Saturday, October 28th.

The inn where we stayed the night had not been very satisfactory, as, although the cooking was good, the upper apartments were below the average.  We took to the road again as early as possible, especially as a decided improvement showed itself in the condition of my swollen foot, and we were able to make a little better progress.  For some days we had been walking through a comparatively level country, but from the appearance of the hills to our right as well as before us, we anticipated a stiff climb.  It was not until we approached Sheffield that the tug of war began, and, strange to say, I found it easier to walk uphill than on a level surface.  Meantime we continued through a level and busy country, and were in no danger of losing our way, for there were many people to inquire of in case of necessity.  At one time it had been a wild and lonely place, known as Attercliffe Common, and we were told that Dick Turpin had been gibbeted there.  We had often heard of Turpin, and knew that he was hanged, but did not remember where, so we were anxious to see the exact spot where that famous “knight of the road” ended his existence.  We made inquiries from quite a number of people, but could get no satisfactory information, until we met with an elderly gentleman, who informed us that it was not Dick Turpin who was gibbeted there, but a “gentleman” in the same profession, whose name was Spence Broughton, the only trace of him now being a lane that bore his name.  As far as he knew, Dick Turpin had never been nearer Sheffield than Maltby, a village five miles away, and that was on his ride from London to York.  He was hanged at Tyburn.

The hills we could see were those of the Pennine range, with which we must have formed acquaintance unconsciously when farther north, as although the high hills in the Lake District, through which we had passed, were not included in the range, some of the others must have been, since the Pennines were bounded on one side by Cumberland, Westmorland, and Lancashire, and on the other by Northumberland, Durham, and Yorkshire, attaining an elevation of 3,000 feet in the north and 2,000 feet in the south.  The Pennines here were described to us as the “backbone of England,” for they were looked upon as being in the centre, equidistant from the east and west coasts, and hereabouts thirty miles in breadth.  The district verging upon Sheffield was well known to the Romans as producing the best iron in the world, the ore or iron-stones being obtained in their time by digging up the earth, which was left in great heaps after the iron-stones had been thrown out; many of these excavations were still to be seen.  In manufacturing the iron they took advantage of the great forests around them to provide the fuel for smelting the ore, for it was a great convenience to have the two elements so near at hand, as it saved carriage from one to the other.  Forests still existed thereabouts in the time of Robin