Seven English Cities eBook

[Illustration:  York as seen from the river]

So we went round by an alluring road to its forking, where, looking up to the left, we could see a pretty village behind Lombardy poplars, and coming down toward us in a victoria for their afternoon drive, two charmingly dressed ladies, with bright parasols, and looking very county-family, as we poor Americans imagine such things out of English fiction.  We entered the archiepiscopal grounds through a sympathetic Gothic screen, as I will call the overture to the Gothic edifice in my defect of architectural terminology, though perhaps gateway would be simpler; and found ourselves in the garden, and in the company of those people we had towed down behind our steamer.  They were with their friend, the gardener, and, claiming their acquaintance as fellow-passengers, we made favor with him to see the house.  The housekeeper, or some understudy of hers, who received us, said the family were away, but she let us follow her through.  That is more than I will let the reader do, for I know the duty of the cultivated American to the intimacies of the gentle English life; it is only with the simple life that I ever make free; there, I own, I have no scruple.  But I will say (with my back turned conscientiously to the interior) that nothing could be lovelier than the outlook from the dining-room, and the whole waterfront of the house, on the wavy and willowy Ouse, and that I would willingly be many times an archbishop to have that prospect at all my meals.

IV

We despatched our visit so promptly that we got back to our boat-woman’s cottage a full hour before our steamer was to call for us.  She had an afternoon fire kindled in her bright range, from the oven of which came already the odor of agreeable baking.  Upon this hint we acted, and asked if tea were possible.  It was, and jam sandwiches as well, or if we preferred buttered tea-cake, with or without currants, to jam sandwiches, there would be that presently.  We preferred both, and we sat down in that pleasant parlor-kitchen, and listened, till the tea-cake came out of the oven and was split open and buttered smoking hot, to a flow of delightful and instructive talk.  For our refection we paid sixpence each, but for our edification we are still, and hope ever to be, in debt.  Our hostess was of a most cheerful philosophy, such as could not be bought of most modern philosophers for money.  The flour for our tea-cakes, she said, was a shilling fivepence a stone, “And not too much for growing and grinding it, and all.”  Every week-day morning she rose at half-past four, and got breakfast for her boys, who then rode their bicycles, or, in the snow, walked, all the miles of our voyage into York, where they worked in the railway shops.  No, they did not belong to any union; the railway men did not seem to care for it; only a “benefit union.”