with him his family and an army of warriors, sailed for the Shetlands, where Tosti joined him.  The united forces then came down the east coast of Britain until they reached Scardaburgum, where they landed and prepared to fight the inhabitants.  The town was then built entirely of timber, and there was, apparently, no castle of any description on the great hill, for the Norsemen, finding their opponents inclined to offer a stout resistance, tried other tactics.  They gained possession of the hill, constructed a huge fire, and when the wood was burning fiercely, flung the blazing brands down on to the wooden houses below.  The fire spread from one hut to another with sufficient speed to drive out the defenders, who in the confusion which followed were slaughtered by the enemy.

This occurred in the momentous year 1066, when Harold, having defeated the Norsemen and slain Haralld Hadrada at Stamford Bridge, had to hurry southwards to meet William the Norman at Hastings.  It is not surprising, therefore, that the compilers of the Conqueror’s survey should have failed to record the existence of the blackened embers of what had once been a town.  But such a site as the castle hill could not long remain idle in the stormy days of the Norman Kings, and William le Gros, Earl of Albemarle and Lord of Holderness, recognising the natural defensibility of the rock, built the massive walls which have withstood so many assaults, and even now form the most prominent feature of Scarborough.

CHAPTER VI

WHITBY

  ’Behold the glorious summer sea
   As night’s dark wings unfold,
   And o’er the waters, ’neath the stars,
   The harbour lights behold.’

E. Teschemacher.

Despite a huge influx of summer visitors, and despite the modern town which has grown up to receive them, Whitby is still one of the most strikingly picturesque towns in England.  But at the same time, if one excepts the abbey, the church, and the market-house, there are scarcely any architectural attractions in the town.  The charm of the place does not lie so much in detail as in broad effects.  The narrow streets have no surprises in the way of carved-oak brackets or curious panelled doorways, although narrow passages and steep flights of stone steps abound.  On the other hand, the old parts of the town, when seen from a distance, are always presenting themselves in new apparel.

In the early morning the East Cliff generally appears merely as a pale gray silhouette with a square projection representing the church, and a fretted one the abbey.  But as the sun climbs upwards, colour and definition grow out of the haze of smoke and shadows, and the roofs assume their ruddy tones.  At mid-day, when the sunlight pours down upon the medley of houses clustered along the face of the cliff, the scene is brilliantly coloured.  The predominant note is the red of the chimneys and roofs and stray patches