We have come out of Wensleydale past the ruins of the great Cistercian abbey of Jervaulx, which Conan, Earl of Richmond, moved from Askrigg to a kindlier climate, and we have passed through the quiet little town of Masham, famous for its fair in September, when sometimes as many as 70,000 sheep, including great numbers of the fine Wensleydale breed, are sold, and now we are at Ripon. It is the largest town we have seen since we lost sight of Richmond in the wooded recesses of Swaledale, and though we are still close to the Ure, we are on the very edge of the dale country, and miss the fells that lie a little to the west. The evening has settled down to steady rain, and the market-place is running with water that reflects the lights in the shop-windows and the dark outline of the obelisk in the centre. This erection is suspiciously called ‘the Cross,’ and it made its appearance nearly seventy years before the one at Richmond. Gent says it cost £564 11s. 9d., and that it is ‘one of the finest in England.’ I could, no doubt, with the smallest trouble discover a description of the real cross it supplanted, but if it were anything half as fine as the one at Richmond, I should merely be moved to say harsh things of John Aislabie, who was Mayor in 1702, when the obelisk was erected, and therefore I will leave the matter to others. It is, perhaps, an un-Christian occupation to go about the country quarrelling with the deeds of recent generations, though I am always grateful for any traces of the centuries that have gone which have been allowed to survive. With this thought still before me, I am startled by a long-drawn-out blast on a horn, and, looking out of my window, which commands the whole of the market-place, I can see beneath the light of a lamp an old-fashioned figure wearing a three-cornered hat. When the last quavering note has come from the great circular horn, the man walks slowly across the wet cobblestones to the obelisk, where I watch him wind another blast just like the first, and then another, and then a third, immediately after which he walks briskly away and disappears down a turning. In the light of morning I discover that the horn was blown in front of the Town Hall, whose stucco front bears the inscription: ‘Except ye Lord keep ye cittie, ye Wakeman waketh in vain.’ The antique spelling is, of course, unable to give a wrong impression as to the age of the building, for it shows its period so plainly that one scarcely needs to be told that it was built in 1801, although it could not so easily be attributed to the notorious Wyatt. There are still a few quaint houses to be seen in Ripon, and there clings to the streets a certain flavour of antiquity. It is the minster, nevertheless, that raises the ‘city’ above the average Yorkshire town. The west front, with its twin towers, is to some extent the most memorable portion of the great church. It is the work of Archbishop Walter Gray, and is a most