Sir Richard de Veron was a distinguished knight of the North Riding, who held a considerable estate by knight's service of the De Brus family in Cleveland. He was one of the heroes of the Battle of the Standard, in 1138, who went forth at the behest of Archbishop Thurstan to oppose the invasion of David of Scotland, and who signally defeated that monarch. A few years after, he joined the forces of the Empress Maud, whose pretensions to the throne of England he considered to be more legitimate than those of Stephen, and fought on her side at Lincoln, in 1141, when the King was defeated and taken prisoner, continuing to uphold her cause until she was compelled to retire from England. The war being thus brought to an end, and the adherents of the Empress generally declining to take service under a King whom they deemed a usurper, and by whom they were looked upon with suspicion, De Veron sheathed his sword and retired to his family and home in Cleveland. He had a wife, whom he dearly loved, and two children, a boy—his heir, and a sweet little daughter for whom he entertained the most tender affection; indeed, although he delighted in the clash of arms and the exciting revelry of war, he was never so truly happy as when in the midst of his family, teaching his young son to ride, practice at the target, and follow his hounds in pursuit of the wild animals of the chase; or listening to the prattle of his little daughter, when taking lessons from her mother in reading, music, or embroidery work. Thus happily passed a few months after his return from his martial pursuits, when one morning, news was brought that a case of plague had occurred in the village, causing, as it always did, great consternation not only amongst the villagers, but in the knight's mansion, which stood half a mile away from the village. It was hoped that it might be an isolated case, and such rude remedial measures as were then known were adopted to prevent the spread of the infection, but within a week another case was reported, and another and another in rapid succession, after which it spread with fearful speed, until half the population succumbed to it, and were hastily buried without the usual funeral rites. In a month the disease appeared to be dying out, the deaths were fewer and fewer day by day, and it was fondly hoped that the terrible infliction was passing away, but it was not until three-fourths of the people had fallen victims to its pestilential fury.

Although Sir Richard hesitated not to go down to the village and employ himself in administering food, medicine, and consolation to the afflicted, he took every known precaution against coming into too close contact with the infected; he kept his family closely shut up at home, and occupied a separate set of apartments himself, not allowing them to come into his presence; but notwithstanding all his preventive measures he was at last stricken down. He gave positive orders that he should be left alone, and if it was God's will that he should die, he declared his resolution that he would die alone, and with affectionate earnestness sent a message to his wife, entreating her to remain apart from him, and not imperil her dear life by coming to his bedside. But she, true wife as she was, heeded not the risk to her own life, so long as she could afford comfort and spiritual consolation to him, in what might very probably be his last few moments on earth, and regardless of the injunction, hastened, on receiving the message, to the room where he lay. He reproached her gently for exposing herself to the risk of infection, but was met by assurances that it was not possible for her to remain away whilst he was lying there requiring careful tendence, with all the servants standing aloof panic-stricken, or flying from the house. He implored her to retire, but she replied that she might or might not take the infection; that was as God pleased, and if she did she might or might not fall a victim, but most assuredly if she left him alone and shut herself up away from him she would die of anxiety, or, in case of his death, of a broken heart. Finding remonstrance useless, he was fain to submit to her nursing, and happily during the night the malady passed its crisis, his strong, healthy constitution enabling him to battle successfully with the disease, and he gradually became convalescent.

Happiness again seemed to be dawning over the household, but it was not destined to last long. The faithful wife, who had watched so tenderly over his sick bed, regardless of the risk she ran, maintained her health so long as her services were needed, but in her ministrations she had imbibed the seed of the fatal malady, and now, when her husband was restored to health, the terrible plague spot made its appearance, and so rapidly did the disease develop itself that, within twenty-four hours, she fell a victim to its remorseless energy. It was a fearful blow to Sir Richard, but this was not all the suffering he had to undergo. Scarcely had he returned from the obsequies of his wife, when his two children caught the infection, and in another four-and-twenty hours they were both carried off, leaving him bereft of all the best-beloved of his soul, and sunk in the depths of desolation and despair.

For some months he remained in his silent and cheerless home in a state of profound apathy, taking no interest in the avocations devolving on him as the lord of an extensive estate. It is true he befriended, pecuniarily, the numerous widows and orphans left in the village by the ruthless pestilence that had swept over it, and he contributed large sums of money to the Church for prayers and masses for the souls of the departed, not only of his own family, but of his vassals and dependants. Nothing seemed capable of rousing him from the despondency into which he had fallen; the sports of the field were altogether neglected; the cheerful companionship of friends presented no attractions for him, and he sat at home hour after hour through the live-long day, plunged in moody melancholy and repining meditation on his irreparable loss, and the utter extinction of all that was worth living for. And thus passed week after week and month after month, Time, the great mollifier of grief, seeming to impart no balm to his sorrow-stricken soul.

The only person whom he admitted as a visitor, besides those who came on imperative business matters, was Father Anselm, a pious and devout man, the priest of the village church. It was in his company only, and in listening to his spiritual converse, that he felt any relief from the grief that oppressed him, and gradually, after many interviews, he began to look upon his affliction as a providential dispensation, intended for some wise purpose. Gradually also he became more weaned from earthly and secular things, and his soul to become more spiritualised, and he began to experience a feeling of attraction to the cloister. One day he mentioned this to his spiritual adviser, and Father Anselm, rejoicing thereat, warmly applauded the feeling, urging that such self-devotion would be most acceptable to God, and that it was only in religious meditation and prayer that he would be vouchsafed that true consolation which religion alone could give. The holy father perhaps was not altogether single-minded in thus fostering the idea of assuming the cowl, for he was a true Churchman, considering that the promotion of the temporal aggrandisement of the Church was an essential part of the duty of a Christian, a sentiment then universally prevalent, and not unusual now. He knew that Sir Richard was the owner of broad acres, and that now he had no heir to inherit them, and he often made delicate and incidental allusions to the fact, which seemed to produce an impression on the mind of the knight. At last an opportunity offered itself of speaking out more openly. With a profound sigh, Sir Richard one day said, when the conversation had turned upon his estates and possessions, "Alas! why should I trouble or concern myself about these lands and the improvements that might be made on them? I shall never more be able to derive pleasure from the possession of them, and I have no heir to bequeath them to. What is the good of riches if they do not afford happiness? A crust and water from the wayside brook with happiness is better than untold wealth accompanied with sorrow and anguish of heart."

Father Anselm saw his opportunity, and pertinently asked, "Since you have no heir, why not make the holy Church of Christ your heir? By doing so you would garner up for yourself riches in heaven—an eternity of inconceivable happiness compared with which in duration your present suffering is but as the pang of a moment."

Sir Richard sat musing for the space of a quarter of an hour, and then said, "Holy Father, what you say seems good, fitting, and worthy of consideration. Give me a week to think it over, and at the expiration of that period I will commune with you further on the subject," and Father Anselm took his departure.

At the week's end, when they met again, Sir Richard opened the subject by saying, "Venerable Father, I have since our last meeting given deep consideration to your counsels, and have come to the resolution of doing as you advise me. I have determined on assuming the monkish habit; spending the remainder of my life in pious communion with some holy brotherhood; and on resigning my possessions into the hands of the Church of God."

"It is good," replied Father Anselm. "Have you thought of any specific house on which to bestow your donation?"

"It occurred to me," continued Sir Richard, "to become a canon of the Augustinian house recently founded by my feudal Lord, Robert de Brus, at Guisborough, and to add my lands to its further endowment."

"Permit me to counsel you otherwise," said the Father, "Guisborough, as an Augustinian house, is not so strict in its discipline as other monastic houses, and is already very fairly endowed. But there is another, of the Benedictine order, where you would have an opportunity of cultivating a more strictly religious and less secular frame of mind—I mean Whitby, a holy spot, once sanctified by the presence of the blessed St. Hilda. It was founded by King Oswy in 687, was laid in ruins by the sacrilegious Danes in 867, and so remained for another couple of hundred years, when God moved the heart of Will de Percy to refound it as a Priory. Within the last few years it has again been converted into an Abbey; but it lacks endowment for the due maintenance of its superior dignity. Let me advise you, therefore, to cast in your lot with these Benedictines, and win the approval of God by bestowing your wealth in his service, where it is much needed."

Sir Richard assented to this suggestion, caused a deed of gift to be drawn, in which he conveyed his lands to the Abbot and convent of Whitby, and entered the house as a novice; and in due time, at the expiration of his novitiate, was admitted as a monk.

Brother Jerome (to use his monastic appellation) soon attracted notice by the fervour of his piety, his asceticism, and a strict and sincere observance of the conventual rules; as well as by his humility and obedience to the ordinances of his superiors. It chanced that after he had been in the house a few years, the Prior, whose position was that of sub-Abbot in the house, sickened and died; and, at a meeting of the chapter to elect his successor, Brother Jerome was suggested as the most fitting, by his manifest piety and abilities, for the office; but he resolutely declined taking it upon himself, preferring, as he said, to be rather a hewer of wood or drawer of water—the servant of the brotherhood—than to hold any superior office.

In the course of his meditations he was wont to cast a retrospective glance on his past life, and to grieve over his career as a soldier and a shedder of blood; especially did he mourn over the excesses of barbarous cruelty into which he had been drawn in emulation of the ferocity of his fellow-soldiers, when marching under the banner of the Empress, remembering with tears of bitter remorse, the burning villages, the homeless people, the corpse-strewn fields, and the widows and orphans they left in their rear. The more he thought of these past phases of his life, the more intense became his self-reproaches and the compunction excited by a sense of guilt and sin. He sought by mortification and maceration of the flesh to make atonement for these blood-stained deeds, but despite these self-inflicted punishments, he was not able to find rest for his soul. For ever, when prostrate in prayer, would they rise up before him, and the enemy of mankind would whisper in his ear, "Thou fool! what is the good of praying and fasting and weeping? Thy sins are too heinous for pardon; thou hast given up thy possessions to secure a heritage in heaven, but thy guilt is so damning that thou wilt assuredly find its gate shut against thee. Instead of leading a miserable and wretched life here in the cloister, return to the world and enjoy life while it lasts, for in either case there is nothing to hope for in the future."

Jerome took counsel of the Abbot, an old, wise, and experienced Christian, who at once detected the cloven hoof in the temptation, and was successful in convincing the tempted one of the fact, advising him to go on in the course he was pursuing, assuring him that there was mercy for the vilest of sinners if penitent, which afforded him great consolation.

Nevertheless the remorse-stricken sinner considered that his misdeeds had been such that he could scarcely do sufficient in the way of mortification to obliterate the guilt of the past, and he determined upon withdrawing himself entirely from communion with his fellow-creatures, even from the Holy Brotherhood of Whitby, and devote the remainder of his life to meditation and prayer altogether apart from the world.

Connected with the Abbey there was, in a solitary place of the forest which fringed the banks of the Esk, a chapel where the monks were wont to retire at certain seasons for the purpose of devotion, away from the bustle and distraction inevitable in a large community; and in close proximity to this chapel, Jerome built for himself a wooden hut in which to pass his remaining years as a hermit, secluded from society, living on wild fruit and roots, quenching his thirst from the streamlet which trickled past, and spending his days and nights in prayer, flagellation, and abstinence.

Resident in the neighbourhood of Whitby were two landed proprietors—Ralph de Perci, Lord of Sneton, and William de Brus, Lord of Ugglebarnby, who were great lovers of hunting and other field sports, and near them lived one Allatson, a gentleman and freeholder. The three were boon companions, and constantly meeting in the pursuance of country sports, and at each other's houses for the purpose of carousing together. One night when they were thus assembled together they arranged to go boar-hunting on the following day, which was the 16th of October, 5th Henry II., in the forest of Eskdale; and soon after dinner they met, attired in their hunting garbs, with boar-staves in their hands, and accompanied by a pack of boar-hounds, yelping and barking, and as eager for the sport as their masters.

A boar was soon started, which plunged into the recesses of the forest, followed by the hounds in full cry, and by the hunters, shouting to encourage them. Onward they rushed, through brake and briar, the huge animal clearing a pathway through the tangled underwood, which enabled his pursuers to follow without much impediment. Onward they went in hot speed, the hounds sometimes overtaking the boar, and tearing him with their fangs, and the hunters beating him with their staves, maddening him with rage, and causing him to turn upon his pursuers, and rend the dogs with his fangs, as he would also the hunters, could he have escaped the environment of the dogs; and then he would dash onward again, evidently becoming more and more exhausted from wounds and bruises and loss of blood, until at length they came in sight of the chapel and hermitage; from which point we cannot do better than continue the narrative in the words of Burton, as given in his "Monasticon Ebor."

"The boar," says he, "being very sore and very hotly pursued, and dead run, took in at the chapel door and there died, whereof the hermit shut the hounds out of the chapel and kept himself within at his meditations, the hounds standing at bay without.

"The gentlemen called to the hermit (Brother Jerome), who opened the door. They found the boar dead, for which they, in very great fury (because their hounds were put from their game) did, most violently and cruelly, run at the hermit with their boar staves, whereby he died soon after."

Fearful of the consequences of their crime, they fled to Scarborough, and took sanctuary in the church; but the Abbot of Whitby, who was a friend of the King, was authorised to take them out, "whereby they came in danger of the law, and not to be privileged, but likely to have the severity of the law, which was death."

The hermit, who had been brought to Whitby Abbey, lay at the point of death when the prisoners were brought thither; and hearing of their arrival, he besought the Abbot that they might be brought into his presence; and when they made their appearance said to them, "I am sure to die of these wounds you gave me." "Aye," quoth the Abbot, "and they shall surely die for the same." "Not so," continued the dying man, "for I will freely forgive them my death if they will be contented to be enjoined this penance for the safeguard of their souls." "Enjoin what penance you will," replied the culprits, "so that you save our lives." Then Brother Jerome explained the nature of the penance:—"You and yours shall hold your lands of the Abbot of Whitby and his successors in this manner. That upon Ascension Eve, you, or some of you, shall come to the woods of Strayheads, which is in Eskdale, the same day at sunrising, and there shall the abbot's officer blow his horn, to the intent that you may know how to find him; and he shall deliver unto you, William de Brus, ten stakes, eleven strutstowers, and eleven yethers, to be cut by you, or some of you, with a knife of one penny price; and you, Ralph de Perci, shall take twenty and one of each sort, to be cut in the same manner; and you, Allatson, shall take nine of each sort to be cut as aforesaid, and to be taken on your backs and carried to the town of Whitby, and to be there before nine of the clock the same day before mentioned. If at the same hour of nine of the clock it be full sea, your labour or service shall cease; but if it be not full sea, each of you shall set your stakes at the brim and so yether them, on each side of your yethers, and so stake on each side with your strowers, that they may stand three tides, without removing by the force thereof. Each of you shall make and execute the said service at that very hour, every year, except it shall be full sea at that hour; but when it shall so fall out, this service shall cease.... You shall faithfully do this, in remembrance that you did most cruelly slay me; and that you may the better call to God for mercy, repent unfeignedly for your sins, and do good works. The officer of Eskdale side shall blow—'Out on you! out on you! out on you!' for this heinous crime. If you, or your successors, shall refuse this service, so long as it shall not be full sea, at the aforesaid hour, you, or yours, shall forfeit your lands to the Abbot of Whitby, or his successors. This I entreat, and earnestly beg that you may have lives and goods preserved for this service; and I request of you to promise, by your parts in Heaven, that it shall be done by you and your successors as it is aforesaid requested, and I will confirm it by the faith of an honest man." Then the hermit said, "My soul longeth for the Lord; and I do freely forgive these men my death, as Christ forgave the thief upon the cross," and in the presence of the Abbot and the rest, he said, moreover, these words, "In manas tuas, domine, commendo spiritum, meum, avinculis enim mortis redemisti me Domine veritatis. Amen." So he yielded up the ghost the 8th day of December, A.D. 1160, upon whose soul God have mercy. Amen.

In 1753, the service was rendered by the last of the Allatsons, the Lords of Sneton and Ugglebarnby having, it is supposed, bought off their share of the penance. He held a piece of land, of £10 a year, at Fylingdales, for which he brought five stakes, eight yethers, and six strutstowers, and whilst Mr. Cholmley's bailiff, on an antique bugle horn, blew "out on you," he made a slight edge of them a little way into the shallow of the river.

Burton, writing in 1757, adds, "This little farm is now out of the Allatson family, but the present owner performed the service last Ascension Eve, A.D. 1756."

The horn garth or yether hedge, as the fence was called, was constructed yearly on the east side of the Esk for the purpose of keeping cattle from the landing places.

Charlton, in his history of Whitby, discredits this tradition, saying that there were no such persons as those mentioned, and no chapel, only a hermitage in the forest; that the making of the horn garth is of much older date than that indicated, and that there is no record in the annals of the abbey of its ever having been made by way of penance; concluding that it is altogether a monkish invention.