ng fiercely, flung the blazing
brands down on to the wooden houses below. The fire spread from one hut
to another with sufficient speed to drive out the defenders, who in the
confusion which followed were slaughtered by the enemy.

This occurred in the momentous year 1066, when Harold, having defeated
the Norsemen and slain Haralld Hadrada at Stamford Bridge, had to hurry
southwards to meet William the Norman at Hastings. It is not surprising,
therefore, that the compilers of the Conqueror's survey should have
failed to record the existence of the blackened embers of what had once
been a town. But such a site as the castle hill could not long remain
idle in the stormy days of the Norman Kings, and William le Gros, Earl
of Albemarle and Lord of Holderness, recognising the natural
defensibility of the rock, built the massive walls which have withstood
so many assaults, and even now form the most prominent feature of
Scarborough.

CHAPTER VI

WHITBY

'Behold the glorious summer sea
As night's dark wings unfold,
And o'er the waters, 'neath the stars,
The harbour lights behold.'

E. Teschemacher.

Despite a huge influx of summer visitors, and despite the modern town
which has grown up to receive them, Whitby is still one of the most
strikingly picturesque towns in England. But at the same time, if one
excepts the abbey, the church, and the market-house, there are scarcely
any architectural attractions in the town. The charm of the place does
not lie so much in detail as in broad effects. The narrow streets have
no surprises in the way of carved-oak brackets or curious panelled
doorways, although narrow passages and steep flights of stone steps
abound. On the other hand, the old parts of the town, when seen from a
distance, are always presenting themselves in new apparel.

In the early morning the East Cliff generally appears merely as a pale
gray silhouette with a square projection representing the church, and a
fretted one the abbey. But as the sun climbs upwards, colour and
definition grow out of the haze of smoke and shadows, and the roofs
assume their ruddy tones. At mid-day, when the sunlight pours down upon
the medley of houses clustered along the face of the cliff, the scene is
brilliantly coloured. The predominant note is the red of the chimneys
and roofs and stray patches of brickwork, but the walls that go down to
the water's edge are green below and full of rich browns above, and in
man