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to Bolton Abbey, and after walking round the ruins, went to the 
middle of the graveyard and lay down beside a newly made 
grave. It was the burial-place of one of the sons of Richard 
Norton, of Norton Hall, at Rylstone. Wordsworth lavishes a 
marvellous wealth of imagery in describing the beauty of this doe. 
‘«« White is she as lily of June, 
And beauteous as the silver moon 
When out of sight the clouds are driven, 
And she is left alone in heaven.” 
The poet expresses his intention of following the doe to make 
out the mystery of its appearance among the ruins, and this 
gives him an opportunity of describing what he saw as she goes 
through the south transept, the interior of the nave to the tomb 
of the lady who built the abbey and the ruined choir. As the 
white doe wanders amongst the ruins, the poet asks :— 
‘Fair Pilgrim! Harbours she a sense 
Of sorrow or of reverence ? 
Can she be grieved for choir or shrine, 
Crushed as if by wrath divine?” 
Then the doe makes its way to the grassy grave, and the 
service being concluded, the people, as they start for their 
homes, see the animal resting in the place where she is always 
found. Among the group is a lady of title with her boy, and 
she points out to him the ‘famous doe,” whose ‘ work, what- 
ever it be, is done.’’ As to that work, an old man gives it as his 
opinion that the white doe is the spirit of the lady who built the 
abbey as a memorial of her son who was drowned in the Wharfe 
at the Strid, and he thinks the spirit cannot rest because her 
tomb is destroyed, and that she comes to mourn over the place. 
An Oxford student gives his opinions, and many others are 
expressed ; but the poet says they are all wrong in their surmises, 
and he will himself explain the history of the white doe— 
“A tale of tears, a mortal story !” 
It will be observed that Wordsworth begins the story at a 
time when it is nearly finished, the object being to make the tale 
centre its interest around Bolton Abbey and its desolation. In 
the second canto he takes us to the village of Rylstone, a small 
hamlet little changed from the poet’s time. Here the story 
really starts, for the village is in a state of excitement, caused by 
crowds of armed men making their way to Rylstone Hall, to 
take part in a rebellion against Queen Elizabeth, to give them, 
the Roman Catholics, their former power. The intention was to 
march to London, Roger Norton, a bold and headstrong man, 
taking part in it, and it was styled “‘ The Pilgrimage of Grace.” 
Norton had several sons and one daughter, the daughter and the 
youngest son being Protestants. Much against her will, Emily 
has been compelled by her father to work a banner to be carried 
at the head of the army, and she had urged her father not to 
