The journey was pleasant until we got near the end of it, and then the smoke rolled over and around in voluminous dense clouds, for a description of which you may search in vain through “Paradise Lost.”  We were met at the station with great state, and even splendour, and treated with almost boundless hospitality.

To keep up our spirits, we were taken for a drive by the sitting member a few miles out, into what they call “the country” in those parts.  The suburban residence was situated in a well-wooded park, if that can be called well-wooded where there are no woods, but only stunted undergrowths sickening with the baleful fumes that proceed from the city of darkness in the distance, and black with the soot of a thousand chimneys.  The member apologized politely enough for bringing us to this almost uninhabitable and Heaven-forsaken region; but I begged him not to mind:  it was only a more blasted scene than the heath in “Macbeth.”

“Yes,” said he, still apologetically; “it is very bad, I admit.  You see, the fumes and fires from those manufactories make such havoc of our woods.”

This was apparent, but the question was how to pass the time amidst this gloom and sickening atmosphere.

I found his residence, however, to my great joy, was farther than I expected from the appalling city of darkness, and hope began to revive both in my junior’s heart and mine.

Our friend and host, seeing our spirits thus elated, began, to talk with more life-like animation.

“The fumes from the factories, Mr. Hawkins, have so played the devil with our trees that the general impoverishment of nature has earned for the locality of Sheffield the unpleasant title of the ’Suburbs of Hell.’”

“I don’t wonder,” I answered; “no name could be more appropriate or better deserved; but if it were my fate to choose my locality, I should prefer to live in the city itself.”

A curious incident happened to us during this Yorkshire visit.  An excursion was arranged to see Warburton’s, situated some few miles off, and notable for many oddities.

We were driven over, and when we arrived were by no means disappointed by the singularities of the mansion.  It was enclosed within a high wall, which had been built, not for the purpose, as you might suppose, of preventing the house from getting away, but for that of keeping out rats and foxes; for there were birds to be preserved from these destructive animals.  Next, this portion of the estate was surrounded by water, which afforded an additional security to its isolation, access to the island being attainable only by means of a bridge.

The mansion was occupied by a Mrs. Hailstone, whose duty it was to show visitors over the house and explain everything as she went along, ghost stories as well; and being a remarkably affable lady, with a great gift of language, we had a very intelligent and edifying lecture in every room we passed through, now upon ornithology, now chronology, next on pisciculture and the habits of stuffed pike and other fish.  But this was not all.  Our guide was wonderfully well read in architecture, and displayed no end of knowledge in pointing out the different orders and sub-orders, periods of, and blendings of the same, so that we were quite ready for lunch as soon as that period should mercifully arrive.