Transcribed from Wanderings in Wensleydale, 1864 - George Hardcastle.

​

p. 32... "By the kind permission of Captain Smith," go over the fell south of Aysgarth, till you come to a small stream called Haw Beck, running eastward through a narrow and densely wooded glen. Follow the water, and you will soon come upon a succession of seven cataracts within the length of two hundred yards, called "THE HEANING" or "YEANING," the name of a neighboring farm. In the little Saxon-named THORALBY at the foot of the hill, I observed noting particular but a Maypole, a photographic caravan, and a "public" portrait of a "Dales Volunteer" some sixty years old-tight little red coat, tight stiff stock, tight white nether inteuments, old Brown Bess, and a volunteer as stiff as if he had accidentally swallowed the old girl's ramroad. But in the perilous times of "Old Boney," the Wensleydale Volunteers proved themselves to be made of the right stuff; for on the firing of the Penhill Beacon by night, they turned put to a man, and marching swiftly to Thirsk,

p. 33... the appointed rendezvous, theft there learned to their mortification that they could not have the pleasure of giving the French Invaders a licking; the alarm having been falsely raised by the beacon-man on Roseberry Topping. The Volunteers received, as they deserved, the cordial thanks of the government for the alacrity with which they answered to the call of patriotism. The Yoredale Lads of the present day are no degenerate sons of their gallant sires. They delight in filling up their leisure time with manly out-of-door exercises, and in none do they more excel than in those of the Volunteer Rifle Corps. It would be "a caution" to our trust-worthy ally across channel, whose policy has made Englishmen "a nation of soldiers," to see how the stalwart men of Wensleydale tread the heather, and to hear how Captain Other's corps makes the target ring at 500 or 1,000 yards, as needs may be. ...