FROM THE HEART OF THE WOLDS. 203 



splendid road, with broad margins of short grass on each side 

 Fifty years ago a considerable traffic passed along it ; now this 

 is diverted to the railway in the champaign below, and has left 

 the street so lonely that at night the belated pedestrian, in lack 

 of fellow-mortals, may well fancy that it was here 



Saint Withold footed thrice the wold ; 



He met the night-mare, and her name told, 



Bid her alight and her troth plight, 



And aroynt thee, witch, aroynt thee ! (King Lear, 3, 7.) 



Two villages, one on each side of the mill at the crossing of 

 the beck over this street, merit a word. On the left, over the 

 chalk ridges is Beelsby, with the deplorable shell of an ancient 

 church, and a grand view over the Humber from its yard, 

 whence in old days the ships of the Vikings may have been 

 beheld by a crowd of panic-stricken hinds advancing to de- 

 vastations of the country. In an adjoining field lingers one of 

 the few legends of this prosaic district. A treasure is supposed 

 to be hidden in it, and at times two little men wearing red 

 caps, something like the Irish leprechauns, may be seen intently 

 digging for it. Do not disturb them, or on nearer approach 

 you may find but two red-headed goldfinches swinging on a 

 thistle. Within a secluded vale to the right, where huge 

 ragged ashes, the characteristic trees of this district, and still 

 more sprawling elders cling to the bare chalk cliff as they have 

 done from time immemorial, a couple of miles from the beck, 

 is a green knoll with what resembles the ruins of a roofless 

 barn. These are the sole remains of the alien Priory of 

 Ravendale : four walls built of rough chalk and sandstone, and 

 one jamb of the east window and the same belonging to the 

 south door. A large ash shelters them, and cattle graze care- 

 lessly by them ; yet round these bare walls in lieu of ivy clings 

 the whole history of the neighbourhood. In their very name, 

 Ravendale, lies, like a fly in amber, a reminiscence of the 

 Northmen who, under their celebrated raven standard, first 



