In its general appearance the large south porch is Perpendicular, like the greater part of the church, but the inner portion of its arch is Norman, and the outer is Early English. One of the pillars of the nave is ornamented just below the capital with five quaint little minstrels carved in stone. Each is supported by a bold bracket, and each is painted. The musical instruments are all much battered, but it can be seen that the centre figure, who is dressed as an alderman, had a harp, and the others a pipe, a lute, a drum, and a violin. From Saxon times there had existed in Beverley a guild of minstrels, a prosperous fraternity bound by regulations, which Poulson gives at length in his monumental work on Beverley. The minstrels played at aldermen’s feasts, at weddings, on market-days, and on all occasions when there was excuse for music. This ‘toune of Beverle,’ which Leland describes as being ‘large and welle buildid of wood,’ must have been a pleasant and exceptionally picturesque place to dwell in when we remember the old gateways, and replace the many dull buildings of to-day with such beautiful timber houses as those in the old streets of York. Above the curious gables rose the two stately churches, and if the minstrels were idle, no doubt the bells were filling the air with their music, telling of sorrow or gladness. ALONG THE HUMBER CHAPTER IV ALONG THE HUMBER Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh; But if you faint, as fearing to do so, Stay and be secret, and myself will go.’ _Richard II._, Act II., Scene 1. The atrophied corner of Yorkshire that embraces the lowest reaches of the Humber is terminated by a mere raised causeway leading to the wider patch of ground dominated by Spurn Head lighthouse. This mere ridge of sand and shingle is all that remains of a very considerable and populous area possessing towns and villages as recently as the middle of the fourteenth century. Far back in the Middle Ages the Humber was a busy waterway for shipping, where merchant vessels were constantly coming and going, bearing away the wool of Holderness and bringing in foreign goods, which the Humber towns were eager to buy. This traffic soon demonstrated the need of some light on the point of land where the estuary joined the sea, and in 1428 Henry VI. granted a toll on all vessels entering the Humber in aid of the first lighthouse put up about that time by a benevolent hermit. His petition is quaintly worded, and full of interest. It commences: