A curious old legend was attached to the town well in Wellgate, which formerly supplied most of the inhabitants of Conisborough with water; for once upon a time, when the town was suffering from a great drought, and the people feared a water famine, they consulted an old man known by the name of St. Francis, who was very wise and very holy.  He told the people to follow him singing psalms and hymns to the Willow Vale, on the Low Road.  There he cut a wand from a willow tree, and stuck it into the ground, and forthwith a copious supply of water appeared which had flowed steadily ever since.  The wand had been so firmly and deeply stuck into the ground by St. Francis that it took root and grew into a large tree.

In 1863 there was a great flood in Sheffield, which did a lot of damage, and amongst the debris that floated down the river was noticed a cradle containing a little baby.  It was rescued with some difficulty, and was still alive when we passed through the town, being then eight years old.

[Illustration:  ROCHE ABBEY.]

After leaving Conisborough we lost sight of the River Don, which runs through Mexborough; but we came in touch with it again where it was joined by the River Rother, at Rotherham.  Here we crossed over it by the bridge, in the centre of which stood the decayed Chapel of our Lady.  On our way we had passed to our right Sprotborough, where in 664 King Wulfhere when out hunting came to a cave at the side of the river where a hermit named St. Ceadde or St. Chad dwelt, the country at that time being “among sheep and distant mountains which looked more like lurking-places for robbers and dens of wild beasts than dwellings of men.”  There were many objects of interest on each side of our road, including, a few miles to the left, Roche Abbey, the seat of the Earl of Scarborough, and to the right Wentworth House, one of the largest private houses in England, and the seat of Earl Fitzwilliam, the owner of the far-famed Wharncliffe Crags, which are skirted by the waters of the River Don.

It was in Wharncliffe Forest that Friar Tuck, the jolly chaplain of Robin Hood, had his abode; and below the crags, in the bed of the River Don, there was a rock that appeared to be worn by the friction of some cylindrical body coiled about it.  This was supposed to be the famous Dragon of Wantley, an old name for Wharncliffe.  It was here that the monster was attacked and slain by Guy, the famous Earl of Warwick.  Near the top of the crag, which was formerly a hunting-seat, stood a lodge where an inscription on a stone in the floor of the back kitchen stated that “Geoffrey de Wortley, Knight of the body to the Kings Richard III, Henry VII, and Henry VIII, built this Lodge for his pleasure, so that he might hear the red deer bray.”  In the lodge too was a most ponderous boot said to have been worn by Oliver Cromwell at the Battle of Marston Moor.  We stayed at Rotherham for the night.

(Distance walked twelve miles.)