend an incline, the ancient city of Aix-la-Chapelle lies all before us, under the bright moonlight, in a fertile valley, surrounded by gently-sloping hills.  We gaze eagerly upon the long lines of lighted streets, and the moonlit towers of this famous city,—the Aquisgranum of the Romans; the favourite residence of Charlemagne,—his birth-place; and the place of his burial.  By him, Aix-la-Chapelle was elevated to the rank of the second city in the empire, and the capital of his dominions north of the Alps.  From his death down to the accession of Ferdinand I., in 1531, it was the scene of the coronation of all the German Emperors, thirty-seven in number,—and was called, par excellence, the Free City of the Holy Roman Empire, and seat of Royalty.  The insignia of empire were preserved here till 1793, when they were transferred to the Imperial treasury at Vienna.

    From the windows of our carriage we were gazing down upon the far-stretching lights of the venerable imperial city, and regretting that we could not linger there a little while, when "Camomile" looked in, and cried out,—"Heigh!  I say!  Isn't this Axley Chapel?"  We gave him the name; whereupon, turning round to his friend Sam, he said, "Now, then; didn't I tell tho!"

    From Aix-la-Chapelle to Cologne the line passes through a country which, though picturesque in natural features, is now chiefly remarkable for its valuable mines of zinc, lead, silver, and coal; and for its large foundries and other manufactories.  The whole country, and every little busy town we passed in the moonlight, reminded me of manufacturing England; and as we approached the manufacturing town of Duren, the ironworks, close by the railway, reminded me very strongly of the great ironworks upon the line between Manchester and Bolton.

    It was nearly midnight when we reached the stately old city of Cologne, where we took up our quarters at the Hotel du Nord, near the Cathedral.

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CHAPTER XIV.

THE Rhine at last!

    It was midnight when, wearied with our long, hot, exciting journey, we arrived at Cologne, on the left bank of the grand old German Rhine!  The moonlight, shining fitfully through straggling clouds, fell with weird effect upon the grey towers, and amongst the antique houses, as we stepped out from the station; and, as we made our way through the quaint streets of the sleeping town, the whole thing was like a mediæval dream.

    We took up our quarters at the Hotel du Nord; and there, hard by the famous Cathedral, within a stone's throw of the Rhine, and surrounded by the moonlit wonders of stately old "Cologne of the Three Kings," we slept without rocking, under the protection of St. Gregory and St. Gereon, the patron saints of the city, and near the sacred relics of English St. Ursula and her eleven thousand martyred virgins.  Although impressed with a sense of the historic fame of the spot we were upon, we climbed the wide staircase of the hotel slowly and with weary eyes that night.  Everything we saw was handsome, and clean, and in good order; and, on our way along the lobby, I saw printed cards, here and there against the wall,—"Wagen im Gasthofe" and "Kalte u. warme Bäder."  In our bedrooms, however, we found, as usual, that there was neither soap nor candles; and we had to ring and give a special order for these luxuries.  With this exception, all else was very good and very clean; and one excellent thing was that in every bedroom a card of the tariff at the hotel was hung up.

    The Hotel du Nord is a handsome pile of buildings, quadrangular in form, the central court of which is occupied by gardens and green-bordered walks, amongst which there are two pretty fountains,--a cool, quiet, and altogether delightful retreat from the glaring sun outside, or from the bustle of the hotel.  This central garden looked beautiful in the moonlight, seen from the windows of our bedrooms that night.  The night was sultry again; and throwing open the folding windows, I fell sound asleep, lulled by the tinkling fountains in the court below.

    The next morning was Whit-Monday,—a great festival of the Catholic Church.  The principal theme of our conversation at breakfast was the glorious old Cathedral, which was not more than five hundred yards from the room in which we were sitting.  We found that grand high mass was to be celebrated in the Cathedral that forenoon by the Archbishop and a crowd of attendant clergy, with all the pomp of the Roman Catholic ritual.

    After breakfast, we sallied forth into the fresh, sunny morning; and there, at the head of our street, upon a gentle eminence, looking down upon the broad Rhine, and all round upon the ancient city, the far-famed "Dom," or Cathedral of Cologne, stood before us.  I have seen almost all the cathedrals of England, and certainly the finest of them, but this is the grandest pile I ever beheld, and I do not wonder that it is reckoned as "probably the most magnificent Gothic edifice in the world."  In the ninth century an episcopal church occupied the site of this noble fane.  The present Cathedral was founded in 1248, by Conrad, of Hochenstaden.  Snowe, in his "Legends of the Rhine," says of it, "Sorrow seizes the heart of every spectator who looks upon that unfinished, but still glorious structure, the Cathedral of Cologne.  It is only a fragment; but it is such a fragment as the strength and intellect of the Titans of old might have reared for their primeval worship. [Note]  There are many stories told of its origin and progress; but the fact of the architect's name who planned it being altogether unknown, and even the circumstance of its remaining unfinished through a long series of superstitious ages, are as singular and strange as anything said of it in fiction."

    It wanted an hour to service-time; and we hovered about that marvellous Cathedral of Cologne, as if spell-bound by its solemn and majestic beauty.  Retreating, again and again, so as to take in all the glorious sight before us, we hovered about the front of the west façade—with its huge towers, its vast central window, and its grand portal,—spelling out the features of ancient saints and kings, and watching the dawn and ravens, as they flitted noisily about the richly-sculptured pile, or perched here and there upon the brows of time-worn apostles.  In the meantime all Cologne seemed to be slowly streaming in at the entrance doors; and that venerable temple seemed as if it could hold all Cologne.  The dimensions of the building may give the reader some idea of its importance as a mass; but nothing, except itself, can tell its beauty.  Its length is 511 feet—which is the intended height of the towers, when finished; its breadth is 235 feet; its walls are 150 feet high; and the height of the roof is 201 feet.  Its numerous shrines and chapels are singularly rich in gold, and silver, and all kinds of precious jewels; and they abound in holy relics, and in the bones of kings, and saints, and emperors of the olden time.  Amongst these is the celebrated shrine in which are preserved the bones of "The Magi," or "Three Kings."  The treasures of this shrine are said to be worth six millions of francs.  Behind this shrine lies buried the heart of Mary of Medicis.  But there is no room here to speak of the antique wonders of this famous church, the design of which has never yet been wrought out.  Upon the unfinished southern tower, an immense crane, which had stood there for four hundred years, was removed in 1868; and it seems that there is now some hope of the completion of the building.  At last, its hour of glory is nigh!

    As the time drew near for the beginning of the service, the crowds at the entrances increased; and we went in, expecting to find a crush; but, in spite of the immense number present, there was still ample space in that vast nave, the pavement of which was worn into hollows by the footing of many generations of devotees.  The area of the interior is 7,399 square yards.  The great choir was already filled with a standing crowd.  We took up our station in the nave; and the scene before us was singularly impressive.  We were far away from the high altar; and, only now and then, between the heads of the intervening crowd, could we catch a glimpse of the officiating priests; but the clouds of incense, the chanting of the priests, the tinkling of silver bells, and the grand bursts of sacred music from the choir in the transept deepened the effect of that imposing scene.  In the stillness which immediately preceded the commencement of the service, I had time to notice the grand, honest, hardy, German faces, as they came surging in at the doors; but, amongst them all, the most striking was one little compact company of nine persons,—dusty, wayworn, simple country pilgrims, who had been travelling since break of day—they were evidently all of one family, father, mother, sister, and six brothers, all embrowned with farm labour.  They came trailing shyly into the church like so many Chaldean shepherds; and when they came to the centre of the spacious nave, in front of the distant altar, they dropt at once upon their knees in attitudes of profound devotion.  In spite of all prejudices, that kneeling group was a touching sight.

    At the close of the service, whilst we were lingering again before the west front of the Cathedral, the Archbishop and his attendants came forth at the grand portal; and, as they crossed the sunlit square, the simple folk in his way dropt down upon their knees, and received his blessing as he hurried by.  After this we chartered an open conveyance, and rode about the quaint streets for nearly two hours.  It was a festival of the Church; and everywhere we found the people making holiday.  Many of the streets were strewn with greenery,—chiefly small branches of pine, and in all directions, as we went slowly along between the winding lines of ancient houses, we met with banners, and shrines, and relics, and candles ready for illumination when night came on.  We visited some of the most remarkable of the city's ancient churches; and whether it was the singular fineness of the weather, or that our route led through the sweetest parts of the city, we certainly found Cologne as clean as it was singularly quaint,—in spite of its reputation as the home of a villainous congregation of pestilential odours.

    About five in the afternoon we were on board the steamer bound up the Rhine from Cologne to Mayence.

 
Note: Since the time of my trip "Up the Rhine," the Cathedral of Cologne has been completed under the auspices of William, Emperor of Germany.—E. W.

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CHAPTER XV.

THE glowing day was far spent when we turned our backs upon grey Cologne of the Three Kings, with its regal memories of old Rome; its wild legends of the middle ages; its knights, and its saints, and its scents, and its grand old churches; the camp of Marcus Agrippa; the city whose streets have resounded the tramp of Trajan's legions; the city where Vitellius and Sylvanus were proclaimed emperors, and where the latter met his death.  There it stands,—the hoary relic, so quaint and stately,—two thousand years old,—reminding us strongly of the worst and the best in times gone by.

    A few minutes' walk, in and out, between the antique houses, brought us to the river side, where we stepped on board the "King William," bound for Mayence, more than a hundred miles up the stream.  We were afloat, at last, on the broad bosom of the Rhine; and, as the steamer churned away through the sunlit waters, the towers of Cologne rose more and more proudly into sight.  The evening was grandly sunny and still.  The great river came down by the city in majestic flow; and our progress against the current was slow.

    For the first twenty miles the Rhine winds in and out between low, sandy banks and wide green plains, with, here and there, an ancient village clinging lovingly to the water side.  With the exception of these old village clusters, the appearance of the country in this first twenty miles, as seen from the steamer, reminds one of the banks of the Humber, between the mouth of the river Ouse and Hull.  It presents scarcely any of those features which have made "the haunted regions of the Rhine" so famous in song and story,—save where some mouldering tower, upon the bank of the stream, peers up from the antique dwellings that nestle around it, and carries the mind away into the realms of romance.  Of course we were prepared for the comparative tameness of this first twenty miles; and yet we were intensely interested in all around; for we felt that we were in a charmed land,—we were upon the legendary Rhine,—the darling river of the old Teuton race,—one of the most romantic streams in all the world, both in its natural features, and in its history; and, as we paced the deck of the "King William," all eye and ear, we gazed ahead, now and then, to catch a glimpse of the famous "Seven Mountains."

    On we went, up the famous stream, gliding slowly by one little grey town after another, close by the water, or peeping up from the green level beyond,—Rodenkirchen, Westhofen, Porz, Lulsdorf, Neider Cassel, and Rheid,—where the light green of the young vine leaf was beginning to gladden all the land,—on we went, passing, here, a great raft of timber on its way seaward, there, the mouth of a tributary river, and there, a quiet green island, till we came in sight of the ancient city of Bonn,—now chiefly famous for its University, established by the King of Prussia in 1818.  Bonn, like many other of these ancient settlements on the banks of the Rhine, owes its origin to the Romans,—who have left the print of their martial feet all over this romantic region.  The city lies upon the right bank of the river, as we go up.  We could see into its old-fashioned streets as we went by; and what we saw made us regret that we could not linger there awhile.

    Bonn was one of the first fortresses built by the Romans upon the Rhine.  It is mentioned by Tacitus as "Castra Bonnensia;" and was the spot where Claudius Civilis, the rebel leader of the Batavi, was defeated by the Romans, A.D. 70.  About the middle of the fourth century it was destroyed by the Alemanni.  In 1268, the Electors of Cologne removed their court to Bonn from Cologne, the citizens of which had expelled them.  This shows that, before that time, Bonn had again become a place of great importance.  After that, the ancient city suffered its share, age after age, from the contending hosts which over-ran that part of Europe with restless war.

    Bonn is full of interest for the archæologist and the historian.  Its chief buildings are the University,—a "huge building nearly a quarter of a mile long,"—and the Minster, a fine building, surmounted by five towers, the tops of which are visible from the deck of the steamer, as we ascend the Rhine.  From Bonn upwards, for a hundred miles, every step we go leads us farther into a paradise of the senses,—a perfect dreamland of historic romance,—a land crowded with the recollections of famous races of men and of great events, century after century, backward into the prehistoric time, where imagination wanders in the mist,—a land where the rambling vine clothes every hill-side with richness and with beauty; where every mountain-top and every wild crag is crowned with hoary memorials of the past and where "the shapes, and sounds, and shifting elements" of nature lend their aid to deepen the grandeur that dwells upon the scene.

    As we ascend the Rhine from Bonn, river after river leaps down through shady receding glens to feed the mighty stream; tower after tower, spire after spire, flit by, mouldering and ivy-clad; one ancient city after another clustering thick upon the water-side; wild mountain steeps, "hung with the bushes of the bending vine;" and craggy peaks, crested with ragged ruins of feudal power; green islands, sleeping in the midst of the rushing river; and little grey villages, bulging and decrepit, and laving their aged feet in the water,—such sights as these flit by in quick succession as we go; and we feel that we are trailing our way through the ancient records of mankind in their most interesting form and that the whole romance of the far-stretching land seems to have crowded to the banks of this famous stream, as if drawn thither by an irresistible spell.

    Long before we reached Bonn, the "Seven Mountains" had begun to sail into sight.  My first view of them did not impress me so much as their renown had led me to expect.  They,—or rather, the foremost of them,—stand upon the left bank, as we ascend the river; about five miles above the city of Bonn.  With this group of mountains the characteristic glories of the Rhine scenery commence; the most romantic part of the river being between these mountains and the old town of Bingen, about a hundred miles up the stream.  The highest of the "Seven Mountains" is Delberg, which is 1,532 feet; but the most interesting, and the most striking, in appearance and position, is the famous Drachenfels, or "Dragon Rock"—Byron's "castled crag of Drachenfels,"—whose precipitous rocks rise boldly from the water side; and whose wild peaks are crested with the ragged ruins of some robber's nest of the middle ages.  There is a world of romance connected with the "Seven Mountains," and with Rolandseck, on the opposite side of the stream.  Upon the Drachenfels is the ancient quarry called "Dombruch," from which the stones were originally taken to build the Cathedral of Cologne, there, too, is shown the Cave of the Dragon, from whence comes its name, "The Dragon Rock,"—the dragon killed by the "horned Siegfried," the hero of the Niebelungen lay,—who, having bathed himself in its blood, became invulnerable.  The "Dragon's Cave" is clearly visible from the Rhine, about half-way up, among the vineyards; and the wine yielded by these craggy slopes is known by the name of Drachenblut, or Dragon's blood.  And now,—although

I can easily believe that he who wishes to see the "Seven Mountains" well, must wander a while amongst their solitary intervening valleys; he must climb their vine-clad steeps, and muse among their lonely ruins in all tempers of sun and shade; and, lastly, he must see them from the craggy top of the Drachenfels, which commands one of the finest views upon all the Rhine—

The tops of these mountains are all, more or less, crowned with the ruins of the ancient castles of the Archbishops of Cologne, or with the ruins of monastic establishments.  Amongst the woods upon the wild peak of Lowenburg, there still remain extensive ruins of an ancient castle, "which was once the scene of the conferences of Hermann, Elector of Cologne and Count of Wied, with the reformers Melanchthon and Bucer, before he became a convert to Protestantism in 1541.  Here, too, in the troublous times of 1583, Elector Gebhard resided with his wife, the beautiful Countess Agnes von Mansfeld, whom he had abducted from the convent of Gerresheim."

    Upon the bank of the river, opposite the Drachenfels, the wild ruins of Rolandseck occupy the craggy peak of a basaltic rock, 347 feet above the level of the Rhine.  The castle of Rolandseck is said to have been built by Roland, peer of France and paladin of Charlemagne, who fell at the battle of Roncesvalles.

    On a beautiful island in front of Rolandseck, called Rolandswerth or Nonnenswerth, half-shrouded from sight by trees, stands an extensive nunnery, of ancient origin.  This part of the Rhine,—with the Drachenfels on one bank, and Rolandseck upon the other, and with the beautiful monastic island of Rolandswerth in the stream between,—is a rare combination of wild natural beauty, and of romantic interest.  The ruin of Rolandseck receives its name from a tradition that Roland, the famous nephew of Charlemagne, chose this spot, because it commanded a view of the island convent, "within whose walls his betrothed bride had taken the veil upon hearing a false report of his having fallen at Roncesvalles."  He lived there a lonely hermit, for many years, according to the legend, which is said to have suggested Schiller's beautiful ballad, "The Knight of Toggenburg:"—

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CHAPTER XVI.

OUR view of the Seven Mountains, as we went up the river from Cologne, was not so striking as was the retrospect when we were leaving them behind,—so much depends upon position, and upon the state of the atmosphere, and upon all those things which make up what painters call "effect."  Looking back from the deck of the steamer, the Drachenfels,—which is the foremost of the Seven Mountains, rising almost sheer from the river side,—came into full view, from its base to the topmost storm-worn stone of the shattered fortress upon its summit.  The evening was beautifully clear and calm.  We could distinctly see a company of holiday folk wandering in and out among the ruined walls that crest the crag.  From our point of view the precipitous scar below the ruin was a fearful steep to look upon.

    For four or five miles after passing the Drachenfels, the scene we were leaving behind grew more and more beautiful.  On one side of the river was the lofty wooded rock of Rolandseck, peaked with its shattered tower,—the lordless home of the bold Roland, "who fought at Roncesvalles" a thousand years ago; on the opposite side, the craggy steep of the Drachenfels, with its castellated ruin jutting into the sky, and behind this, the entire range of the Seven Mountains, peak after peak, each differing in height and form from the rest,—each bearing its own ruined memorials of ages long gone by,—and each the home of some special historic legend,—these were all more or less in sight now, tipped, here and there, with the glory of the setting sun.  Below these, and now sinking into the soft shade of approaching twilight, the grand old solemn Rhine came silently down between Rolandseck and the wild steep of the Drachenfels; and there, in the midst of the river, lay sleeping the haunted convent isle of Nonnenwerth, —a little umbrageous paradise, shut out from the rest of the world by the wizard stream, and the storied mountains that gather around.  These were all in sight at once; and they made up a picture from which we were taken away too soon.  We had now fairly entered upon the characteristic glories of the Rhine, where

Our "silent highway" led through an enchanted land,—through scenery of wild natural beauty, and of the most romantic historic interest.

    The tender green of the young vine-leaf was beginning to gladden the rugged slopes on all sides; and there was a holiday tone about every spot in which the life of man clustered on the banks of the mighty stream.  As we passed the village of Rhonsdorf, the signs of holiday were visible among its quaint houses; and amongst our passengers upon the steamer there were several brown-faced country folk wandering about with wreaths of ivy upon their hats.  They were making holiday, too,—for it was Whit-Monday; and yet, with all this holiday-making, wherever we went, from Cologne up to Mayence, we met with no drunkenness; which made one think a little about Whit-Monday in England,—Whit-Monday in Manchester,—at Knott Mill,—at Belle Vue,—and elsewhere.

    On we went, "with our beards upon our shoulders," as the Spanish proverb says,—on we went, still looking back to the beautiful scene that we were leaving.  On we went till the spires of Unkel, rising upon the left bank of the river, drew our attention ahead.  Opposite to Unkel, upon the right bank, stretched "those wondrous basaltic columns which extend to the middle of the river, and when the Rhine runs low you may see them like an engulphed city beneath the waves."

    We have hardly-passed Unkel before a bold curve in the river brings us in sight of Remagen, grey old Remagen,—a venerable-looking little town, close by the water side.  It is more than likely that, before the time of the Roman occupation, the Teuton race had a fortified settlement on that spot; but, apart from that, Remagen is the Roman Rigomagus.  A milestone bearing the date 162, found in 1763, records that the Roman road which formerly passed here was begun under the Emperors M. Aurelius and L. Verus.

    We never lost sight of the ruin-crested mountains on our way from Cologne to Mayence; we no sooner leave one ancient town or village behind, than another is in sight; and we feel, all the way, that the most famous races of mankind have contended for mastery upon ancient town of Remagen stands the village of Erpel, near the shores of this mighty stream.  Almost opposite to the which rises the "Erpeler Lei," an immense basaltic cliff, 642 feet high.  The quarries of this cliff find employment for a great number of barges upon the Rhine,—some of which we met descending the river.

    On we went, all eye for the continually-changing features of the scenery, passing Kasbach and Linzerhausen, over-frowned by the grey ruin of Ockenfels, till we came to the old town of Linz,—which formerly belonged to the Electorate of Cologne.  Linz is still "a walled town."   "The environs of Linz yield good red wine, and during the vintage, the little town is a busy scene." So says the chronicle.  And I can believe it, for it lies in the heart of a paradise; and it looked a quaint and pleasant rural nest, seen from the deck of our steamer in passing.

    Near Linz we met with immense rafts, heavily laden with timber, slowly descending the stream.  Wooden houses were built, here and there, upon these rafts as substantial as if they were intended to last for a lifetime.  Upon these rafts, too, women were hanging clothes upon lines to dry; culinary utensils lay about the doors of the wooden houses; and, here and there, men were at play, or lying about, at full length, smoking.  It was a dreamily-beautiful scene.

    The day was stilling down.  We could see the white hawthorn blossoms, here and there, upon the banks of the river, and the nightingale's song rose loud and clear in the quiet air, from the woods on all sides.  Although the wild mountain tops still reflected the lingering splendour of the sunken sun, all below was sinking into shade.  The grey gloaming was drawing his soft veil over the scene; the mysterious hush of night was stealing on; and the fine glamour of the hour deepened around us, as we laboured up the weird Rhine, between storied mountains with ruins crowned, and passing one sleepy old town after another, all softly draped in the mystic evening shade, till we came to Hammerstein.

    Burg-Hammerstein, or Ober-Hammerstein, is an ancient village, close by the river side, upon the left bank.  Near the village rises a massive rock, upon whose summit stand the wild ruins of Hammerstein, dreaming of the proud days of its past strength, when the banners of the Spaniard and the Swede alternately waved from its walls; and when its halls and courts resounded the tread of warriors who fought for and against the great Wallenstein, in the Thirty Years' War.

    Hammerstein, whose two towers still rise proudly from its massive ruins, has been the home of emperors centuries ago.  At Hammerstein the Emperor Henry IV, resided for some time when persecuted by his son, Henry V., and here he kept the imperial insignia till their removal by his usurping successor.  During the Thirty Years' War the castle was successively occupied by Swedes, Spaniards, troops of Cologne, and troops of Lorraine; and was finally demolished in 1660.  For the last two centuries it has been a roofless ruin,—the home of the raven and the owl,—open to the winds and rain,— a proud relic of the times gone by, still mouldering gloomily grand, like a stranded wreck upon the mighty rock.

    Opposite to Hammerstein, as we ploughed our way upward in the dusky shade, still attended by the nightingale's song, which rose loud and clear from the green woods, first on one side, then on the other, in liquid fits of respondent melody, we could see the wooded villages of Namedy and Fornich, where lights were now beginning to glimmer, here and there, through the shrouding trees.  Behind these in still more dreamy shade, rose the dark rock of Kreuzborner Ley, and the wild mountains that overlook romantic Brohl.

    From Hammerstein we glided on, in the deepening twilight, passing village after village, and raft after raft, till a sudden bend of the river brought us in sight of the lights of grey Andernach,—the oldest town upon the Rhine.

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CHAPTER XVII.

THE lights of Andernach were glimmering dimly ahead, on the right bank of the river, and the scene behind us was gliding into shade.  As we ploughed our way upward in the deepening twilight, between vine-clad slopes with hoary ruins crowned, the last tinge of evening's after-glow died out upon the solemn stream, and all the world seemed stilling down to rest.  The scent of flowers and the fitful song of the nightingale filled all the air from shore to shore; and when we glanced back at the imperial ruin where

the wild pile looked grander than ever in the shrouding shade.

    By the time we had reached Andernach night was upon us.  The moon was rising, and here and there in the chequered sky a patch of stars twinkled, like golden dew-drops on little fields of blue, between the flying clouds.  Except the nightingale, whose liquid warble rose, loud and clear, now here, now there, from the woods ashore, all living things seemed to have sunk to rest; and now the river seemed to begin its ancient night song to the dusky hours, "imposing silence with a stilly sound."  "By the straggling moonbeams' misty light" we caught a glimpse of Andernach in passing; grey Andernach, which is reckoned "the oldest town upon the Rhine."

    Andernach again awakes the memories of ancient Roman rule.  It was called by the Romans Antonacum, and originated in one of the camps of Drusus.  It is chiefly famous for its excellent millstones; and these millstones must have been known to the Romans, for several of them have been turned up amongst the Roman ruins in Britain; and they were called "Rhenish millstones" by Latin authors.  We saw little of Andernach in passing, except that it was a quaint little town, with a curious old watch-tower standing close by the waterside.

    Pursuing our way, we pass the town of Neuwied, with its industrious community of Moravian Brothers, whose grave manners and simple life have gained for them the name of "The Quakers of Germany,"—we pass Wessenthorne, or "White Tower,"—so called from the watch-tower built there by the Electors of Treves, to mark the boundary of their domains,—we pass Engers, a little village as old as the time of the Roman occupation,—we pass Mulhofen, a village at the mouth of the river Sayn, a romantic stream, which empties itself into the Rhine at this point,—we pass Bendorf, and Vallender, and the island village of Niederworth, with its ancient convent where our own Edward III. sojourned for some time, and where he was visited by the Emperor Louis and other princes,—we pass the villages of Mallendar and Wallersheim, chiefly inhabited by raftsmen, and where small rafts descending the stream halt to be made larger;—one after another, these flit by, half-seen by the fitful light of the moon; and now we draw near to the famous castle of Ehrenbreitstein, crowning a huge rocky precipice, opposite to the junction of the Rhine and the Moselle; and on the opposite side to Ehrenbreitstein the lights of the city of Coblentz are glittering before us.  Our way leads under the shade of the fortified steep of "The Gibraltar of the Rhine;" and, gazing upwards, in the dusk from the deck of the steamer, we see nothing of Ehrenbreitstein but the gloomy precipice which overfrowns the river.

  At Coblentz,—the Confluentes of the Romans, so called from its situation at the junction of the Rhine and the Moselle,—we halted for about two hours.  This is the capital of Rhenish Prussia, and, as everybody knows, is also a great "garrison town," which I can easily believe,—for in a long stroll which we had through the quaint streets, it seemed to me that every second man we met was a soldier.  We had time here to sup comfortably at the "Belle Vue Hotel," near the river side.

    It was a little past midnight when we went on board again.  There was still a fitful moonlight, which showed us something of the proud impregnable fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, "The Broad Stone of Honour," on the opposite side of the river; but we saw more of its position than of the fortress itself.  Ehrenbreitstein is best seen from a few miles above Coblentz, in descending the river.  From that point its appearance is worthy of its fame.

    It was about one in the morning when our steamer started again on its way to Mayence.  I spent the whole of the night on deck, and for the next three hours after leaving Coblentz, city after city, town after town, village after village, flitted by in the dreamy "midnight's tingling stillness," all silent as cities of the dead.

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CHAPTER XVIII.

IT was past midnight when our steamer left Coblentz on its way up the Rhine to Mayence.  I had been much impressed by the scenery of the last fifty miles between the city of Bonn and Coblentz; but now, in the still hours of early morning, by chequered moonlight, we were entering upon the real glory of the Rhine.

    The grandest scenery of all this famous river lies between Coblentz and the old town of Bingen,—"dear old Bingen on the Rhine."  Between Coblenz and Bingen the mountains rise almost perpendicularly from the river side; and every mountain peak, and every jutting rock, following in quick succession, is crowned by some hoary feudal ruin; every steep is clad with vineyards; and picturesque old towns nestle, here and there, by the rushing stream.  Some of the most famous ruins upon all the Rhine lie in this tract between Coblentz and Bingen.  The proud old Castle of Stolzenfels, where Isabella, sister of our Henry the Third, and wife of the Emperor, lived in great state, in the year 1275,—romantic Boppard on the one side, and grey Bornhofen on the other,—Salzig, and Hirzenach, and Welmach, and beautiful old Saint Goar, one of the most picturesque spots upon the Rhine, and surrounded by its grandest scenery,—the mighty ruin of the Rheinfels, which has successfully resisted the attack of many a proud army,—the weird rock of the Lurlei,—picturesque Oberwesel, the Vesalia of the Romans,—Chönburg, high-perched above the mighty stream, and especially interesting to Englishmen as the place where Count Schomberg was born, who fell in the battle of the Boyne, fighting for the Prince of Orange,—

    Next comes Caub, where Blucher's army crossed the river by a pontoon bridge on New Year's night, in 1814; and here, in the middle of the stream, stands the quaint-looking, lonely castle of the Pfalz, or Pfalzgrafenstein, built as a tollhouse by the Emperor Louis, and "sadly memorable as a prison to the more distinguished of criminals,"—Werth Island, the Castle of Stahleck, and Old Bacharach, which takes its name from the god of wine, —the wild ruins of Furstenburg, Sonneck, Reichenstein, and Rheinstein, the echoing vale of Rheindeibach," and the old town of Lorche which, in the middle ages, was inhabited by a knot of knightly families, who, according to an ancient record, "led here a life like in Paradise,"—the ancient tower, called the "Mouse Tower," standing in the stream, as we draw near to Bingen.  It appears to have been built in the thirteenth century by Bishop Seigfried, as a toll-house in the river.  The word "mans" is probably only an older form of "mauths," duty or toll, and, together with the very unpopular object for which the tower was erected, perhaps gave rise to the legend of Bishop Hatto, eaten by the rats.  The tale, too, may have been fixed on Hatto, because, though one of the most distinguished men of his time, he was proud and ambitious, and not very scrupulous in the choice of the means to arrive at his aim.  Southey gives us a version of this legend in his ballad, "God's Judgment on a Bishop."  The ballad begins by telling how bitterly he oppressed and starved the poor; and how, having invited the clamorous multitude to one of his granaries, where "they should have food for the winter," he set fire to the barn and burnt them all.  After which, "he sate down to supper merrily and he slept that night like an innocent man."  But fearful retribution swiftly overtook him.

And now, it was rats by night, and rats by day, rats by land, and rats by sea,—he was haunted by rats wherever he went; and rats devoured all his substance:—

He reaches his tower, and he goes to rest; but is awakened in the night by a fearful scream.  He starts, and sees "two eyes of flame on his pillow," from whence the screaming came.

    I passed the whole of the night on deck, between Coblentz and Mayence; and, as the steamer glided on in the profound stillness, between those wild ruin-crested mountains, and past one old town after another, where I could see the fitful moonlight sleeping upon the silent streets as we went by, it was like sailing through a depopulated world.  The only sound that broke the solemn silence was the rush of the Rhine,—that weird melody which the ancient river has sung to millions of midnights before the foot of man wandered upon its banks.

    Soon as we had passed the pretty old town of Bingen, the shores of the river became more open and flat.  We passed Rudesheim,—which gives name to the celebrated wine,—and Schloss Johannisberg, a vast white mansion or castle, upon a shapely green eminence, 362 feet above the Rhine, where the famous "Johannisberg," the choicest of all the Rhine wines, is grown.

    It was about nine in the morning when we landed at Mayence, where we took up our quarters at the English hotel.  We spent the day in wandering about the famous old city, which is, historically, one of the most interesting towns on the Rhine.  It owes its origin to the Romans.  Here Walpoden broached the scheme of the Hanseatic League,—which freed the trade of Germany from feudal robbery; and here dwelt Guttenberg, the inventor of movable types for printing.  We visited the grand old cathedral, the first archbishop of which was the son of an English waggon-maker or wainwright; hence two waggon wheels are quartered in the arms of the city to this day.  We rambled about the quaint streets and squares of the city; and we lingered in the market-place, which is surrounded by antique houses.  It was market-day, and the square was crowded with country people, in quaint attire, and with clean, healthy-looking market-women, in great, curious caps, as white as fresh snow.  The marketplace was full of flowers,—chiefly lilies; and I noticed that the asparagus grows here to a great size.  Bundles of it lay about on every stall.  Wherever we went in Mayence, we met with soldiers, wandering about in twos and threes, or marching in large bodies.

    Next morning we left and returned down the Rhine to Cologne.  Here we stayed one night more; and after spending another pleasant day in the old city of Antwerp, we took steamer again for Harwich, in Suffolk; and so ended my first trip to the Continent.

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THWITTLETOWN.
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CHAPTER I.

AFTER fitful gleams of delusive sunshine, the wet summer was steadily sinking into a chronic state of damp decline, and the hope of any bright retrieval for the fading season was dying out of men's minds; and the poor of the land were beginning to look towards the coming winter with fearful forecast.

    It was far on in the afternoon of a gloomy day, and the rain was falling fast, when I left Manchester, and that darling old ditch, the Irwell, behind, in the hope of reaching Sheffield in time for the evening proceedings of the British Association in that town.  The sky was dark with thunderous cloud; the air was close, and sulphuric; and the scene, all along the line, was depressing, in spite of the natural beauty of its features; for the summer foliage was rotting upon the bough, and the hay lay steeping and stewing upon the sodden fields, until it was fast becoming unfit for anything but bedding for cattle.  There was not a breath of wind stirring; and there was a lurid look about the sky that foretold impending storm.

    About twenty miles from Sheffield, there had been a "dog show" in a field, outside a little town, near the line.  When our train got to the station at this place, the show was just beginning to break up; and there was a great rush of dog-folk, with their dogs, into the carriages.  The crowd was so great that they were allowed to tumble in anywhere,—dogs and all,—irrespective of classes.  Our carriage had, up to this point, been the exclusive shelter of three doleful-looking, unsocial persons, who all seemed as if they were behind in their rent, and generally "thrutched in their minds," and who had sat, all the way, as far as possible, from one another, now reading a little, now smoking a little, and now dozing a little, by fits, and taking sly glances of scrutiny at each other, now and then, when they thought nobody was looking; but, when the train pulled up at the melting "dog show" the scene in our carriage changed very suddenly, and changed very much.  There was a dense and excited crowd upon the platform.  The door was thrown violently open; there was a clamorous rush, which choked the entrance; and, in a minute, our sulky solitude was crowded with rough, hearty Yorkshiremen, accompanied by one magnificent dog of the St. Bernard breed, which had won a prize, and one beautiful slim black-and-tan dog, which had not won a prize.  In an instant, the carriage was as busy as a monkey-cage; and the roof fairly rang again with the loud clatter of strong, old-fashioned, Chaucerian Yorkshire talk which rose from the steaming swarm; for they were all, more or less, soaked with the rain which had been falling incessantly during the time of the show.

    It took a few minutes for them to get shaken down into their places.  The St. Bernard mastiff looked frightened, and crept under the seat, with some difficulty; whilst the owner of the "black-an'-tan" kept his dog in a large square basket, the lid of which he lifted, now and then, to show the points of the animal inside.  All the talk was about dog's,—the merits of different dogs at the show, the pedigrees of dogs, and the decisions of the judges.  This, however, was mingled with an eager disposition to bet about anything in the wide world.

    On our side of the carriage there happened to be five men of stout build, whilst, on the opposite seat, six men of smaller mould were wedged together, as close as herrings in a barrel.  One of these was a bright-eyed, talkative little "tyke," who was evidently of a restless and contentious disposition.  "Now, talking abaat weight," said he, addressing a broad-shouldered farmer, who sat on our side, "talking abaat weight.  Ye've had a deeal to say for yersen, Jossy, abaat one thing an' another, sin we coom into this hoil, but I'll back us six upo' this side ageean ye five upo' that side, for a sovereign,—naa then!"  Whereupon, a loud and hot discussion arose, during which every man in the carriage was asked to declare his weight.  This process, also, led to a great deal of vehement dispute; and the uproar lasted all the rest of the way.  The din declined, however, as we dropped, here and there, one of the company, at little stations on the road; and, by the time that the train arrived at Sheffield, the inmates of our carriage were reduced to the original sulky three, who had started together from Manchester,—and who glared upon each other, in savage silence, as they trickled out of the carriage, and mingled with the fuming crowd upon the platform,—perhaps never to meet again.
                   .                        .                        .                        .                        .

    Here we are, at Sheffield, which takes its name from the river Sheaf.  Sheffield,—the town of thwittles,—"the capital of steel,"—famous all over the world for its fine cutlery; and, certainly, looking at the town from the edge of the station, through the drizzling rain, with not a breath of wind stirring, and a thick canopy of thunderous gloom overhead, it did not seem inviting.

    To travellers who have only seen the place as they flitted by, on a murky day, when all its manufactories were at work, and all its furnaces ablaze, belching their fires into the muggy air, it seems one of the most lurid of all the "black towns" of busy England; but, to anyone who leaves the station, and wanders about its quaint streets, it soon loses this repulsive aspect; and yet, perhaps there is no town in the kingdom whose general aspect in dull weather contrasts so strongly with the country around; for it is the centre of one of the most picturesque districts in all "merry England," and one of the richest in its historic associations.  Sherwood Forest, Bolsover, Roche Abbey, Beauchief Abbey, Wingfield Manor, Hardwick, Coningsbrough Castle, Chatsworth, The Peak, Castleton, and the hills and dales of Derbyshire, Wharncliffe, Ecclesfield, and many other places which illustrate the story of the land for many centuries gone by.  It is, indeed, the centre of a vast garden of varied natural beauty; and the air seems thick with the blending fact and romance of history,—the skin-clad Briton and his Roman foe,—Saxon thanes, and Norman knights,—the scowling serf, the mitred knights,—the mitred abbot, Robin Hood, and the merry greenwoods of old England, Ivanhoe, Peveril of the Peak, and a host of reminiscences, and old tales, and old songs, "the English ballad-singer's joy," that wake up dreams that wave delightfully before the half-shut eye.

    At the time of the Conquest in 1066, Sheffield was the capital of a large district, consisting of the parishes of Sheffield, Ecclesfield, Handsworth, Treetop, and Whiston, which district was known amongst the Saxons by the name of Hallamshire.  Here, in Hallamshire, Waltheof, the last of the Saxon earls, and the husband of Judith, the Conqueror's niece, dwelt in his hall, and ruled over the serfs and tenantry of his vast lordship.  He was a man of the highest power and repute amongst the Saxons; and the Conqueror did much to conciliate him.  He was the son of Siward, the Dane, who led the army of the Confessor against Macbeth, after the murder of Duncan in Scotland; and he was a man of gigantic stature and indomitable courage.  The Conqueror pardoned him for his share in the Saxon conspiracy of Atheling, and gave him his niece in marriage; but, when he rebelled a second time, by entering into a confederacy with certain of the Norman lords against William, he was betrayed by his wife, Judith; he was executed at Winchester, and buried at Croyland Abbey; and, for centuries after, his tomb was frequented by the vanquished Saxons, as the shrine of a martyr.  Such was Waltheof, the great Saxon thane, the first man whose name is immediately connected with the history of Sheffield, and the district around it.  It is now generally agreed among the historians of Sheffield that the aula, or mansion of Waltheof, stood upon Castle Hill, now near the market-place of the town, which spot was afterwards occupied by the castle of the Norman rulers of the district.

    From the faithless widow of Waltheof, the Saxon Thane, the lordship of Hallamshire passes through the hands of a succession of powerful families.  The first of these was the de Buslis, of whose rule there is little record extant.  From them it passed to the de Lovetots, who seem to have been an amiable and religious race.  With them the progress of Sheffield began.  They built a hospital for the sick on "Spital Hill;" they built and endowed the present parish church; they built a bridge over the Don, and a mill near it; and they founded the Priory of Worksop on the edge of Sherwood Forest, where they were buried.  From the de Lovetots the estates passed, in the reign of Henry the Second, to the warlike Furnivals, who ruled over Hallamshire for nearly two hundred years, and whose adventures in the Holy Land have been the theme of many a wild story.  One of this family was known by the name of "The Hasty Furnival."  From the Furnivals the lordship passed by marriage to the Talbots, Earls of Shrewsbury, whose warlike renown rings through the whole history of their times.  After the Talbots came the Howards, in which family the lordship still remains. . . .

    Sheffield Castle was a strong fortress in the time of the Norman lords, occupying four acres of ground upon the spot still known as "Castle Hill," at the junction of the Don and the Sheaf.  Some of the massive foundations, and a few fragments of the old walls still remain, incorporated with and overgrown by modern buildings.  The site is now surrounded by the modern town, although in ancient times it stood at a little distance from the straggling old town, which wandered up the steep, between the castle and the church; and the castle was connected by a drawbridge with a far-stretching park, which clothed all the eastern and southern slopes, now covered with the smoking dwellings of modern Sheffield.

    It is a difficult thing to realise the difference between the little old town of the time of the Furnivals and the Sheffield of our day.  "A few straggling huts and smithies, forming an irregular street, between the castle and the church gates, with a few houses lying down towards the town mill," seem to have formed the whole town of Sheffield, in the time of its early Norman lords.  There are traditions that the inhabitants of Sheffield made arrows for some of the ancient British tribes; there is a tradition also that the English victories at Crecy and Agincourt were largely owing to the superiority of the arrows made at Sheffield.  These, however, are only traditions, though the thing is not impossible.  Johnson, the antiquary, found a record of 130 gross of arrow shafts at 14d., and 5,000 arrow heads at 15d. per 100, having been sent from Sheffield for the use of the Government.  At the battle of Bosworth Field, too, the Earl of Richmond's men used arrows from Sheffield, "of a very superior make, being longer, sharper, better ground, and more highly-polished than those previously manufactured."  Amongst the articles issued from the Privy Wardrobe at the Tower, in the reign of Edward III., who had visited the town for hunting, a "Cultellum de Shefeld," was mentioned.  Chaucer's miller, in the "Canterbury Tales," carried "a Shefeld thwytel in his hose."  In 1575, the Earl of Shrewsbury presented to Lord Burghley a case of Hallamshire whittles, "being such fruietes as his poor country afforded with fame therefrom."  Sheffield knives are often mentioned in plays of this date, and "3 gross de Hallamshire knyves" appears in the accounts of exports from Liverpool, in 1589.  Among directions about the choice of quills in "The Writing Master," a book published in 1590, we find, with reference to the penknife, that a "right Sheffield knife is best."

    So much for Sheffield cutlery in the olden time.  We know how immensely since then the cutlery trade of the town has grown.  In spite of its early fame as a cutlery town, the progress of Sheffield was slow until comparatively modern times, which is partly explained by the fact that in former times the forges and furnaces of the town were the property of the lords of the manor, who grew rich at the expense of the community.  There is a curious document extant which says:—

    By a survaie of the town of Sheffield, made the seconde daie of Januarie, 1615, by twenty-four of the most sufficient inhabitants there, it appeareth that there are in the towne of Sheffield 2,207 people, of which there are 725 which are not able to live without the charity of their neighbours.  These are all begging poore.  These (though the best sorte) are but poore artificers; among them there is not one which can keep a teame on his own land, and not above tenn who have grounds of their own that will keep a cow.  They are 160 householders who are not able to relieve others.  These are such (though they beg not) as are not able to abide the storme of one fortnight's sickness, but would thereby be driven to beggary.

This was a sad state of things for poor old "Thwittletown," in those days; but even so lately as the year 1750 one of the most intelligent townsmen of Sheffield, in describing the condition of the town at that time, said that "to be as rich as a man of a hundred a year was proverbially to be of the highest rank."  The same authority, who is quoted by the historian of Hallamshire, says of the town itself, that it was a poor, little, dirty, mean-built town; the streets were badly pitched, the channel ran down the centre of them, and but few of the causeways were flagged.  The houses had gable ends and gutters with protruding spouts, which, during a shower of rain, discharged what they received on the heads of the passers-by: whilst the scavenger's cart was as yet an unknown luxury.  At night the far-sundered lamps gave but a feeble gleam; the best shops were only lighted by a tallow candle or two; and people who were abroad in the dark had to creep about with lanterns, like glow-worms.  I glean these things from the history of Hallamshire, and other sources.  During the last century, Sheffield has made a tremendous stride.  It is now a town of 300,000 inhabitants; "the capital of steel," and the most famous place in the world for cutlery.

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CHAPTER II.

SHEFFIELD, three or four centuries ago, must have been a very picturesque little town, as seen from a distance; although it seems to have had only a hard time of it under the crippling rule of its ancient lords,—even the best of them,—and some of them seem to have been very amiable and generous men; but slavery was still the fashion in those days, and political economy was unknown.  Apart from this, however, the little old town of thwittle-makers, or "apron-men," of three centuries ago, must have presented a beautiful picture to the eye, from any point of approach, when the massive Norman castle, covering four acres of ground, stood upon the banks of the Sheaf, down in what is now the densest part of the town; and when its one little street of quaint huts and smithies straggled up the green slope between the castle and the gates of the old church, which still crowns the heart of the modern town; and when the sides of the hills, which close in the scene all round, were clad with greenwoods and deer parks, the wild summits of which commanded extensive views of the most beautifully-varied scenery in England.

    In those days, the castle itself was begirt by groves and gardens; and a drawbridge across the river Sheaf connected it with a vast deer park; and the quaint little winding street, where the hammermen and grinders of ancient Sheffield dwelt,—overawed by the castle from below, and by the church from above,—the quaint street which made up old feudal Sheffield must have been overgushed and interwoven here and there with the greenery that clothed the hill side upon which it lay.

    Few even of the manufacturing towns of England have changed so completely from their early appearance as Sheffield has changed.  It is still one of the most remarkable towns in the kingdom.  It is singular in its situation; it is fearfully singular, to a stranger, in its first appearance; and its occupation may be truly called "a striking specialty," for it is the foremost hammerer and knife-maker, and steel manufacturer of all the world.  It is the most central town in England, being equi-distant between the two seas; and it is closely surrounded by some of the most charming scenery in all the land.

    From the green hills which clip in its smoky hive of 300,000 people, five beautiful little rivers come wandering down.  The Porter joins the Sheaf on its way to the town, the Rivelin,—the stream of which Ebenezer Elliott sings so sweetly,—the Rivelin and the Foxley flow into the Don, the Don joins the Sheaf under the broken walls of the old castle, in the lowermost part of the town , and the Sheaf gives name to the town itself.

    The only relics of the castle now remaining are some of its massive foundations and a few fragments of the old walls, partly incorporated with stables and slaughter-houses, in a stinking slum, near the spot where the drawbridge of the fortress led across the river into its far-stretching deer-park and gardens.  I tried to explore this gloomy nook of the town one damp morning, and I saw here and there unmistakable bits of the old walls; but before I could get down to the river-side I was forced to turn back on account of the stench.  The rest of the site is now completely deluged with modern buildings, with the usual allowance of inns and lurid-looking gin shops; but, in spite of change, the memory of the ancient castle still clings to the ground in the names "Castle Hill," "Castle Folds," "Castle Croft," castle this, and castle that and as one looks round now upon the altered scene, in the very heart of busy, smoky Sheffield, these names seem like ghostly voices of a vanished world . . . .

    Under the rule of the Earls of Shrewsbury, the cutlery trade of poor old Sheffield seems to have been very carefully stunted and crippled, for it was entirely under the control of the lord of the manor; and the restrictions laid upon it under that regime must have completely crushed all chance of its expansion.  The following were the chief rules by which the trade was governed by the lords of the manor in those days:—

    That for twenty-eight days after 8th August, every year, no work whatever was to be done; nor from Christmas to the 23rd January.  That every apprentice must have served seven years before he could exercise his trade on his own account.  That no person was to be allowed to have more than one apprentice.  That no grinding could be done during the holiday months.  That no grinder could reside out of the district, within which he must have been instructed.  That neither haft nor knife blade could be made or sold out of the liberties.  That every cutler must have his own mark stamped on his goods.  That every journeyman must be at least twenty years old.  That five pounds must be paid before entering into business—one half to go to the Earl of Shrewsbury, and the other to relieve the poor in the corporation.  Personal appearance, also, was secured, in answer to any summons, by the penalty of a heavy fine, which was no less imposed for a breach of any of the previous laws.

This is a nice list of good old conservative regulations for the benefit of the community.  No wonder that the trade of the town limped and lagged under such shackles as these.  The Sheffield cutlers of those days worked like men with one leg and one arm tied up.  But as light and freedom grew in the land, and Sheffield gradually emerged from its ancient restrictions, we have seen how wonderfully the independent trade of the town grew in wealth and importance, until, as "the capital of steel," it has become a proverb among the nations of the earth. . . .

    In ancient days the "thwittle," or "whittle," was the masterpiece of the Sheffield cutler's craft; and Chaucer's miller, in the "Canterbury Tales," carried "a Shefeld thwytel in his hose."  The "thwittle" was simply a blade stuck in a wooden handle, like the table-knives of to-day.  The next form was the "Jack-knife," the blade of which shut into the handle.  This was the invention of Jacques de Liege, the famous cutler of Liège, which is the Sheffield of Belgium.  In Scotland it is called a "Jockteleg," which is a corruption of the inventor's name.  Burns speaks of "a faulding jocteleg; " and Sir Walter Scott mentions the "jocteleg" in "Rob Roy."  In Lancashire and Yorkshire, too, many a man speaks of "a jack-a-legs knife" who little dreams of the origin of the name.  In the Rev. Alfred Gatty's "Sheffield Past and Present" I find the following passage:

    Lockhart relates, in his life of Sir Walter Scott, that when the great romance writer returned, in 1815, from visiting the field of the recently fought battle of Waterloo, he spent a night at Sheffield with two young companions of his tour.  In the morning Scott sallied forth from his hotel to provide himself with the best planter's knife that he could buy.  Having secured what he wanted, and which for many years afterwards was always carried in his pocket, he wrote his name on a card, "Walter Scott, Abbotsford," to be engraved on the handle.  At breakfast he told young Scott of Gala what he had done, who forthwith went out to do likewise; and when he gave his name to be inscribed on the knife, the master cutler who took the order told him he hoped it would serve him as good a turn as another Mr. Scott had already done him; for, said he, "when my man, an honest fellow from the north, saw the other name, he almost went out of his senses, and offered me a week's work if I would only let him keep the autograph; and I took Saunders at his word."  Lockhart further states that Sir Walter used to talk of this incident as one of the most gratifying compliments he ever received n his literary capacity.

    The fame of Sheffield is not confined to its renown as the greatest steel factory in the world.  In modern times it has become associated with the names and fortunes of many remarkable persons in art, science, and literature; amongst whom are James Montgomery, the poet; Ebenezer Elliott, the corn-law rhymer; Joseph Hunter, historian of Hallamshire, &c.; Ebenezer Rhodes, author of "Peak Scenery," and other works; Samuel Bailey, whom Elliott styles "the Bentham of Hallamshire;" Mrs. Hofland, Sir Francis Chantrey, Sir William Sterndale Bennett, Thomas Creswick, R.A.; Henry Clifton Sorby, LL.D., F.R.S., and a host of other eminent persons, though less known to fame.  Sheffield, too, must have a peculiar interest to the members of the British Association, for I see it stated in one of the local papers, which now lies before me, that it was the birth-place of the Association.  It seems that "the first idea of founding the British Association occurred at a dinner party given by the late John Hessey Abraham, of Holly Green House, Sheffield Moor.  The idea then mooted during the after-dinner talk, in a house which is now occupied, we believe, by the Ecclesall Club, was destined to a rich fruition.  Mr. Abraham, in conjunction with the late Earl Fitzwilliam and Mr. (afterwards Sir) David Brewster, prosecuted the plan, and were the agents in establishing a society which now ranks among the first of its nature in the world.  The nobleman and gentlemen just named took part in the first meeting, held at York, and one of the opening addresses was delivered by Mr. Abraham. Well might Sheffield give a hearty welcome to the scientific bantling which it sent forth into the world half a century ago, and which now returns to the place of its birth so nobly developed, so rich in honours, and so potent in the realm of thought.

    But Sheffield is rid at last of the curious visitors who have fluttered the astonished cutlers upon its busy streets during the past week or two.  The meeting of the British Association is over.  The addresses have been delivered; the papers have been read; the illuminated ball of scientific inquiry has been sent spooming another league or two into the dark; the soirées have been held; the "Red Lion Club" has roared, and wagged its tail; and the chieftains of science, with their more or less unscientific yet admiring followers, are rushing away from the smoky scene in all directions, like boys breaking up from school, leaving many a pair of uninitiated Sheffield eyes gazing with all their might, whilst the mouth that belonged to them gradually opened as they read a "Report on the proximate analysis of the Rhizome of Zingiber Officinalis," or a "Note on the behaviour of Iodine to Chloroform," or "The Gelatinization of Tincture of Kino," or "The chemistry of Chaulmoogra."

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CHAPTER III.

SHEFFIELD has not escaped from the general depression of the times.  It has done a good trade in butchering tools in its day; and butchery has been the fashion lately; but, in spite of that, it suffers now, with the rest of the kingdom, from the complicated disease of the last few years,—from great famines in the East; from bad weather, and untimely strikes, and trade disputes; from reckless official neglect of affairs at home; from the destruction of confidence in commerce; from the shifty tricks and uncertainties of romantic rule; and from unjust, ignoble, and ruinous wars in outlying nooks of the world,—all which have combined to cover the "distressful country," from end to end, with lurid clouds, big with disastrous gloom.  The Sheffield cutlers feel the nip of the times at last; for, as one of them said the other day, "we'n bin livin' upo' faith this two or three year back; an' naa we're tryin' to live upo' hope; but, by th' mass, if this gover'ment's baan to dance t' swaggerin'-jig mich longer, it'll be charity t' next!" [Note]

    Many of the "apron-men" of Sheffield were out of work and, when it wasn't raining, they might be seen, here and there, lounging listlessly in clusters, about the street corners, with their hands in their pockets, watching with curious eyes the unusual rush of luggage-laden cabs towards the stations; for the meeting of the British Association was melting away, in little rills, along the different railway lines; and each man of the thoughtful throng was returning to his tent, to watch and work among the indisputable facts of nature, and to brood in solitude for another year upon the great problems of life.  And I found that when all the varied labours of the session were over, the theme that lingered mostly in men's minds was the latest researches into the nature and phenomena of protoplasm, "the only form in which life can manifest itself."  And now, before I go any farther, I may say that I speak as a very humble listener to those who have given careful study to the matter. But, with respect to this especial question of the nature of protoplasm, I found every man of them impressed with the fact that, whilst two particles of protoplasm,—in which the keenest eye of science could find no difference,—developed, one into a jelly-fish and the other into a man, they were, therefore, forced to the conclusion that deep within them there must be "a fundamental difference of which we know nothing."

    This approach, also, brings them again to the shore of the great untravelled ocean beneath whose waters lies the tremendous mystery of consciousness "deeper than ever did plummet sound," and their only outlook seems to be in the fact that "with every advance in organisation there is a corresponding advance in mind; which suggests the hope that under the continued operation of the great law of evolution, higher faculties may be evolved in the far off future, which may reveal to man the great mystery of Thought." . . .

    But the meeting of the British Association has come to an end, and the record of its labours is speeding through the land; and, like the scientific men who have pondered these lofty themes so earnestly, I, too, must now prepare to quit the scene.  And yet, before I leave smoky Sheffield and its blazing furnaces for the merry greenwoods, I will not resist the temptation to take a glance at the most touching and romantic passage in the history of the old town.

    One wintry morning, near the end of the year 1570, the accomplished and unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots was brought across the hills from Chatsworth in the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury and his men, to his castle at Sheffield, as a remote and strong seclusion, capable of resisting any possible attack, and where she might lie hid in lonely durance until forgotten by her scheming friends; and for the next fourteen years this ancient fortress was the chief prison house of that ill-fated lady.  The Rev. Alfred Gatty, in his "Sheffield Past and Present," says:—

    Those who are acquainted with the still romantic route across the moor from Chatsworth to Sheffield can imagine the day's ride in early winter to the captive Queen, who, still only twenty-eight years old, attended by her ladies and servants, and closely guarded by the Earl of Shrewsbury's men-at-arms, passed in their journey, over the untracked soil.  They would ascend the long hills at a pace which the gallant and indignant prisoner would gladly have quickened.  The shy grouse, disturbed by the cavalcade, would rise from their heather covert and flee away on a wing of liberty which she would envy.  In vain might she hope that some Stanley or Percy, with a band of bold followers, would spring up for her rescue and when entering the mean town of her future captivity, with the least possible pomp, as was specially ordered, her heart would turn sick as the smiths, relaxing their ponderous strength, and leaving their forges, came into the street to wonder at the unusual procession the purport of which, and who was the personage so attended, were kept secret by order of the counsellors of Elizabeth.  There would be astonishment and talk amongst these rude bystanders; but she would pass through the gateway, the wicket would close upon her, and far happier would the crowd outside remain than the royal woman, with her retinue, who had been received within its walls.

No doubt the doings of the all-powerful castle of the lord of the manor would be the principal theme of conversation in the secluded little town which was overawed by its embattlements in those days; and we can easily imagine that, for a long time after Mary had passed through its gateway, there would be a great deal of whispered talk and wild speculation in the huts and smithies of old feudal Sheffield about the mysterious prisoner who lay concealed within its frowning walls; until, at last, her very existence would become like a dream.  And it was here,—in what is now the busy heart of modern Sheffield,—that, three centuries ago, Mary Stuart lay immured in the old Norman castle of the Earls of Shrewsbury for more than fourteen years,—from the age of twenty-eight to forty-two,—fretting, and scheming, and hoping, and despairing, and raging, and brooding bitterly upon the unhappy past, as she paced the narrow limits of her prison range like a caged panther; now gazing wistfully out upon the far-stretching parks and gardens of the castle, where the wild birds sang, and the fallow deer wandered at will; now listening to the distant clang of merry hammermen in the little town upon the steep above the castle; now weeping passionately as she remembered the happy days of her youth, and the sunny realm of France.  Well might the poor captive's hair turn prematurely grey in that long confinement, haunted by so many painful memories, and clouded with such a gloomy future.

    Mary's incarceration at Sheffield, however, was slightly relieved, now and then, by a brief change of prison-house.  Sheffield Castle was a strong fortress, suited to the turbulent times.  For two hundred and thirty years it had been the home of the lords of Hallamshire, when, early in the sixteenth century, George, the fourth Earl of Shrewsbury, and lord of the manor of Sheffield, feeling, probably, that the castle was more a place of security than of comfort, built a country residence, upon a lofty site, about two miles south of the town, which is still known in its ruined state as Sheffield Manor.  This, too, was a strong fortified dwelling, occupying about three acres of ground, and commanding a fine view of the valley, which is now filled with modern Sheffield, and of the far-stretching woodland hills all round.  The Earl was a wealthier man than some of his predecessors, and this new castellated house,—which seems to have been magnificently furnished for the period,—was finished early in the reign of Henry the Eighth.

    Very soon after its completion it began to be associated with the history of the times.  When Cardinal Wolsey fell from his high estate, and retired to his archiepiscopal palace, near York, he was arrested there by the Earl of Northumberland, and transferred by him to the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury, at Sheffield, where he arrived after two days' journey; and where he was received, at Sheffield Manor, by the Earl and Countess, who "came out respectfully beyond the gate to welcome him."  The unhappy prelate remained in the care of the Earl of Shrewsbury for more than a fortnight; their usual place of meeting being "the long gallery, in the window of which they would sit in serious talk as to what this summons from the King could mean, until apprehension became so alarming that the health of the 'old man, broken with the storms of state,' gave way, and he was seized with a violent dysentery, during which the governor of the Tower of London arrived, with a guard of twenty-four men; and the sinking Cardinal was taken away in his charge."  Twice on his road to Leicester he rested for a night; and when he reached the abbey gate of that town, he had become so weak that he had to be supported upon his mule.  "Father Abbot," said he, "I am come hither to leave my bones among you."  And there he died soon after; and there he was buried; although now, as our own Samuel Bamford says,—

But Wolsey was not the only historic prisoner to whose sighs the strong walls of Sheffield Manor have listened.

    During Mary Stuart's long confinement at Sheffield Castle, she was occasionally removed to The Manor, upon the hill, two miles south of the town, whilst her lodgings in the castle were being cleansed; and in one of these visits an attempt to effect her escape was made by Sir Henry Percy.  This led to a remonstrance with the Earl of Shrewsbury, who justified himself on the ground that "her prison-house required purifying," and the secretaries of Elizabeth's ministers were assured that when the captive was removed to the Manor, good numbers of men, continually armed, watched her day and night, both under her windows, over her chamber, and on every side, "so that unless she could transform herself into a flea or a mouse, it was impossible that she should escape."

    The Manor, in its palmy days, was surrounded by a great park.  The park is now let out in farms; the stately old fortified mansion is in ruins; and within the limits of its broken walls there are, now, a farmhouse, a row of colliers' cottages, a little chapel, a coal-pit shaft, and a beer shop.

    Sheffield Manor was dismantled in 1706, and has been allowed to run to ruin.  There still remains, however, one interesting relic of its ancient grandeur.  On the south side of the great quadrangle, a strong square tower, or lodge, still stands intact, though now inhabited as a farmhouse.  In this tower there is a chamber measuring 18ft. 6in. by 13ft. 6in., and 8ft. 6in. high.  The ceiling of this chamber is ornamented with the heraldic devices of the Talbots, and over the fireplace are their richly-quartered arms.  This is said to have been the lodging of the Queen of Scots.  The walls are now bare, but some of the fastenings remain, on which tapestry used to hang.  This chamber, which still bears the name of "Queen Mary's Room," is approached by a narrow turret staircase of rude stone steps, such as commonly leads to a belfry; indeed, it reminded me very strongly of the narrow stone staircase which leads up to Mary's little private room in Holyrood Palace, in which Rizzio was murdered.  Next to this ornamented chamber, which is lighted by a stained-glass window, there is a smaller apartment of the same character; and a second flight of winding stone steps leads up to the leaded roof of the tower, which commands a fine view of the picturesque country all round.  And here, from the embattled summit of this old tower, the hapless lady has probably often gazed upon the beautiful hills and dales around, and longed for the wings of a bird, that she might "fly away and be at rest."  But Sheffield saw the unhappy captive nearly to the end of her mortal suffering; for in little more than two years after she left the spot, the headsman smote her in the gloomy hall at Fotheringay, and she complained no more.

    And now I will quit the smoky chimneys and blazing furnaces of Thwittletown.  I will close my article with a brief glance at one of the most delightful of all the beautiful scenes in its neighbourhood.
               .                 .                 .                 .                 .                 .                 .

    At the close of the meeting of the British Association, I and a few friends had set one day apart for a visit to Sherwood Forest; and "for a wonder," it proved to be a day of unclouded sunshine from beginning to end.

    Leaving Sheffield at 9-13 in the morning, a run of eighteen miles brought us to the little town of Worksop in Nottinghamshire, on the edge of the Forest.  Worksop is a remarkably clean and sweet-looking little town, touched here and there with quaint relics of the olden time, like "Ye olde Shippe Inne," in Bridge Street, and the ancient Priory Gateway, and the broken cross in the market place, and it is surrounded by beautiful woodland scenery, and park-like landscapes.  Worksop has no manufactures, but it does a deal in the way of malting and corn grinding, and it has also a growing timber trade.  The ancient lords of Sheffield were also lords of Worksop,—the Lovetots, the Furnivals, the Talbots, and the Howards in succession; and the most prominent feature in its early history was its venerable Priory, of which the principal relic left is the ancient gate-house, in the market place.  Altogether it is a pleasant little rural town, and the history of its old Priory is almost the history of the town itself.  But I must leave clean little Worksop, and its quaintness and its prettiness all behind, "and hie me away to merry Sherwood, some pastime for to see." . . .

    At a fine old hostelry, in the main street of the town, we chartered an open conveyance, and away we went for a fifteen-mile drive through "The Dukery," into the romantic remains of wild old Sherwood Forest, at Birkland and Bilhagh, near the ancient village of Edwinstowe.  "The Dukery" is a great tract of the old forest, which has been trimmed and trained into what is now,—taken as a whole,—the grandest stretch of park scenery in the kingdom.

    Leaving the town by the Park Gates, we found ourselves at once under the shade of lordly woods, and for the next ten miles or so, we rode on through magnificent park lands, the Manor Park, Welbeck Park, Clumber Park, and Thoresby Park, one after the other; catching a glimpse, here and there, as we went along, of the great mansions, with their gleaming lakes, belonging to these parks, until at last, we came to the grand old "Major Oak," and the genuine relics of the wild old forest, at Budley, and Birkland, and Bilhagh; for, although one continuous tract of ancient forest, it bears these several names,—and it stretches for miles in one dense mass of rich foliage, with thousands of the grandest old oak trees I ever saw, under whose spreading boughs, miles of thick, tall, bright ferns twinkled in the sun.  Here we were, at last, in Sherwood Forest, and all that I had read and dreamt of bold Robin Hood and the gay greenwoods of old England seemed to be brought palpably before my eyes.  The scene was so enchantingly wild and sweet that I will not attempt to describe it in the brief space at my command just now, but close with the words of Charles Reece Pemberton, who says that it is "the most perfect specimen of antique forest, the most sequestered and distinctly charactered elf and fairy realm on earth, beautifully grand, awful, solemn, and deeply, intensely affecting."

    After dining at the little forest village of Edwinstowe, near the ruins of the ancient Palace of Clipstone, we returned to Worksop by another woodland route, as the rosy rays of evening fell upon the forest glades.

 
Note: this was written in the year 1879.

JOHN HEYWOOD, Excelsior Steam Printing and Bookbinding Works,
Hulme Hall Road, Manchester.