THE XOKKSHIEE CAVES. 53 



supernatural in the Hurtle Pot, tradition has it that one evening 

 a loving couple walking among the trees, heard unearthly noises 

 above, such as had never been heard before, rising from the 

 murky chasm. Surely, thought the Doves, the boggart is coming 

 forth with some new trick, and they fled in terror from the spot. 

 It turned out, however, to be nothing more fearful than a musi- 

 cal friend of Mr. Metcalfe's trying the effect of a solo on the 

 melancholy flute by the margin of the darksome pool. 



Passing below these two remarkable Pots, the stream from the 

 Weathercote Cave follows its underground course until it emerges 

 about a mile or more down the valley at Godsbridge. This curi- 

 ous fact is referred to in the chapter on Rivers in Goldsmith's 

 History of the Earth, where he speaks " of the River Greatah in 

 Yorkshire running underground and rising again;" and there is 

 perhaps no place where the subterranean circulation of water 

 niay be studied to greater advantage than among the Yorkshire 

 Caves, the mountain stream sometime plunging into a yawning 

 chasm and anon emerging from the dark portals of a rocky cave 

 in full current. 



Further down the valley we came upon the little Chapel from 

 which the Dale takes its name. Here we are on ground made 

 classic by the genius of Southey in " The Doctor," in which he 

 gives a charming word-picture of the scene worthy of the master's 

 pen. " The little church (says Southey) called Chapel-le-Dale 

 stands about a bowshot from the family house of the Doves. 

 There they had all been carried to the font, there they had each 

 led his bride to the altar, and thither they had each in his turn 

 been borne upon the shoulders of their friends and neighbours. 

 Earth to earth, they had been consigned there for so many 

 generations, that half of the soil of the churchyard consisted of 

 their remains. A hermit, who might wish his grave to be as quiet 

 as his cell, coiild imagine n6 fitter resting place. On three sides 

 there was an irregular low stone wall, rather to mark the limits 

 of the sacred ground than to enclose it. On the fourth side it 

 was bounded by the brook, whose waters proceed by a subterra- 

 nean channel from Weathercote Cave. Two or three alders and 

 rowan trees hung over the brook, and shed their leaves and seeds 



