The young daughter of the house where Oliver Cromwell lodged at Knaresborough had the task of warming Oliver’s bed for him, and in after years when she had grown up she wrote a letter in which she said:  “When Cromwell came to lodge at our house I was then but a young girl, and having heard so much talk about the man, I looked at him with wonder.  Being ordered to take a pan of coals and ‘aire’ his bed, I could not forbear peeping over my shoulders to see this extraordinary man, who was seated at the far side of the room untying his garters.  Having aired the bed I went out, and shutting the door after me, I peeped through the keyhole, when I saw him rise from his seat, advance to the bed, and fall on his knees, in which attitude I left him for some time.  When returning I found him still at prayer—–­and this was his custom every night as long as he stayed at our house—­I concluded he must be a good man, and this opinion I always maintained, though I heard him blamed and exceedingly abused.”

Aldborough was walled round in the time of the Romans, and portions of the walls were still to be seen.  So many Roman relics had been found here that Aldborough had earned the title of the Yorkshire Pompeii.  So interested were we in its antiquities that we felt very thankful to the clerical dignitary at Ripon for having advised us to be sure to visit this ancient borough.

[Illustration:  TESSELLATED ROMAN PAVEMENT UNEARTHED AT ALDBOROUGH.]

We now wended our way to one of the village inns, where we had been told to ask permission from the landlord to see the Roman tessellated pavement in his back garden.  We were conducted to a building, which had been roofed over to cover it.  Our attendant unlocked the door, and after the sawdust which covered the floor had been carefully brushed aside, there was revealed to our gaze a beautifully executed floor, in which the colours of the small tiles were as bright as if they had been recently put there.  We could scarcely realise that the work we were looking at was well-nigh two thousand years old:  it looked more like the work of yesterday.  It had been accidentally discovered by a man who was digging in the garden, at about two feet below the surface of the soil; it was supposed to have formed the floor of a dwelling belonging to some highly placed Roman officer.  We were speculating about the depth of soil and the difference in levels between the Roman Period and the present, but we found afterwards that the preservation of this beautiful work, and of others, was due not to any natural accumulations during the intervening centuries, but to the fact that the devastating Danes had burnt the town of Aldborough, along with many others, in the year 870, and the increased depth of the soil was due to the decomposition of the burnt ruins and debris.  When we noted any event or object dating from 1771, we described it as “one hundred years before our visit,” but here we had an event to record that had happened one thousand years