Everyman's England by Victor Canning Read Free Book Online Page A

the bird did to the fishing, for they are voracious feeders, and then I decided to follow its lead and go upstream.
    The decision was a fortunate one. If anyone imagines that the English countryside is no more, and that there are now no places where it is possible to feel cut off entirely from the hum of cities and the ringing of telephone bells, let him follow the road which runs up the Wharfedale from Bolton Abbey, by Barden Bridge and Grassington and so to Kilnsey. I do not know the exact distance, perhaps eight miles, but there can be found no such eight miles anywhere else in England. The same might be said of many stretches of eight miles, that they are unique. How many such stretches would anyone want to travel again?
    The road runs up and down the cliffs and scarps which overhang the river, and although at times dark woods hide the road and twisting hills seem to take you away from the river, it is never far distant. There is a variety of scenery, difficult to match. The broad valley pastures are cut by the winding river into curved jigsaw pieces, and the rising slopes of the fells that look down into the valleys are sometimes gentle and green, and sometimes steep and broken with the grey outcrops of limestone crag.
    Now and then the road crosses the river by little bridges over which it is a crime to hurry, for such parapets were made to cushion stomachs as you look into the swift flow of brown water and watch for the glint of trout and grayling.
    Anyone who can cross a Wharfedale bridge without wanting to stop and look over has little hope of discovering the real charm of this upland dale, where, as the innkeeper at Kilnsey told me, it is no uncommon thing for villages to be cut off from the world by snowdrifts for days at a time.
    You should not miss that inn at Kilnsey. Its name, if I remember correctly, is the Kilnsey Arms, but it should be easy to find for it is the only one there. It faces the hurrying Wharfe, while behind it rises the sheer grey precipice of Kilnsey Crag, which reminded me for a moment of the cliffs at Cheddar. The building is unpretentious. Inside it is full of good things, and not the least is the conversation of the landlord and the men who sit in the chairs about the fire.
    The room was empty, save for the landlord standing behind his curved bar, when I entered. I knew I had found a place of good cheer from the chairs. They were old, well-worn and had that comfortable look of belonging to a place, and I guessed that the men who had worn them to such a shine on the arms must be as interesting as the chairs looked. No one could sit in that bar and be out of temper for long. I sat there listening to the laughing landlord who, although he was not born a Yorkshire man, loves the county as much as the dalesmen who came into the bar, clapping their hands from the cold wind, and filling the room with gusts of talk and laughter and the fresh, bustling spirit of the dales.
    I learned a great deal there about the ways of dalesmen and their love of their sheep and dogs before the landlord called me to my lunch which had been set in another room. At that time of year the hills were deserted of sheep for they had been taken down from the dales into the flat plain of eastern Yorkshire to feed on the richer pastures. There they stop until just before April, when they are brought back to the dales again for the lambing.
    At the time of the annual exodus to the lowlands in September the roads are packed tightly with bleating flocks of sheep, barking dogs and sturdy drovers. If the ewes are kept on the fells the whole year round some deficiency in the feed causes their milk to dry up when the lambs come. To prevent this they are removed from the hills as soon as they have been served, or ‘tupped’ as the dales men call it. There is little rest for the dales men when the lambs come.
    Shepherding is not the idyllic occupation suggested by some biblical illustrations. The shepherd has more to do than