Becket's murderers once hid. No doubt the great difficulty the
Cromwellians had in taking the castle seemed a good reason to them for
effectually destroying it. At one time it was in the possession of the
notorious Piers Gaveston, and it was for a while the prison-house of
King Henry II. There are many other points of interest in Knaresborough,
not forgetting the cave from which Mother Shipton issued her famous
prophecies, in which she missed it only by bringing the world to an end
ahead of schedule time. But they deny in Knaresborough she ever made
such a prediction, and prefer to rest her claims to infallibility on her
prophecy illustrated on a post card by a highly colored motor car with
the legend,

"Carriages without horses shall go,
And accidents fill the world with woe."

Altogether, Knaresborough is a town little frequented by Americans, but
none the less worthy of a visit. Harrogate is an excellent center for
this and many other places, if one is insistent on the very best and
most stylish hotel accommodations that the island affords. Ripon, with
its cathedral and Fountains Abbey, perhaps the finest ruin in Great
Britain, is only a dozen miles away; but we visited these on our return
to London from the north.

On Monday the clouds cleared away and the whole country was gloriously
bright and fresh after the heavy showers. We returned to Leeds over the
road by which we came to Harrogate and which passes Haredale Hall, one
of the finest country places in the Kingdom. A large portion of the way
the road is bordered by fine forests, which form a great park around the
mansion. We passed through Leeds to the southward, having no desire to
return to Manchester over the road by which we came, or, in fact, to