idently the Hollanders had observed the activity on shore,
for they made no attack. The ships continued to hover outside the
harbour for two or three days, until Sir Hugh sent the Captain to York.
He was afterwards taken to London, where he remained a prisoner, after
the fashion of those times, for nearly two years.

It was after the troublous times of the Civil War that Sir Hugh
re-established himself at Whitby, and opened a new era of prosperity for
himself and the townsfolk in the alum-works at Saltwick Nab.

CHAPTER VII

THE CLEVELAND HILLS

On their their northern and western flanks the Cleveland Hills have a
most imposing and mountainous aspect, although their greatest altitudes
do not aspire more than about 1,500 feet. But they rise so suddenly to
their full height out of the flat sea of green country that they often
appear as a coast defended by a bold range of mountains. Roseberry
Topping stands out in grim isolation, on its masses of alum rock, like a
huge seaworn crag, considerably over 1,000 feet high. But this strangely
menacing peak raises its defiant head over nothing but broad meadows,
arable land, and woodlands, and his only warfare is with the lower
strata of storm-clouds, which is a convenient thing for the people who
live in these parts; for long ago they used the peak as a sign of
approaching storms, having reduced the warning to the easily-remembered
couplet:

'When Roseberry Topping wears a cap,
Let Cleveland then beware of a clap.'

In a similar manner the Scarborough folk used Oliver's Mount, the
isolated hill at the back of the town, as a ready-made barometer, for
they knew that

'When Oliver's Mount puts on his hat,
Scarborough town will pay for that.'

It is difficult to decide on the correct spelling of Roseberry Topping,
as it is often spelt in the same way as the earldom, and as frequently
in old writings it appears as 'Rosebury.' Camden, who wrote in Tudor
times, called it Ounsberry Topping, which certainly does not
help matters.

From the fact that you can see this remarkable peak from almost every
point of the compass except south-westwards, it must follow that from
the top of the hill there are views in all those directions. But to see
so much of the country at once comes as a surprise to everyone.
Stretching inland towards the backbone of England, there is spread out a
huge tract of smiling country, covered with a most complex network of
hedges, which g