dy, almost primitive times of the early part of the twentieth century.
The historian of a hundred years hence will sigh for the complete picture
of daily life at Pickering at the present day, which we could so easily
give, while he at that very moment may be failing to record the scenes of
his own time that are to him so wofully commonplace.

CHAPTER XIII

_Concerning the Villages and Scenery of the Forest and Vale of Pickering_

"Wide horizons beckoning, far beyond the hill,
Little lazy villages, sleeping in the vale,
Greatness overhead
The flock's contented tread
An' trample o' the morning wind adown the open trail."

H.H. Bashford.

[Illustration: The Market Cross at Thornton-le-Dale.

The stocks are quite modern, replacing the old ones which were thrown away
when the new ones were made.
]

The scenery of this part of Yorkshire is composed of two strikingly
opposite types, that of perfectly wild, uncultivated moorlands broken here
and there by wooded dales, and the rich level pasture lands that occupy
the once marshy district of the Vale. The villages, some phases of whose
history we have traced, are with a few exceptions scattered along the
northern margin of the Vale. Lastingham, Rosedale Abbey, Levisham,
Lockton, and Newton are villages of the moor. Edstone, Habton, Normanby,
Kirby Misperton, and Great Barugh are villages of the Vale; but all the
rest occupy an intermediate position on the slopes of the hills. In
general appearance, many of the hamlets are rather similar, the grey stone
walls and red tiles offering less opportunity for individual taste than
the building materials of the southern counties. Despite this difficulty,
however, each village has a distinct character of its own, and in the
cases of Thornton-le-Dale and Brompton, the natural surroundings of hill,
sparkling stream, and tall masses of trees make those two villages unique.
A remarkable effect can sometimes be seen by those who are abroad in the
early morning from the hills overlooking the wide valley; one is at times
able to see across the upper surface of a perfectly level mist through
which the isolated hills rising from the low ground appear as islets in a
lake, and it requires no effort of the imagination to conjure up the
aspect of the valley when the waters of the Derwent were held up by ice in
the remote centuries of the Ice Age. Sometimes in the evening, too, a
pleasing impression may be obtained when the chur