have seen sooner had we been looking down instead of up.  The effect of the view coming so suddenly was quite electrical, and after our first exclamation of surprise we stood there silently gazing upon the beautiful scene before us; and how grand the fine old ruin appeared calmly reposing in the beautiful valley below!  It was impossible to forget the picture!  Why we had expected to find the abbey in the position of a city set upon a hill which could not be hid we could not imagine, for we knew that the abbeys in the olden times had to be hidden from view as far as possible as one means of protecting them from warlike marauders who had no sympathy either with the learned monks or their wonderful books.  Further they required a stream of water near them for fish and other purposes, and a kaleyard or level patch of ground for the growth of vegetables, as well as a forest—­using the word in the Roman sense, to mean stretches of woodland divided by open spaces—­to supply them with logs and with deer for venison, for there was no doubt that, as time went on, the monks, to use a modern phrase, “did themselves well.”  All these conditions existed near the magnificent position on which the great abbey had been built.  The river which ran alongside was named the Skell, a name probably derived from the Norse word Keld, signifying a spring or fountain, and hence the name Fountains, for the place was noted for its springs and wells, as—­

  From the streams and springs which Nature here contrives,
  The name of Fountains this sweet place derives.

[Illustration:  THE GREAT TOWER]

The history of the abbey stated that it was founded by thirteen monks who, wishing to lead a holier and a stricter life than then prevailed in that monastery, seceded from the Cistercian Abbey of St. Mary’s at York.  With the Archbishop’s sanction they retired to this desolate spot to imitate the sanctity and discipline of the Cistercians in the Abbey of Rieval.  They had no house to shelter them, but in the depth of the valley there grew a great elm tree, amongst the branches of which they twisted straw, thus forming a roof beneath which they might dwell.  When the winter came on, they left the shelter of the elm and came under that of seven yew-trees of extraordinary size.  With the waters of the River Skell they quenched their thirst, the Archbishop occasionally sent them bread, and when spring came they built a wooden chapel.  Others joined them, but their accession increased their privations, and they often had no food except leaves of trees and wild herbs.  Even now these herbs and wild flowers of the monks grew here and there amongst the old ruins.  Rosemary, lavender, hyssop, rue, silver and bronze lichens, pale rosy feather pink, a rare flower, yellow mullein, bee and fly orchis, and even the deadly nightshade, which was once so common at Furness Abbey.  One day their provisions consisted of only two and a half loaves of bread, and a stranger passing by asked for a morsel.  “Give him a loaf,” said the Abbot; “the Lord will provide,”—­and so they did.  Marvellous to relate, says the chronicle, immediately afterwards a cart appeared bringing a present of food from Sir Eustace Fitz-John, the lord of the neighbouring castle of Knaresborough, until then an unfriendly personage to the monks.