it is a bride and bridegroom, or what.’  He said, ’Well, Arthur, you and Joan shall play at being bride and bridegroom inside the carriage, and I will get on the box.’  He got Mrs. Severn on his arm, and had to hold her pretty tightly as he left the door, because when she saw the crowd outside she tried to beat a retreat.  At last he got her into the carriage, I was put in afterwards, and he jumped up on the box.  The crowd closed in, and looked at us as if we were a sort of menagerie.  I was much amused when I thought how little these eager people knew that the real attraction was on the box; I felt inclined to put my head out of the window, and say, ‘My good people, there is the man you should look at,—­not us.’  I did not like to do so; and the Professor gave the word to be off, the postilion cracked his whip, and we went off in grand style, amidst the cheers of the crowd....”

On one of these posting excursions, they came to Hardraw; Mrs. Alfred Hunt tells the story in her edition of Turner’s “Richmondshire”; Mr. Severn’s account is somewhat different.  After examining the Fall, Mrs. Severn and Mr. Ruskin left Mr. Severn to sketch, and went away to Hawes to order their tea.  When they were gone, a man who had been standing by came up and asked if that were Professor Ruskin.  “Yes,” said Mr. Severn, “it was; he is very fond of the Fall, and much puzzled to know why the edge of the cliff is not worn away by the water, as he expected to find it after so many years.”  “Oh,” said the other, “there are twelve feet of masonry up there to protect the rock.  I’m a native of the place, and know all about it.”  “I wish,” said Mr. Severn, absently, as he went on drawing, “Mr. Ruskin knew that; he would be so interested.”  And the stranger ran off.  When the sketcher came in to tea he felt there was something wrong.  “You’re in for it!” said his wife.  “Let us look at his sketch first,” said Mr. Ruskin; and luckily it was a very good one.  By and by it all came out;—­how the Yorkshireman had caught the Professor, and eagerly described the horrible Vandalism, receiving in reply some very emphatic language.  Upon which he took off his hat and bowed low:  “But, sir,” he faltered, “the gentleman up there said I was to tell you, and you would be so interested!” The Professor, suddenly mollified, took off his hat in turn, and apologised for his reception of the news:  “but,” said he, “I shall never care for Hardraw Waterfall again.”

“The Professor,” said Mr. Severn, “dislikes railways very much:”  and on his arrival at Brantwood after that posting journey he wrote a preface to “A Protest against the Extension of Railways in the Lake District,” by Mr. Robert Somervell.  Ruskin’s dislike of railways has been the text of a great deal of misrepresentation, and his use of them, at all, has been often quoted as an inconsistency.  As a matter of fact, he never objected to main lines of railway communication; but he strongly objected, in common with a vast number