the story of its origin seems to
have killed the old name. If you ask anyone in Whitby to mention some of
the sights of the neighbourhood, he will probably head his list with the
Beggar's Bridge, but why this is so I cannot imagine. The woods are very
beautiful, but this is a country full of the loveliest dales, and the
presence of this single-arched bridge does not seem sufficient to have
attracted so much popularity. I can only attribute it to the love
interest associated with the beggar. He was, we may imagine, the
Alderman Thomas Firris who, as a penniless youth, came to bid farewell
to his betrothed, who lived somewhere on the opposite side of the river.
Finding the stream impassable, he is said to have determined that if he
came back from his travels as a rich man he would put up a bridge on the
spot he had been prevented from crossing. It is not a very remarkable
story, even if it be true, but it has given the bridge a fame scarcely
proportionate to its merits.

CHAPTER III

THE COAST FROM WHITBY TO REDCAR

Along the three miles of sand running northwards from Whitby at the foot
of low alluvial cliffs, I have seen some of the finest sea-pictures on
this part of the coast. But although I have seen beautiful effects at
all times of the day, those that I remember more than any others are the
early mornings, when the sun was still low in the heavens, when,
standing on that fine stretch of yellow sand, one seemed to breathe an
atmosphere so pure, and to gaze at a sky so transparent, that some of
those undefined longings for surroundings that have never been realized
were instinctively uppermost in the mind. It is, I imagine, that vague
recognition of perfection which has its effect on even superficial minds
when impressed with beautiful scenery, for to what other cause can be
attributed the remark one hears, that such scenes 'make one feel good'?

Heavy waves, overlapping one another in their fruitless bombardment of
the smooth shelving sand, are filling the air with a ceaseless thunder.
The sun, shining from a sky of burnished gold, throws into silhouette
the twin lighthouses at the entrance to Whitby Harbour, and turns the
foaming wave-tops into a dazzling white, accentuated by the long shadows
of early day. Away to the north-west is Sandsend Ness, a bold headland
full of purple and blue shadows, and straight out to sea, across the
white-capped waves, are two tramp steamers, making, no doubt, for South
Shi