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BOLTON ABBEY.

fancy they distinguish the screams of the childless mother mingling with the blast; fulfilling, as it were, her own reply to the herdsman, which has been handed down by tradition, and is still used as a kind of proverb by the men of Wharfedale.[1]

The heat at last obliged us to return to the ruin, in the hope that it might afford us a temporary retreat, until sufficiently refreshed to pursue our ramble. We soon reached the spot, where it stood screened by large venerable trees, and entered what had formerly been the nave of the church by one of the numerous breaches which time, or the still more destroying hand of man, had made in the wall. There was a kind of silent awe in the scene, which suited well with

  1. In the twelfth century, William Fitz-Duncan laid waste the valleys of Craven with fire and sword, and was afterwards established there by his uncle David, king of Scotland. He was the last of his race; his son, commonly called the Boy of Egremond, being dashed to pieces as he attempted to leap a narrow pass, owing to the hound which he held in his hand holding back. A priory was removed from Embsay to Bolton, that it might be as near as possible to the place where the accident happened: that place is still known by the name of the Strid; and the mother's answer to the serf, who informed her of the melancholy event, is to this day often repeated in Wharfe-dale."—Whitaker's History of Craven.
    The exclamation of the mother is thus introduced into a beautiful little poem, by S. Rogers, Esq.—
    "'Say, what remains when hope is fled?'
    She answered, 'Endless weeping!'
    For in the herdsman's eye she read
    Who in his shroud lay sleeping."