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All the beauty and charm of this lovely district is accentuated in Ryedale, and when we have accomplished the three long uphill miles to Rievaulx, and come out upon the broad grassy terrace above the abbey, we seem to have entered a Land of Beulah.
By and by we quitted the wood, and having descended a deep ravine, we climbed a barren moor, over which we had proceeded half way, when to my unutterable joy, we discovered the far-off fane of Rievaulx, whose wan towers just peered from out of the hanging woods. Pursuing our way we soon exchanged the trackless moor for a much more grateful domain.
"Is he so ill, my father?" "Ah, my Belasez, there is a leprosy of the soul, worse than that of the body. And there is no priest left in Israel who can purge that! Child, hast thou never wondered how Sir Piers de Rievaulx came to know of the damsel's marriage she that is the Lady's daughter?" "Margaret? I never could tell how it was." "It was Delecresse who told him." "Delecresse!"
Fountains, Rievaulx and Tintern, all leave Easby far behind, but there are charms enough here with which to be content, and it is, perhaps, a pleasant thought to know that, although on this sunny afternoon these meadows by the Swale seem to reach perfection, yet in the neighbourhood of Ripon there is something still finer waiting for us.
On the dais stood Sir Piers de Rievaulx and half-a-dozen more, confronting Earl Hubert, who wore an expression of baffled amazement.
The extensive beds of cinders still found in the immediate neighbourhood of Rievaulx and Hackness, in Yorkshire, show that the monks were well acquainted with the art of forging, and early turned to account the riches of the Cleveland ironstone.
This was especially, though not alone, true of the Augustinian canons, who possessed some fifty houses in England at the close of Henry's reign, and in the later years of his life, of the Cistercians, with whose founding an English saint, Stephen Harding, had had much to do, and some of whose monasteries founded in this period, Tintern, Rievaulx, Furness, and Fountains, are still familiar names, famous for the beauty of their ruins.
We wandered about in the shadows of the high but crumbling walls, whose extent gave a strong impression of the original glory of the place, and one may well believe the statement that, at the time of the Dissolution, Rievaulx was one of the largest as well as richest of the English abbeys.
The fragment of its great eastern window, still standing, was its most imposing feature and showed that it had been a church of no mean architectural pretension. The locality, it would seem, was well supplied with abbeys, for Rievaulx is less than ten miles away, but we learned that Bylands was founded by monks from the former brotherhood and also from Furness Abbey in Lancashire.
She will remember a better name at the font. The day and the name of the Harolds, Williams, Henrys, Charles's, and Georges are over and gone forever. After spending a few hours at Studley Park, I returned to Ripon and went on to Thirsk, where I spent the Sabbath with a Friend. The next day he drove me over to Rievaulx Abbey, which was the mother of Fountain Abbey.
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