initial commit of ebook 11124HEADmain

59 files changed, 47502 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/11124-0.txt b/11124-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c73664a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11124-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,7027 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11124 ***
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Northumberland Yesterday and To-day
+
+by Jean F. Terry, L.L.A.
+
+
+(St. Andrews), 1913.
+
+_To Sir Francis Douglas Blake,
+this book is inscribed in admiration of
+an eminent Northumbrian._
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+ INTRODUCTORY.
+ NORTHUMBERLAND YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
+ CHAPTER I. The Coast of Northumberland
+ CHAPTER II. North and South Tyne
+ CHAPTER III. Down the Tyne
+ CHAPTER IV. Newcastle-upon-Tyne
+ CHAPTER V. Elswick and its Founder
+ CHAPTER VI. The Cheviots
+ CHAPTER VII. The Roman Wall
+ CHAPTER VIII. Some Northumbrian Streams
+ CHAPTER IX. Drum and Trumpet
+ CHAPTER X. Tales and Legends
+ CHAPTER XI. Ballads and Poems
+
+[Illustration: Bamburgh Castle.]
+
+List of Illustrations
+
+ Bamburgh Castle. _From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham_
+ The Priory, Tynemouth. _From photograph by T.H. Dickinson, Sheriff Hill_
+ Untitled
+ Hexham Abbey from North West. _From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham_
+ The River Tyne at Newcastle (showing Swing Bridge Open).
+ Untitled
+ Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
+ Untitled
+ North Gateway, Housesteads and Roman Wall. _From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham_
+ Untitled
+ Alnwick Castle. _From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham_
+ The Wreck of the “Forfarshire”. _From illustration kindly lent by B. Rowland Hill, Newcastle_
+ Drawing of boat
+ Sketch Map Of Northumberland. _From a Drawing by C.H. Abbey_
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+
+    The following book makes no pretensions to be a mine of deep
+    historical research or antiquarian lore; its object will have been
+    achieved, and its existence to some extent justified, if haply by
+    its aid some of the dwellers in this northern county of ours, with
+    its past so full of action, and its present so rich in the
+    memorials of those actions, may pass a pleasant hour in becoming
+    acquainted through its pages with the happenings which have taken
+    place in their own particular fields, their own streets, or by
+    their own riverside.
+
+    I am aware that many learned volumes on this subject, representing
+    an enormous amount of patient labour and careful research in their
+    compilation, are already in existence. To such this little book can
+    in no sense be a rival; but there must be many people who have not
+    a superabundance of time, to enable them to dig out the information
+    for which they wish, from these various sources; nor can they
+    always make these volumes their own, to be consulted at leisure.
+
+    Northumbrians have always been interested in the records of their
+    own county, and are now-a-days not less so than when, some
+    three-and-a-half centuries ago, Roger North found them “great
+    antiquarians within their own bounds.” If to such as these this
+    little book may perhaps bring in a more convenient form the
+    information they seek, and help them to become better acquainted
+    with the county which inspired Swinburne to write in stirring
+    phrases of “Northumberland,” and to address the home of his people
+    as
+  “Land beloved, where nought of legend’s dream Outshines the truth”—
+
+    I shall be more than satisfied. I would take this opportunity of
+    expressing my grateful thanks to the Rev. Canon Savage, of Hexham,
+    for information relating to the tomb of Alfwald the Just, in the
+    Abbey, given with courteous readiness; to the Rev. Canon Jeffery,
+    of Bywell, for similar kindness regarding Bywell St. Peter’s; to
+    R.O. Heslop, Esq., whose profound store of learning on the subject
+    of “Northumberland words” was in cases of uncertainty my final
+    court of appeal; to E.T. Nisbet, Esq., and J. Treble, Esq., to whom
+    I am greatly indebted for their goodness in reading my manuscript,
+    and for their generous encouragement following thereupon; to C.H.
+    Abbey, Esq., for his kindness in executing the map which
+    accompanies these pages; and to Mr. G.P. Dunn, of Corbridge, for
+    much helpful criticism, and many suggestions which only want of
+    space has prevented my adopting in their entirety.
+
+J.F.T.
+
+    _31st May_, 1913.
+
+
+
+
+NORTHUMBERLAND YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
+
+CHAPTER I. THE COAST OF NORTHUMBERLAND.
+
+
+  “We’ll see nae mair the sea banks fair, And the sweet grey gleaming
+  sky, And the lordly strand of Northumberland, And the goodly towers
+  thereby.”
+  —_A.C. Swinburne_.
+
+    Wild and bleak it may be, hard and cruel at times it undoubtedly
+    is, but, nevertheless, this north-east coast of ours is at all
+    times inspiring, whether half-hidden by storm-clouds, its cliffs
+    and hollows lashed by the “wild north-easter,” or seen calmly
+    brooding in the warm haze of a summer’s day, its grey-blue water
+    smiling beneath the grey-blue sky, and its stretches of sand and
+    bents edging the sea with a border of gold and silver.
+
+    In keeping with either mood of nature, the ancient Priory of
+    Tynemouth, standing on the sandstone cliffs on the northern bank of
+    the Tyne, rearing its grey and roofless walls above the harbour
+    mouth, strikes a note that is symbolic of the Northumbria of old
+    and the Northumberland of to-day—the note, that is, of the intimate
+    commingling of the romance of the warlike past and the romance of
+    the industrial present. Here, above the mouth of the river on which
+    so many of the most noteworthy advances in industrial science have
+    been made, and out of which sail the vessels which are often the
+    last word of the moment in marine engineering and construction,
+    stand calmly looking down upon them all the fragments of a building
+    which was a century old when John signed Magna Charta, and which
+    stands upon the site of another that had already braved the storms
+    of nearly five hundred years.
+
+    Looking upon the Priory of St. Mary and St. Oswin we are carried
+    back to the days when Edwin, the first king of Northumbria to
+    embrace Christianity, built a little church here, in which his
+    daughter took the veil. King Oswald had the first wooden structure
+    replaced by a stone one; and here, in 651, the body of another good
+    king—Oswyn—was brought for burial from Gilling, near Richmond in
+    Yorkshire, where, disbanding his army, he sacrificed his cause and
+    his life to Oswy of Bernicia, with whom he had been about to fight.
+
+[Illustration: The Priory, Tynemouth.]
+
+    When the pirate ships of the Danes swept down upon our coasts, the
+    Priory of St. Oswin, conspicuous on its bold headland, could not
+    hope to escape their ravages. It was destroyed by the fierce
+    invaders; but King Ecgfrith[1] of Northumbria restored the
+    shattered shrine. Again, in the year 865, it was sacked and burnt,
+    and the poor nuns of St. Hilda, who had already fled from
+    Hartlepool to Tynemouth hoping to find safety, were ruthlessly
+    slain and earned the crown of martyrdom. It was again restored;
+    but, five years later, the destroying hands of the invaders fell on
+    the place once more, and for two hundred years the Priory stood
+    roofless and tenantless. After the Norman Conquest, Waltheof, Earl
+    of Northumberland bestowed it upon the monks of Jarrow. The
+    rediscovery of the tomb of St. Oswyn in 1065, had gladdened the
+    hearts of the monks, and forthwith the monastery was reared anew
+    over the ashes of its former self.
+
+ [1] Pronounced “Edge-frith.”
+
+    Mowbray, the next Earl of Northumberland, re-endowed the building.
+    He had quarrelled with the Bishop of Durham, so in order to do him
+    a displeasure, he made Tynemouth Priory subordinate to St. Albans
+    instead of to Durham and brought monks from St. Albans to dwell
+    there. The new buildings were finished in 1110, and the bones of
+    St. Oswyn enshrined within them, the right of sanctuary being
+    extended for a mile around his resting-place. This right, however,
+    was already in existence, and had been appealed to in 1095 by
+    Mowbray himself, who fled here pursued by the followers of William
+    Rufus, against whom he had rebelled. The King’s men disregarded the
+    sanctuary right, captured Mowbray, and sent him prisoner to
+    Durham[2].
+
+ [2] See account of Bamburgh Castle.
+
+    In later days the queens of Edward I. and Edward II. visited
+    Tynemouth Priory; and it was from Tynemouth that the foolish King
+    Edward II. and his worthless favourite Piers Gaveston fled from the
+    angry barons to Scarborough. In the reign of Edward III., after the
+    battle of Neville’s Cross, David of Scotland was brought here by
+    his captors on his way to Bamburgh, from whence he was sent to the
+    Tower.
+
+    At the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. the Priory was
+    inhabited by eighteen monks with their Prior. They bowed to the
+    King’s decree and left the monastery; but the church continued to
+    be used as the parish church until the days of Charles II., when
+    Christ Church was built.
+
+    The Priory has many times formed the subject of pictures by famous
+    artists, the best known being that of no less a genius than J. M.
+    W. Turner; and its picturesque ruins are a well-known landmark to
+    the hundreds of voyagers who pass it on their journeys, outward or
+    homeward bound. Within the last few years the Priory has been in
+    some measure repaired and restored.
+
+    There is but little left of Tynemouth Castle, which was built as a
+    protection for the monastery against the attacks of the Danes. It
+    stands in a commanding position on a neighbouring cliff, and is now
+    used as barracks for garrison artillery corps. During the days when
+    Scotland harried the English borders, the Priors of Tynemouth
+    maintained a garrison here; and later, in Stuart days, Charles I.
+    visited the North, and the fortress was strengthened just before
+    the outbreak of the Civil War. It was captured, notwithstanding, by
+    Leslie, Earl of Leven, after he had left Newcastle. Colonel
+    Lilburn, left in charge as governor, shortly afterwards avowed
+    himself on the side of King Charles; but he speedily paid for his
+    change of allegiance, for the Castle was re-taken by a force from
+    Newcastle under Sir Arthur Hazelrigg, and Lilburn lost his life in
+    the fight. The Castle has long been used as a dep ôt for the
+    storage of arms and ammunition. Behind the Spanish Battery which
+    commands the entrance to the Tyne stands a statue of the famous
+    North-countryman, Admiral Collingwood.
+
+    Connected with Tynemouth, by the fact that a small chantry
+    belonging to the Priory once stood there, is St. Mary’s Island. One
+    may walk unhindered at low tide across the rocks to this favourite
+    place, but where the chantry stood there is now a lighthouse with a
+    powerful lantern, flashing its welcome light to the seafarers
+    nearing the mouth of the Tyne, and extending
+  “To each and all our equal lamp, at peril of the sea, The white
+  wall-sided war-ships, or the whalers of Dundee.”
+
+    Between Tynemouth and St. Mary’s Island lie Cullercoats, Whitley
+    Bay, and Monkseaton, and together these places make practically one
+    extended seaside town, stretching for three or four miles along the
+    sea-front, and joined by a fine parade which leads to open links at
+    Monkseaton. Of these places Cullercoats is most noteworthy. This
+    picturesque fishing village, with quaint old houses perched in
+    every conceivable position on the curve of its rocky bay, is,
+    needless to say, a favourite camping ground for artists. The
+    Cullercoats fishwife, with her cheerful weather-bronzed face, her
+    short jacket and ample skirts of blue flannel, and her heavily
+    laden “crees” of fish is not only appreciated by the brotherhood of
+    brush and pencil, but is one of the notable sights of the district.
+    At Cullercoats is struck a note of the most modern of modern
+    achievements—the Wireless Telegraphy Station (225 feet); and here,
+    too, is situated the Dove Marine Laboratory, looked after by
+    scientists on the staff of the Armstrong College at Newcastle.
+
+    In fine weather the crowds which pass and repass along the top of
+    the bold cliffs which overlook the fine stretch of sands between
+    Cullercoats and Monkseaton show how many hundreds of Northumbria’s
+    busy workers enjoy the fresh breezes from the sea on this pleasant
+    and bracing coast. Out at sea, opposite the Parade, vessels built
+    in the busy shipyards on the Tyne may be seen doing their speed
+    trials over the measured mile. The Peace of St. Oswyn may, in fact,
+    be said to brood over Tynemouth, even in these days, for it is an
+    increasing custom for those who can do so to remain in Newcastle
+    and other busy centres of toil only during business hours, and to
+    leave workshop and office every evening for their home by the sea:
+    while the tide of noisy, happy, boisterous excursionists has rolled
+    on to Whitley Bay, leaving Tynemouth to its old-time sleepy
+    content. Northward to Hartley and Seaton Sluice the cliffs are very
+    fine. Hartley, with its bright-looking red-tiled houses, once
+    belonged to Adam of Gesemuth (Jesmond) who lived in the reign of
+    King John. Coming down to modern times, about thirty years ago a
+    gallant Hartley man, Thomas Langley, rescued two successive
+    shipwrecked crews on the same day, in one case allowing himself to
+    be lowered over the cliffs at a terrible risk in the furious storm.
+
+    Seaton Sluice belongs to the ancient family of the Delavals, whose
+    house, Delaval Hall, may be seen not far away, peeping from amongst
+    the trees which surround it. Seaton Sluice owes its name to the
+    Delaval who placed the large sluice gates upon the burn, in order
+    to have a strong current which, in rushing down to the sea, would
+    be able to wash the mouth of the stream clear from the silt and mud
+    brought in by the incoming tide. A later baronet, Sir John Hussey
+    Delaval, made the cutting through the solid rock which is so
+    striking a feature of the harbour. It was ready for the entrance of
+    vessels in March, 1763.
+
+    Delaval Hall is now owned by Lord Hastings, the present
+    representative of the Delavals, which family became extinct in the
+    male line early in the nineteenth century. The last Delaval, a very
+    learned man, was buried in Westminster Abbey in 1814. The Hall was
+    built for Admiral Delaval in 1707 to the design of Sir J. Vanbrugh,
+    who also designed Blenheim Palace, given by the nation to the great
+    Duke of Marlborough about the same time.
+
+    Hartley Colliery, about half a mile away, has a sad interest as
+    being the scene of the terrible accident in 1862, when a number of
+    men and boys were imprisoned in the workings owing to the blocking
+    up of the only shaft by a mass of d ébris, caused by the fall of an
+    iron beam belonging to the pumping engine at the pit-head. Before
+    the shaft could be cleared and a way opened to the workings, all
+    the poor fellows had died, overcome by the deadly “choke-damp.”
+    Joseph Skipsey, the pitman poet, in a simple ballad, tells the
+    pathetic story.
+  “Oh, father! till the shaft is rid, Close, close beside me keep; My
+  eyelids are together glued, And I,—and I,—must sleep.”
+  “Sleep, darling, sleep, and I will keep Close by—heigh ho.”—To keep
+  Himself awake the father strives. But he—he, too—must sleep.
+  “Oh mother dear! wert, wert thou near Whilst—sleep!” The orphan
+  slept; And all night long, by the black pit-heap The mother a dumb
+  watch kept.
+
+    From here, northward, the coast is rather dull and uninteresting,
+    although the sands are fine, until we reach Blyth, at the mouth of
+    the little river of the same name. This town is growing rapidly in
+    size and importance; the export of coal has greatly increased since
+    the harbour was so much improved by Sir Matthew White Ridley, and
+    now totals some millions of tones a year. The river Wansbeck not
+    far north of the mouth of the Blyth, in the latter part of its
+    course flows through a district begrimed by all the necessary
+    accompaniments of the traffic in “black diamonds,” and reaches the
+    sea between the colliery villages of Cambois and North Seaton.
+
+    On the point at the northern curve of Newbiggin Bay stands
+    Newbiggin Church, and ancient building, whose steeple, “leaning all
+    awry,” is a well-known landmark for sailors. The site of this
+    church is in danger of being undermined by the waves, and, indeed,
+    part of the churchyard crumbled away many years ago; but such
+    defences as are possible have been built up around it,—and the
+    danger averted for a time. Newbiggin itself is a large fishing
+    village and an increasingly popular holiday resort, for it
+    possesses not only good sands but a wide moor near at hand which
+    provides one of the best of golf courses; and, also, a short
+    distance along the coast, are the attractive Fairy Rocks.
+
+    Newbiggin was a town of some importance in Plantagenet days, with a
+    busy harbour, and a pier; and in the reign of Edward II. it was
+    required to contribute a vessel towards the naval defence of the
+    Kingdom.
+
+    Northward from Newbiggin Point is the magnificent sweep of Druridge
+    Bay, stretching in a fine curve of ten miles or more to Hauxley
+    Haven. Here, the sands of a warm golden colour, the wind-swept
+    bents of silvery-grey, and the vivid green of the grassy cliff tops
+    edge the curve of the bay with a line of bright and delicate
+    colour, only thrown into greater relief by the brown reefs and
+    ridges which stretch out from the rocky shores, and by the deep
+    blue-green of the waves rolling inshore in long majestic lines, to
+    break into hissing foam on the sharp reefs, or slide smoothly up
+    the yellow sands in the centre of the bay. Above, beyond the grassy
+    tops of the cliffs, stretch deep woods, with the old pele-tower of
+    Cresswell looking out from amongst the trees, fields many-coloured
+    with their burden of varying crops, and wide lonely moors, where
+    one may walk for half a day without hearing any sound save the wild
+    screaming of sea-birds, or the whistle of the wind, with the low
+    boom of the waves below sounding a deep-toned accompaniment. The
+    bay is not always so peaceful, however, and many wild scenes and
+    terrible shipwrecks have taken place here, as everywhere along our
+    wild north-east coast. The Bondicar rocks, by Hauxley, and the
+    cruel spikes of the reef at Snab Point, near Cresswell, have
+    betrayed many a gallant little vessel to her doom. Not, however,
+    without bringing on many an occasion proof of the courage which is
+    shown as a matter of course by the fisher folk on our coasts. At
+    Newbiggin, and Cresswell, for instance, deeds have been done,
+    which, in their simple unassuming heroism, may be taken as typical
+    of the hardy race which could count Grace Darling among its
+    daughters.
+
+    About thirty years ago, a ship drove ashore off Cresswell one
+    bitter night in January, and the fisher folk crowded down to the
+    shore, watching with sorrowful eyes the hapless crew clinging to
+    their unfortunate vessel, which was slowly being broken up by the
+    waves. There was no lifeboat at Cresswell then, and all the men of
+    the village, except the old men who were past work, had gone
+    northward, when the oncoming storm prevented their return. The
+    women and girls heard the cries of the schooner’s crew, and mourned
+    to each other their inability to help. But one gallant-hearted
+    girl, named Peggy Brown, cried out, “If I thowt she could hing on a
+    bit, I wad be away for the lifeboat.” But between them and
+    Newbiggin, the nearest lifeboat station, the Lyne Burn runs into
+    the sea, and spreads widely out over the sands; and the older
+    people told Peggy she could never cross the burn in the dark. She
+    set off, however, the thought of the drowning men hastening her on.
+    For four miles she made her way in the storm and darkness, partly
+    along the shore, scrambling over rock’s, and wading waist-deep
+    through the Lyne Burn and one or two other places where the waves
+    had driven far up the sands, and partly across Newbiggin Moor,
+    where the icy wind tore at her in her drenched clothing. She
+    pressed on, however, and managed to reach the coxswain’s house and
+    give her message. The lifeboat was immediately run out, and the men
+    reached the wreck in time to save all the crew except one, who had
+    been washed overboard.
+
+    On another occasion one of the fishermen, named Tom Brown, was
+    preparing to go out, with the help of his two sons, in his own
+    fishing coble to the aid of a ship in distress on the reef. A
+    carter had come down to the beach, the better to watch the progress
+    of events, and, terrified by the thundering waves, his horse took
+    fright, and in its plunging drove the cart against the little boat,
+    making a hole clear through one side. “Big Tom,” as he was
+    generally called, merely took off his coat, rolled it into a bundle
+    and stuffed it against the hole. Then he beckoned to another
+    fisherman, saying to him “Sit on that.” The man clambered in, and
+    without the loss of another minute these four heroes set off to
+    save their fellow creatures’ lives, with a broken and leaking boat
+    in a heavy sea. And they did it, reaching the brig only just in
+    time, for it went to pieces a few minutes after the shivering crew
+    had been safely landed.
+
+    Incidents like these, which could be multiplied indefinitely, bring
+    a glow of pride to the heart, and a reassuring sense that the
+    degeneration of the race is not proceeding in such wholesale
+    fashion—in the country districts, at any rate—as the pessimists
+    would have us believe.
+
+    At the northern extremity of Druridge Bay is the little fishing
+    village of Hauxley, with the chimneys and pit-head engines of
+    Ratcliffe and Broomhill Collieries darkening the sky to the
+    south-west. Passing the Bondicar rocks and rounding the point we
+    enter the “fairway” for Warkworth Harbour and Amble, where a brisk
+    exportation of the coal of the neighbourhood is carried on.
+
+    Lying out at sea, opposite Amble coastguard station, the white
+    lighthouse on Coquet Island keeps watch over the entrance to the
+    harbour. Some of the walls of the monastery, which stood on the
+    island in Saxon days, can now be seen forming part of the dwelling
+    of the lighthouse keeper. For many generations, too, hermit after
+    hermit went to dwell on this tiny islet, and St. Cuthbert himself
+    is said to have inhabited the little cell at one time. The island
+    was captured by the Scots in the Civil Wars of King Charles’s
+    reign, and held by them for a time.
+
+    The situation of Amble, at the mouth of the Coquet, has been looked
+    upon as convenient from very early days, for there are signs which
+    tell us of a population here at an early period. Several
+    cist-vaens, or ancient stone coffins, have been found near the
+    town, and a broken Roman altar was unearthed in the neighbourhood.
+    The monastery which stood here, like that on Holy Island, was, in
+    later times, inhabited by Benedictine monks, who were under the
+    authority of the Prior of Tynemouth. William the Conqueror gave the
+    then Prior the right to collect the tithes of the little town.
+
+    A short distance from Amble, and practically encircled by the
+    Coquet which here makes a wide sweep, we come upon Warkworth,
+    prettiest of villages, combining the beauties of sea-shore and
+    river scenery, and rich in the possession of that romantic castle,
+    the ruins of which carry the mind back to Saxon times; for they
+    stand on the site of an older fortress erected by Ceolwulf, a Saxon
+    King of Northumbria. He was the patron of Bede, who dedicated his
+    “Ecclesiastical History” to his royal friend. Ceolwulf built both
+    the fortress and the earliest church at Warkworth, and a few stones
+    of this latter building are still to be seen. In 737, two years
+    after the death of Bede, this royal Saxon laid aside his kingly
+    state and became a monk on Lindisfarne,
+  “When he, for cowl and beads, laid down The Saxon battle-axe and
+  crown.”
+
+    It was when the castle was bestowed by Edward III. upon Lord Percy
+    of Alnwick that it became, for more than two hundred years, the
+    chief residence of that illustrious family; becoming in the next
+    reign of historical value as the home of that Hotspur whose valour
+    and gallantry made Henry IV. envy the Earl of Northumberland, in
+    that he “should be the father of so blest a son.” In Act II., Scene
+    3 of “Henry IV.,” Part II., Shakespeare has laid the scene at
+    Warkworth Castle, where Hotspur’s wife, troubled by her lord’s
+    moody abstraction, tries to win from him the reason of his secret
+    care. And after the battle of Shrewsbury, Rumour, flying with the
+    news of Hotspur’s death, says:—
+  “Thus have I rumoured through the peasant towns, Between the royal
+  field of Shrewsbury And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone, Where
+  Hotspur’s father, old Northumberland, Lies crafty-sick.”
+
+    Two years after this, the castle was besieged by Henry IV. himself,
+    and surrendered to him after a brief bombardment by the newly
+    invented cannon. The keep was re-built by Hotspur’s son, after the
+    family possessions had been restored to him by Henry V., and it is
+    now the only remaining part of the castle which is almost perfect.
+    One of the half-ruinous towers remaining is called the Lion Tower,
+    from the sculptured lion on its walls; while another rejoices in
+    the curious name of Cradyfargus. A strange story is told of a blue
+    stone to be seen in the courtyard of the castle. Many years ago, so
+    runs the tale, one of the custodians of Warkworth Castle dreamed
+    three nights in succession that a large treasure was concealed
+    beneath a blue stone in a certain part of the castle grounds. He
+    told this dream to a neighbour, and after allowing two or three
+    days to pass, finding the dream constantly recurring to his mind,
+    he thought he would go to the place indicated, and see what he
+    could find. To his disappointment, however, he discovered that some
+    one had been there before him; a large hole had been dug, and on
+    the edge of it lay the blue stone.
+
+    Needless to say, the hole was empty, nor could the keeper discover
+    anything about the treasure in the neighbourhood. It is said that a
+    certain family in the village became suddenly rich; and, many years
+    afterwards, a large and ancient pot, supposed to have been that in
+    which the buried treasure had been contained, was found in the
+    Coquet.
+
+    The main street of Warkworth leads straight up to the postern gate
+    of the castle, and many stirring sights have the successive
+    inhabitants of the little village looked upon, as the fortunes of
+    the owners of the castle waxed and waned throughout the many
+    centuries in which the lords of Warkworth played a notable part in
+    the history of England. They saw Henry Percy, entrusted with a
+    share in the safe keeping of the country, set out from Warkworth
+    for Durham, to help in winning the victory of Neville’s Cross.
+
+    They saw Hotspur’s force set out for the Cheviots to intercept
+    Douglas and his followers, which they did at Homildon Hill, near
+    Wooler; and it was the quarrel in connection with the prisoners
+    taken on that day which led Hotspur and his father openly to throw
+    off their allegiance to Henry IV., so that a few months later the
+    peasants of Warkworth saw their idolised young lord set out for
+    what was to prove the fatal field of Shrewsbury. They saw Hotspur’s
+    father, the first Henry Percy to receive the title of Earl, (a
+    title which had been given him at the coronation of Richard II.)
+    set out with a brave force after Hotspur’s departure; and they saw
+    his return, almost alone, dejected and broken in spirit, having
+    learnt that the help so tardily given had come too late, and the
+    life of his gallant son was ended.
+
+    They saw the siege train of Henry Bolingbroke laid against the
+    castle, directed by Henry in person, provoked into these active
+    measures by the open rebellion of father and son, though
+    Northumberland had tried to make it appear that he was innocent of
+    any treasonable act. After capturing the castle, Bolingbroke
+    bestowed it on his third son, John of Lancaster, and the villagers
+    saw the young prince riding in and out among them daily so long as
+    he made the castle his home.
+
+    Then, in the next reign, they welcomed the return of Hotspur’s son,
+    Henry, to the home of his fathers, restored to him by Henry V.;
+    and, within a short time, saw him bring home his bride, Eleanor
+    Neville, daughter of his friend and neighbour, the Earl of
+    Westmoreland.
+
+    In the Wars of the Roses, Warkworth Castle saw many changes of
+    fortune, as the tide of victory flowed this way and that. The
+    Percies were all Lancastrians, though Sir Ralph Percy changed sides
+    twice. The castle fell into the hands of the Yorkists, and the
+    great Earl of Warwick, the “King-maker” himself, made it his
+    headquarters for a time, while he superintended the sieges of
+    Alnwick, Dunstanborough, and Bamburgh, which were all invested at
+    the same time. Eventually, after the Wars of the Roses concluded,
+    Warkworth was restored, along with the other Percy estates, to its
+    original owners.
+
+    Finally, the inhabitants of the little village saw the church
+    entered by the Jacobites in 1715, when Mr. Buxton, chaplain of the
+    little force, prayed for James III. and Mary the Queen-mother; and
+    General Forster, dressed as a trumpeter, proclaimed King James III.
+    at the village cross.
+
+    A few miles north from the mouth of the Coquet, the little Aln
+    spreads over the sandy flats near Alnmouth, and reaches the sea. It
+    has changed its course, for at one time it flowed to the south of
+    Church Hill, instead of to the north as at present. The town of
+    Alnmouth, viewed from the train just before entering Alnmouth
+    Station, looks very picturesque, especially if the rare sunshine of
+    an English summer should be lighting up the bay, bringing out the
+    vivid red of the tiled roofs against the grassy hills fringing the
+    links which lie on their seaward side, and lighting up, also, the
+    yellow sands and long lines of sparkling wavelets edged with white.
+
+    Alnmouth depends for its living on a fleet of fishing boats, and on
+    the numbers of visitors who seek its fresh breezes and inviting
+    shores each summer. Golfers, indeed, find it pleasant all the year
+    round, as there is only a scarcely appreciable interval in the
+    winter months when their favourite pastime cannot be followed on
+    the breezy links. On Church Hill, now crowned by a few old stones,
+    once stood a Norman church, dedicated to St. Valery, which, in its
+    turn, occupied the site of an older Saxon building, supposed to
+    have been the church which Bede refers to as being at Twyford,
+    where a great synod of clergy was held in the year 684, and
+    Cuthbert appointed Bishop of Lindisfarne. It is a matter of dispute
+    whether this Twyford was Alnmouth or Whittingham, but the two fords
+    at Alnmouth seem to point to a decision in favour of that place.
+    The old Norman church, which fell into ruin at the beginning of
+    last century, was fired at by the famous pirate Paul Jones; the
+    cannon shot, weighing 68 pounds, missed the church, but struck a
+    neighbouring farm house, doing great damage.
+
+    The coast north of Alnmouth becomes rocky and wild, and very
+    picturesque, and the villages along the coast are being sought out
+    by holiday makers in increasing numbers, year by year. Boulmer, one
+    of these villages, was a famous place for smuggling in the old
+    days, and many an exciting scene and sharp encounter took place
+    between the smugglers and the King’s men. Not far away is Howick
+    Dene, a lovely little glen leading down to the sea from Howick
+    Hall, the home of Earl Grey.
+
+    Cullernose Point, a striking crag, is formed by the outcrop of a
+    portion of the Great Whin Sill, which from here can be traced to
+    the south-west, and thence right across the county.
+
+    At Craster, another fishing village and a favourite holiday haunt,
+    is Craster Tower, which has been the home of the family of Craster
+    since before the Conquest. Not far to the north is the famous
+    Rumble Churn in the rocks below Dunstanborough Castle, where the
+    waves roll in and out of the caves and chasms with weird and hollow
+    rumblings. There is another Rumbling Churn in the cliffs near
+    Howick.
+
+    The famous divine of the Middle Ages, John Duns Scotus, was born in
+    this parish—that of Embleton; the group of buildings known as
+    Dunston Hall, or Proctor’s Steads, is supposed to have been his
+    birthplace, and a portrait of the learned doctor is to be seen
+    there.
+
+    Dunstanborough Castle stands in lonely grandeur on great whinstone
+    crags, close to the very edge of the sea, and on the first sight of
+    it, Keats’ wonderful lines spring involuntarily to the lips:—
+  “Magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery
+  lands forlorn.”
+
+    Forlorn, indeed, though not in exactly the sense conveyed by the
+    poem, is this huge fortress now; it abides, says Freeman, “as a
+    castle should abide, in all the majesty of a shattered ruin.” The
+    primitive cannon of the days of the Wars of the Roses began to
+    shatter those mighty walls, and, unlike Bamborough, it has never
+    been strengthened since. Simon de Montford once owned this estate,
+    and the next lord of Dunstanborough was a son of Henry III., to
+    whom Earl Simon’s forfeited estate was given. His eldest son,
+    Thomas of Lancaster, took part with the barons in bringing the
+    unworthy favourite of Edward II., Piers Gaveston, to his death.
+    Under the King’s anger, Lancaster went away to his Northumbrian
+    estate, and began to build this mighty fortress, though he already
+    owned the castles of Kenilworth and Pontefract. In the Wars of the
+    Roses, Dunstanborough Castle was taken and retaken no less than
+    five times, and Queen Margaret found refuge here, as well as at
+    Bamburgh; but apart from these occasions, Dunstanborough has not
+    taken nearly so great a part in either local or national history as
+    the other Northumbrian castles of Bamburgh, Warkworth, and Alnwick,
+    though greater in extent than any of them. In 1538 an official
+    report describes “Dunstunburht” as “a very reuynous howse”; and the
+    process of dilapidation was soon aided by enterprising dwellers in
+    the neighbourhood using the stones of the forsaken castle to build
+    their own homesteads.
+
+    From the castle northward curves Embleton Bay, in which, after
+    having been buried in the sand for ages, a sandstone rock was
+    uncovered by the tide, having on its surface, chiselled in rough
+    but distinct lettering, the name “Andra Barton.” Sir Andrew Barton,
+    daring Scottish sea-captain and fearless freebooter, was slain in a
+    sea-fight off this part of the coast, in the days of Henry VIII.,
+    by the sons of Surrey, one of whom, Sir Thomas Howard, was Lord
+    Admiral at the time, and so, in a measure, responsible for the
+    defence of the English coast. The loss of his brave sea-captain and
+    his “goodly ships” was one of the grievances in the long list which
+    led King James IV. to declare war against England, and led to the
+    fatal field of Flodden, in which Admiral Sir Thomas Howard and his
+    brother took part under the command of their father, the Earl of
+    Surrey.
+
+    The wide sweep of grassy common beyond the sands in Embleton Bay
+    is, in summer time, covered with a profusion of wild flowers, chief
+    amongst them being the wild geranium, or meadow cranes-bill, whose
+    reddish-purple blossoms grow in such abundance as to arrest the
+    attention of every visitor. A little way back from the sea-shore,
+    in the middle of this wide space, lies the village of Embleton,
+    which possesses an ancient and interesting church, and a vicarage,
+    part of which is formed by an old pele-tower. Embleton would seem
+    to have a reputation to keep up in the way of famous churchmen.
+    Duns Scotus has been already mentioned; and one of the vicars here
+    was a cousin of Richard Steele, the essayist and friend of Addison;
+    and he described the country squires of his day in a paper which he
+    contributed to the “Spectator” of that date, 1712.
+
+    Another Vicar of Embleton, who lived here from 1874 to 1884, was
+    Dr. Mandell Creighton, the learned historian, who became Bishop of
+    London.
+
+    The well-known journalist, W.T. Stead, was born in the parish of
+    Embleton, though his childhood was passed in very different
+    surroundings, in the narrow streets and grimy atmosphere of
+    Howdon-on-Tyne. His recent death on the ill-fated _Titanic_ will be
+    fresh in the minds of all.
+
+    Newton-by-the-Sea is reached by a pleasant walk along the
+    sea-shore. (It is to be understood that in this journey along the
+    coast we are moving northward always). There is here a
+    cheery-looking white-washed coastguard station standing on the bold
+    headland of Newton Point.
+
+    Past this point is Beadnell Bay, with green and grassy Beadnell
+    just beyond Little Rock. The small fishing harbour at Beadnell has
+    the unique distinction of being the only harbour on the east coast
+    whose mouth faces west, and the short pier, running _inland_ from
+    rocks to shore, acts as a breakwater against the heavy easterly or
+    southeasterly seas and makes the harbour a safe anchorage for
+    fishing craft or small yachts. The rocks around this bay are very
+    interesting, showing the various strata very plainly, and
+    containing many fossils. The striking cliff called Ebbe’s Nook is
+    supposed to have been named after the Saxon princess Ebba, sister
+    to King Oswald, and the ruins which were discovered on the
+    headland, to be all that is left of a chapel erected to her memory.
+
+    At Seahouses is an extensive fish-curing establishment, a fact
+    which proclaims itself unmistakably as you near the village,
+    especially if the day chance to be at all warm. A little distance
+    from the shore is another fishing village, North Sunderland, and
+    northward from Seahouses is the inn called The Monkshouse, from the
+    fact that it once belonged to the community on Lindisfarne.
+
+    Bamburgh Castle, magnificently placed on a lofty crag rising
+    perpendicularly from the greensward on the west or landward side,
+    and almost as steeply from the sea which washes the north and east
+    sides, lies like a majestic lion on its mighty rock “brooding on
+    ancient fame.” The voices of children at play on the sands below
+    sound faint and far in the still air; the sea birds, with the
+    summer sunshine flashing on their outspread wings, sweep round and
+    round; in the far distance a trail of smoke low down on the horizon
+    marks the track of a passing steamer; and near at hand, southward a
+    little way from the castle cliff, the rocky islets of the Farne
+    group lie drowsily asleep on the gently-heaving swell of the
+    grey-blue waters. Behind the castle lies the pretty old-fashioned
+    village with its quaint hostelries and grove of trees; and from the
+    higher parts of the new golf-links the player may look round on a
+    view which would be difficult to match, comprising as it does, the
+    Farne Islands and Dunstanborough to the south, and northward, Holy
+    Island, with its castle and abbey and the bluish haze of smoke
+    lying over Berwick; while, on the western skyline, on a clear day,
+    may be seen the rounded caps of the Cheviots.
+
+    The beginnings of Bamburgh take us back more than a thousand years,
+    to that long-ago summer of 547, when the _cyuls_ (keels) of the
+    marauding Bernician chieftain Ida and his followers grounded on the
+    shore of our Northland, and the work of conquest began. Ida was not
+    slow to grasp the importance of such a commanding site as this
+    isolated mass of basaltic crag, and the rude stronghold which
+    crowned it. It became in time a formidable fortress, and remained
+    for centuries the headquarters of the kings of the North.
+
+    Here reigned Ida and his sons—six of them—for more or less short
+    and stormy periods, and Ethelric of Bernicia, who vanquished the
+    neighbouring prince of Deira, and thus reigned as the first king of
+    Northumbria as Northumbria. The Celtic name of the fortress was
+    Dinguardi, or Dinguvardy; and tradition has it that this was Sir
+    Lancelot’s castle of Joyeuse Garde, where he had often feasted the
+    Knights of the Round Table, and where he, at last, came home to
+    die. The fact that Bamburgh is the only pre-Conquest castle in
+    Northumberland disposes of the claim of Alnwick.
+
+    “My fair lords,” said sir Launcelot, “wit ye well, my careful body
+    will into the earth; I have warning more than I will now say;
+    therefore, I pray you, give me my rights.” So when he was houseled
+    and eneled, and had all that a Christian man ought to have, he
+    prayed the bishop that his fellows might bear his body unto Joyous
+    Gard.
+
+    Some men say Anwick, and some men say to Bamborow; “how-beit,” said
+    sir Launcelot, “me repenteth sore; but I made mine avow aforetime,
+    that in Joyous Gard I would be buried; and because of breaking of
+    mine vow, I pray you all lead me thither.” Then was there weeping
+    and wringing of hands among all his fellows.
+
+    And so, within fifteen days, they came to Joyous Gard, and there
+    they laid his corpse in the body of the quire, and read many
+    psalters and prayers over him and about him.... And right thus, as
+    they were at their service, there came sir Ector de Maris, that had
+    sought seven years all England, Scotland and Wales, seeking his
+    brother sir Launcelot.... Then went sir Bors unto sir Ector, and
+    told him how there lay his brother sir Launcelot dead.
+
+    And then sir Ector threw his shield, his sword, and his helm from
+    him; and when he beheld sir Launcelot’s visage, he fell down in a
+    swoon; and when he awoke, it were hard for any tongue to tell the
+    doleful complaints that he made for his brother. “Ah! sir
+    Launcelot,” said he, “thou wert head of all Christian knights!”
+    “And now, I dare say,” said sir Bors, “that sir Launcelot, there
+    thou liest, thou wert never matched of none earthly knight’s hands;
+    and thou wert the courtliest knight that ever bare a shield; and
+    thou wert the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrod horse;
+    and thou wert the truest lover of a sinful man that ever loved
+    woman; and thou wert the kindest man that ever stroke with sword;
+    and thou wert the goodliest person that ever came among press of
+    knights; and thou wert the meekest man, and the gentlest, that ever
+    eat in hall among ladies; and thou wert the sternest knight to thy
+    mortal foe, that ever put spear in the rest.”
+
+    Then there was weeping and dolor out of measure.
+  —_Malory’s Morte d’Arthur_.
+
+    Ethelfrith, who succeeded Ethelric, gave the fort to his second
+    wife, Bebba, after whom it was named Bebbanburgh, which soon became
+    Bamburgh.
+
+    In the days of King Edwin, who succeeded Ethelfrith, Bamburgh was
+    the centre of a kingdom which extended from the Humber to the
+    Forth, and as Northumbria was at that time the most important
+    division of England, the royal city of Bernicia was practically the
+    capital of the country. The reign of King Oswald, though shorter
+    than that of Edwin, was equally noteworthy from the fact that in
+    his days the gentle Aidan settled in Northumbria, and king and monk
+    worked together for the good of their people, and Bamburgh became
+    not only the seat of temporal power but the safeguard and bulwark
+    of the spiritual movement centred on the little isle of
+    Lindisfarne. On the accession of Edwin, Oswald, son of Ethelfrith,
+    had fled from Bernicia and taken refuge with the monks of Iona,
+    living with them till the time came for him to rule Northumbria in
+    his turn. As soon as possible after the inevitable fighting for his
+    political existence was over, he sent to Iona for a teacher to come
+    and instruct his people in the truths he had learned; and a monk
+    named Corman was sent. He, however, was unable to make any
+    impression on the wild and warlike Saxons of the northern kingdom,
+    and he soon returned to Iona with the report that it was useless to
+    try to teach such obstinate and barbarous people. One of the
+    brethren, listening to his account, ventured to ask him if he were
+    sure that all the fault lay with the people. “Did you remember,”
+    said he, “that we are commanded to give them the milk first? Did
+    you not rather try them with the strong meat?” With one accord the
+    brethren declared that he who had spoken such wise words was the
+    man best fitted for the task, and the gentle Aidan was sent to
+    Oswald’s help. In such a fashion came the Gospel to Northumbria,
+    and Aidan became the first of the long roll of saints whose deeds
+    and lives had such incalculable influence on Northumbrian history.
+    From Aidan’s arrival in 635 until the death of Oswald the relations
+    between the king and the monk who had settled on Medcaud or
+    Medcaut, soon to be known as Lindisfarne, and later as Holy Island,
+    were those of friend to friend and fellow-worker, rather than those
+    of king and subject.
+
+    After the death of Oswald, his conqueror Penda, the fierce King of
+    the Mercians, harried Northumbria, and appearing before the walls
+    of Bamburgh prepared to burn it down. Piles of logs and brushwood
+    were laid against the city and the fire was applied. Aidan, in his
+    little cell on Farne Island, to which he had retired, saw the
+    clouds of flame and smoke rolling over the home of his beloved
+    patron. Raising his hands to Heaven, he exclaimed, “See, Lord, what
+    ill Penda is doing!” Scarcely had he uttered the words, when the
+    wind changed, and drove the flames away from Bamburgh, blowing them
+    against Penda’s host, who thereupon ceased all further attempts
+    against the city.
+
+    Not long after this, Aidan was at Bamburgh, when he was seized with
+    sudden illness, and died with his head resting against one of the
+    wooden stays of the little church. Penda came again the next year,
+    and this time both village and church were burnt, all except, says
+    tradition, the beam of wood against which Aidan had rested in his
+    last moments.
+
+    When the Danish ships appeared off our shores, in the two centuries
+    following, Bamburgh was attacked and plundered several times. In
+    the days of William Rufus, as we have seen, Robert de Mowbray, Earl
+    of Northumberland, rebelled against the Red King, in company with
+    his uncle the Bishop of Coutances, Robert of Normandy, and William
+    of St. Carileph, Bishop of Durham. Rufus marched into
+    Northumberland, but the quarrel was adjusted for the time; though
+    private strife between the two Bishops led to Mowbray’s driving the
+    monks of Durham from the Priory at Tynemouth and replacing them by
+    monks from St. Albans.
+
+    Later, however, Mowbray disobeyed a summons from the Red King, who
+    once more marched into Northumberland. He reached Bamburgh, and
+    invested it, but failed to make any impression on that impregnable
+    stronghold, within whose walls were Mowbray and his young wife, the
+    Countess Matilda, and his nephew, who was Sheriff of
+    Northumberland. Rufus, finding all attempts to carry the fortress
+    useless, began to build a wooden fort, called a _Malvoisin_, or
+    “Bad neighbour”; and so anxious was he to have it speedily erected
+    that he made knights and nobles as well as his men-at-arms take
+    part in the work.
+
+    Mowbray, from the battlements, called out to many of these by name,
+    openly taunting those who had secretly promised to join him, or had
+    expressed themselves as in sympathy with his disobedience. His
+    words gave great amusement to Rufus and the nobles who were truly
+    loyal, and much mortification and vexation to those whom he so
+    ruthlessly exposed. Rufus left the “Bad neighbour” to continue the
+    siege and went southward.
+
+    Mowbray, led to believe that Newcastle would receive him, and take
+    his part, stole away from Bamburgh by sea, and reached Tynemouth.
+    On proceeding to Newcastle, however, he found he had been mistaken,
+    and hurriedly fled hack to Tynemouth, pursued by his enemies. He
+    held out against them for a day or two, but was then captured and
+    taken to Durham. Meanwhile the high-spirited Countess held Bamburgh
+    against all assailants; but Mowbray’s capture gave Rufus an
+    advantage he was not slow to use. Returning to the North, he
+    ordered Mowbray to be brought before the walls of Bamburgh, and
+    threatened to put his eyes out if the Countess did not immediately
+    surrender. Needless to say, she preferred to give up the castle,
+    and Mowbray’s reign as Earl of Northumberland was over.
+
+    Thereafter Bamburgh was visited by various sovereigns in turn, when
+    their affairs brought them to the northerly parts of their kingdom.
+    When Balliol, tired of long years of conflict, surrendered most of
+    his rights to Edward III., it was at Bamburgh that the convention
+    was concluded. In this reign the castle was greatly strengthened.
+
+    In the Wars of the Roses, Bamburgh was held for the queen by the
+    Lancastrian nobles of the north country—Percy and Ros—with the Earl
+    of Pembroke and Duke of Somerset; but was obliged on Christmas Eve,
+    1462, to capitulate to a superior force. The next year the Scots
+    and the queen’s French allies surprised it, and re-captured it for
+    Henry VI. and his courageous queen; but Warwick, “the King-maker,”
+    came upon the scene, and after a stout resistance the garrison
+    surrendered.
+
+    When the Union of the Crowns took place in 1603, Bamburgh was no
+    longer necessary as a defence against the Scots, and its defences
+    were neglected. The Forsters, into whose hands it passed in the
+    days of James I., were a spendthrift family, and gradually wasted
+    their rich estate, until in 1704 it had to be sold, and was bought
+    by Lord Crewe. He was Bishop of Durham at the time, having been
+    promoted to that position by Charles II., who liked his handsome
+    figure and pleasing manners. When at the age of fifty-eight, he
+    wished to marry Dorothea Forster, daughter of Sir William Forster,
+    of Bamburgh, the lady, who was many years younger, refused him at
+    first; but some years later he renewed his suit, and this time was
+    accepted. When the Forster estates were sold and their debts paid,
+    there was scarcely anything left for the heirs—Lady Crewe and her
+    nephew, Thomas Forster, who afterwards became the General of the
+    ill-fated Jacobite rising in 1715, and whose escape after his
+    capture was contrived by his high-spirited sister, Dorothy Forster
+    the second.
+
+    Lord Crewe, in his will, left a great part of his fortune to found
+    the Bamburgh Trust, for which his name will ever be remembered. The
+    most notable of the trustees, Archdeacon Sharp, administered the
+    moneys in so wise and beneficent a manner that to him most of the
+    credit is due for the real usefulness of the Crewe charities. These
+    include a surgery and dispensary; schools; the relief of persons in
+    distress; the clothing and educating of a certain number of girls;
+    the maintenance of a lifeboat, life-saving apparatus, and
+    everything necessary for the relief of ship-wrecked persons. A
+    lifeboat, kept in the harbour at Holy Island, is always ready to go
+    out on a signal from Bamburgh Castle.
+
+    The castle was extensively restored and repaired by the late Lord
+    Armstrong; but, sad to say, since his death it has been stripped of
+    many of its treasures. The church, dedicated to St. Aidan, stands
+    at the west end of the village; but there is no vestige remaining
+    of the one built in Saxon times, the present building having been
+    erected when Henry II. was king. In the churchyard is the grave of
+    Grace Darling, and many hundreds come to look on the last resting
+    place of the gentle girl who was yet so heroic, when her
+    compassionate heart nerved her girlish frame to the gallant effort
+    on behalf of her fellow-creatures in dire peril, when she
+  “.... rode the waves none else durst ride, None save her sire.”
+
+    The beautiful monument over her grave is by Raymond Smith, and is
+    an exact duplicate of the original one, also by him, which was
+    being injured so much by the weather that it was removed to a
+    position inside the church. The duplicate was commissioned by Lord
+    (then Sir William) Armstrong.
+
+    The island on which yet stands the lighthouse which was Grace’s
+    home is the Longstone, almost the farthest seaward of the rocky
+    group of the Farnes, lying almost opposite Bamburgh. The Longstone
+    is only about four feet above high-water mark, so that in stormy
+    weather the lighthouse is fiercely assailed by the heavy seas, and
+    the keepers are often driven for refuge to the upper chambers. To
+    the Longstone might with truth be attributed the opening lines of
+    Kipling’s poem, “The Coastwise Lights”:—
+  “Our brows are bound with spindrift, and the weed is on our knees,
+  Our loins are battered ’neath us by the swinging, smoking seas; From
+  reef, and rock, and skerry, over headland, ness, and voe, The
+  coastwise lights of England watch the ships of England go.”
+
+    There are about twenty of these little islets to be seen at low
+    tide, and very curious are some of their names—The Megstone, The
+    Crumstone, The Navestone, The Harcars, The Wedums, The Noxes
+    (Knokys), and The Wawmses. The largest, Farne Island, is the
+    nearest to the coast, and is the one to which St. Aidan retired,
+    and on which St. Cuthbert made himself a cell, and where he lived
+    for some years, leaving Lindisfarne (Holy Island) very often for
+    months together, to dwell alone on this almost bare rock and devote
+    himself to holy meditation and prayer.
+
+    To this island came King Ecgfrith of Northumbria with Archbishop
+    Trumwine and other representatives of the Synod to beg the hermit
+    to accept the Bishopric of Hexham; and it was on this island that
+    St. Cuthbert died, the monks who had gone to look after him
+    signalling the news of his death to his brethren at Lindisfarne by
+    means of torches. The island is rocky and precipitous, with deep
+    chasms between the high cliffs; and when a north wind blows, the
+    columns of foam and spray, from the waters dashing into the chasms
+    and over the tops of the cliffs, may be seen from the mainland
+    rising high into the air.
+
+    Before the first lighthouse was built on Farne Island, in 1766, a
+    coal fire was kindled every night on the top of the tower-like
+    building used as a fort. This method of warning passing vessels had
+    been used continuously since the days of Charles II. In great
+    contrast to this is the modern lighthouse, with its acetylene gas
+    lights and its automatic flash apparatus.
+
+    Close to Stapel Island are the three high basaltic pillars, of rock
+    called the Pinnacles. On all these islands sea-birds breed, but
+    especially on the Pinnacles, the Big and Little Harcar, and the
+    islet called the Brownsman.
+
+    Thousands and thousands of them perch and chatter on the rocks and
+    fly screaming in the air, amongst them being guillemots,
+    kittiwakes, gulls, terns, cormorants, puffins, and eider-ducks, for
+    which latter St. Cuthbert is said to have had great affection;
+    certainly they are the gentlest of these wild sea-fowl.
+
+    Bidding farewell to the rocky Farnes, we sail past Budle Bay, into
+    which runs the Warenburn and the Elwick burn, and underneath whose
+    sandy flats is the buried town of Warnmouth, once a busy seaport,
+    to which Henry III. granted a charter. Approaching Lindisfarne,
+    “Our isle of Saints, low-lying on the blue breast of the curling
+    waters, is hushed and silent in the lightly-purple mists of
+    morning, like the wide aisles of a great cathedral at daybreak,
+    before the feet and tongues of sightseers disturb the solemn
+    stillness. The tideway is covered with water, and the footprints of
+    the pilgrims who came yesterday to the shrine of St. Cuthbert have
+    passed into oblivion like footmarks on the sands of time.”
+    (_Galloway Kyle_.) The modern pilgrim to Holy Island generally
+    takes train to Beal station, and from there walks to the seashore,
+    and crosses the long stretch of sand between Holy Island and the
+    mainland. The governing factor in the possibility or otherwise of
+    making the journey is the state of the tide, for these sands are
+    entirely covered by the sea twice a day, so that Holy Island can
+    only be said to be an island at high tide.
+  “For with the flow and ebb, its style Varies from continent to isle;
+  Dry-shod, o’er sands, twice every day The pilgrims to the shrine find
+  way; Twice every day the waves efface Of staves and sandall’d feet
+  the trace.”
+
+    There are dangerous quicksands on the way, too, and a row of stakes
+    points out the proper course to be taken.
+
+    We have already seen that St. Aidan settled on Lindisfarne and have
+    treated of him in connection with Bamburgh. After his death another
+    monk of Iona, Finan, succeeded him and carried on his work; and
+    after Finan came Colman, who resigned after the Synod of Whitby had
+    decided to keep Easter according to southern instead of northern
+    usage. St. Cuthbert was Prior of Lindisfarne at this time. Later,
+    the seat of the bishopric was removed from Lindisfarne to York,
+    when it was held by that restless and able prelate, Wilfrid, for a
+    time. Then the bishopric was divided and a see of Hexham formed, as
+    well as that of Lindisfarne, which included Carlisle, out of the
+    northern portion of the diocese of York.
+
+    St. Cuthbert was bishop of Lindisfarne for two years, having
+    exchanged sees with bishop Eata, who went to Hexham. The stone
+    coffin in which St. Cuthbert’s body was pieced, after his death on
+    Farne Island, was buried on the right side of the altar in the
+    Abbey of Lindisfarne, which by this time had arisen on the little
+    island. A later bishop, Edfrid, executed a wonderful copy of the
+    Gospels, which was illuminated by his successor, Ethelwald. Another
+    bishop enclosed it in a cover of gold and silver, adorning it with
+    jewels; and, later, a priest of Lindisfarne, Aldred, wrote between
+    the lines a translation into the vernacular, and added marginal
+    notes. This precious manuscript, a wonderful example of the
+    beautiful work done in monastic houses in the north so many
+    centuries ago, is now in the British Museum, where it is known as
+    the “Durham Manuscript.”
+
+    When the pirate keels of the Danes appeared off our coasts about
+    the end of the eighth century, Lindisfarne Abbey was one of the
+    first points of attack; and in 793 it was plundered of most of its
+    wealth, and many of the monks were slain. For nearly a century
+    afterwards it was left in peace, but in 875 the Danish ships
+    appeared again approaching from the south, where they had just
+    sacked Tynemouth Priory. The bishop, Eardulph, last of the
+    Lindisfarne prelates, and the brethren hastily collected their most
+    treasured possessions, and with the body of St. Cuthbert, the bones
+    of St. Aidan, and other precious relics, they fled from their
+    island home, and journeyed north, west, and south for many years
+    before they found a resting place at Chester-le-Street near Durham.
+    For seven years they carried with them the body of St. Cuthbert;
+    and it is said that the final choice of a resting place for the
+    body of their beloved saint was indicated to them by supernatural
+    means as they approached Durham.
+
+    In 1069 William the Conqueror marched northward to visit with
+    sternest punishment the hardy north-men, who were so long in
+    submitting to his authority; and the monks of Durham fled before
+    the advance of the relentless Norman, carrying with them, as
+    before, the body of St. Cuthbert. They reached Lindisfarne in
+    safety to find the Abbey in the ruinous state in which it had been
+    left by the Danes two centuries earlier. Thus, once again, the body
+    of St. Cuthbert rested on the little island where so many years of
+    his life had been spent.
+
+    In 1070 the brethren returned to Durham and in 1093 the building
+    was begun, almost simultaneously, of the present glorious Cathedral
+    of Durham and a new Priory and Church on Lindisfarne, and a strong
+    resemblance may be traced between the two buildings The Abbey was
+    deserted on the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII., and
+    gradually fell into ruins.
+
+    The Castle, which stands on a lofty whinstone rock at the
+    south-east corner of the island, is a conspicuous object for many
+    miles, whether viewed by land or sea. It is supposed to have been
+    built in the reign of Henry VIII., at a time when defences were
+    commanded to be made to all harbours. If the Castle has had any
+    appreciable share of romantic incidents in its history, the records
+    thereof seem to be unknown; but one which has come down to us is
+    the account of its daring capture by an ardent North-country
+    Jacobite, Lancelot Errington, in 1715. The garrison consisted of
+    seven men, five of whom were absent. Errington, who was master of a
+    small vessel lying in the harbour, discovered this, and immediately
+    made his way to the Castle accompanied by his nephew, and
+    overpowered the two men who were left in charge, turning them out
+    of the Castle. He then signalled to the mainland for
+    reinforcements, but none were forthcoming. A company of King’s men
+    came instead and re-occupied the place, Errington and his nephew
+    escaping, to wander about in the neighbourhood for several days,
+    hiding from pursuit, before they got clear away. The Castle was for
+    many years the home of the coastguardsmen, who must have found it a
+    most advantageous position for their purpose, as they had an
+    uninterrupted view of miles of coast line.
+
+    Northward from Holy Island, but on the mainland, lies Goswick, from
+    whose red sandstone quarries came the material for building the
+    Abbey of Lindisfarne. Further north we come in sight of the coal
+    pits and smoke of Scremerston, while beyond it, Spittal and
+    Tweedmouth bring us right up to Berwick-on-Tweed itself, that grey
+    old Border town which has seen so many turns of fortune, and been
+    harried again and again, only to draw breath after each wild and
+    cruel interlude, and go calmly on its quiet way until it was once
+    more called upon to fight for its very existence.
+
+    Though definitely forming part of English soil since 1482, it is
+    not included in any English county, but, with about eight square
+    miles around it, forms a county by itself. Hence the addition, to
+    any Royal proclamation, of the well-known words “And in our Town of
+    Berwick-upon-Tweed.”
+
+    Sir Walter Scott’s description of the Northumbrian coast, in his
+    poem of Marmion may well be recalled here. It will be remembered
+    that the Abbess of Whitby, with some of her nuns, was voyaging to
+    Holy Island, and we take up the description when
+  “.... the vessel skirts the strand Of mountainous Northumberland;
+  Towns, towers, and halls successive rise, And catch the nuns’
+  delighted eyes. Monkwearmouth soon behind them lay, And Tynemouth’s
+  Priory and bay. They marked, amid her trees, the hall Of lofty Seaton
+  Delaval; They saw the Blyth and Wansbeck floods Rush to the sea
+  through sounding woods; They passed the tower of Widdrington, Mother
+  of many a valiant son; At Coquet-isle their beads they tell To the
+  good saint who owned the cell. Then did the Alne attention claim, And
+  Warkworth, proud of Percy’s name; And next they crossed themselves,
+  to hear The whitening breakers sound so near, Where, boiling through
+  the rocks, they roar On Dunstanborough’s caverned shore. Thy tower,
+  proud Bamburgh, marked they there, King Ida’s castle, huge and
+  square, From its tall rock look grimly down And on the swelling ocean
+  frown. Then from the coast they bore away And reached the Holy
+  Island’s bay.
+
+
+  As to the port the galley flew, Higher and higher rose to view The
+  castle with its battled walls, The ancient monastery’s halls, A
+  solemn, huge, and dark-red pile Placed on the margin of the isle.
+  In Saxon strength that abbey frowned, With massive arches, broad and
+  round.
+
+
+  On the deep walls, the heathen Dane Had poured his impious rage in
+  vain; And needful was such strength to these, Exposed to the
+  tempestuous seas, Scourged by the winds’ eternal sway, Open to rovers
+  fierce as they. Which could twelve hundred years withstand Winds,
+  waves, and northern pirates’ hand.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. NORTH AND SOUTH TYNE.
+
+
+  “On Kielder-side the wind blaws wide; There sounds nae hunting horn
+  That rings sae sweet as the winds that beat Round banks where Tyne is
+  born.” —_A.C. Swinburne_.
+
+    Between Peel Fell and Mid Fell, almost the farthest western heights
+    of the Cheviot Hills, a little mountain stream takes its rise, and
+    flows to the south and east. This little burn is the North Tyne,
+    the beginnings of that stream which, deep, dark, and swift at its
+    mouth, bears the mighty battleships there built to carry the
+    war-flags of the nations round the world. In the wild and lovely
+    district where the North Tyne takes its rise, is Kielder Castle, a
+    shooting box belonging to the Duke of Northumberland.
+
+    This neighbourhood is the scene of two romantic ballads; that of
+    the “Cowt (colt) of Kielder” and the Ettrick Shepherd’s ballad of
+    “Sir David Graeme.” The deadly enemy of the young “Cowt,” so called
+    from his great strength, is Lord Soulis of Hermitage Castle, on the
+    Scottish side of the border. The Cowt, with his followers, was
+    enticed into the Castle, where Lord Soulis purposed his death; but
+    the gigantic youth burst through the circle of his foes and
+    escaped. The evil Brownie of the moorland, however, gave to Lord
+    Soulis the secret which safeguarded the young Cowt. His coat of
+    mail was sword-proof by a spell of enchantment, and he wore in his
+    helmet rowan and holly leaves; but these would all be of no avail
+    against the power of running water. The Cowt was pursued until, in
+    crossing a burn, he stumbled and lost his helmet, and ere he
+    recovered, his enemies were upon him, and they held him under water
+    until he was drowned.
+
+    Not far from the mouth of the Bell Burn, which here runs into the
+    Tyne, a circle of stones outside an ancient burial ground is known
+    as the Cowt’s Grave.
+  “This is the bonny brae, the green, Yet sacred to the brave, Where
+  still, of ancient size, is seen Gigantic Kieldar’s grave.
+
+  Where weeps the birch with branches green Without the holy ground,
+  Between two old grey stones is seen The warrior’s ridgey mound.
+  And the hunters bold of Kieldar’s train, Within yon castle’s wall, In
+  a deadly sleep must aye remain Till the ruined towers down fall.”
+
+    In the ballad of “Sir David Graeme,” by James Hogg, the lady of the
+    story watched out of her window in vain for the coming of her
+    “noble Graeme,” who had vowed that the hate of her father and
+    brothers would not keep him from coming to carry off his fair lady
+    on St. Lambert’s night.
+  “The sun had drunk frae Kieldar Fell His beverage o’ the morning dew;
+  The deer had crouched her in the dell, The heather oped its bells o’
+  blue.
+
+  The lady to her window hied, And it opened o’er the banks o’ Tyne;
+  An’ “O! alack,” she said, and sighed, “Sure ilka breast is blythe but
+  mine?”
+
+    Her forebodings prove only too true, for her lover’s faithful hound
+    seeks her out, and with mournful looks induces her to follow him
+    over Deadwater Fell, and guides her to a lonely spot where the body
+    of the gallant Graeme, slain by her brothers, is lying.
+
+    In the neighbourhood of these desolate Fells are to be found many
+    traces of ancient British Camps.
+
+    The little mountain streams which here help to swell the stream of
+    the North Tyne are, on the south side, the Lewis and Whickhope
+    Burns, and on the north, the Plashetts and Hawkhope Burns. On both
+    sides of the Tyne, near the Whickhope and the Hawkhope Burns are
+    many remains of an ancient pre-historic forest, the largest being
+    near the Whickhope Burn where the abnormally thick stems of trees
+    may be seen.
+
+    The little village of Falstone is set amongst trees, in the midst
+    of pleasant meadows, a welcome relief from the bare fells and
+    moorlands around it; yet this wild scenery has a distinct
+    fascination of its own, and adds not a little to the charm of the
+    varied landscape within the bounds of our northern county. At
+    Falstone a fragment of an ancient cross was discovered, with an
+    inscription carved upon it—in Roman letters on one side and in the
+    Runes of the Anglo-Saxons on the other. The inscription states that
+    a certain Eamer set up the cross in memory of his uncle Hroethbert,
+    and asks for prayers for his soul. The existence of a similarly
+    inscribed cross is not known, so that the Society of Antiquaries,
+    in whose keeping this cross rests, has in it probably a unique
+    treasure.
+
+    The Tarset Burn, upon which stands the village of Thorneyburn, runs
+    into the Tyne not far from Falstone, and reminds us of the old
+    Border-riding days, when the rallying-cry of the men of the
+    district in many a feud with neighbouring clans was—“Tarset and
+    Tarret Burn, Hard and heather-bred, yet-yet-yet.” Near the spot
+    where the Tarset Burn joins the Tyne is a grassy hill on which once
+    stood Tarset Castle, a stronghold of that Red Comyn whom Bruce slew
+    in the little chapel at Dumfries, and of whose death Bruce’s friend
+    Kirkpatrick said he would “mak’ siccar”!
+
+    The village of Charlton, on the north bank of the Tyne, and the
+    mansion of Hesleyside on the other, carry the mind back to the old
+    reiving plundering days, for it was at Hesleyside that the incident
+    of the ancient spur of the Charlton’s took place, doubtless many a
+    time and oft, when the good lady of Hesleyside served up the spur
+    at dinner as a gentle hint that the larder was empty, and it
+    behoved her lord to mount and away to replenish the same,
+    preferably with stock from the Scottish side of the border, or if
+    not, a neighbour’s cattle would serve equally well.
+
+    The Charltons, Robsons (possibly the lineal descendants of
+    “Hroethbert” of the ancient cross) and Armstrongs, held almost
+    undisputed sway over this region, and the district teems with
+    reminders of their prowess and traditions of their exploits. The
+    men of Tynedale (the North Tyne) and Redesdale were known as the
+    fiercest and most lawless in all that wild district. Redesdale is a
+    district of monotonous, almost dreary, moorlands, and wild, bare
+    fells, where sheep graze on what scanty provender the bleak hills
+    afford, finding better fare, however, in the valleys near the river
+    banks, where the pasture is fresh and green.
+
+    Bellingham is to-day the most considerable village of the
+    neighbourhood; it stands conveniently at the foot of the hills
+    where the little Belling Burn, or Hareshaw Burn, joins the main
+    stream. In Hareshaw woods is the beautiful Hareshaw Linn, where the
+    stream falls down through a break in the sandstone cliffs, and
+    forms a picturesque waterfall, fringed with ferns and trees and
+    cool mosses. It well repays one for the walk of a mile or so
+    through tangled underwoods by the side of the burn. Bellingham
+    gives its mime to the family of de Bellingham, whose chief seat,
+    however, is now in Ireland and no longer in the little
+    north-country town.
+
+    The massive church here, with its roof of stone, bears eloquent
+    testimony to the need for fireproof buildings in a village so near
+    to Scotland in the days of Border warfare. Outside the churchyard
+    wall is the well of St. Cuthbert, or “Cuddy’s Well,” which was
+    greatly venerated in early days, and many stories are told of the
+    miraculous power of its waters. Inside the churchyard a grave is
+    pointed out as the burial place of the robber whose tragic end was
+    told by James Hogg in his gruesome story of “The Long Pack.”
+
+    The village itself is plain and bare, as might be expected from a
+    settlement which would probably find that unattractiveness in
+    either wealth or appearance was a tolerable safeguard.
+
+    Below Bellingham the North Tyne is joined by its longest and most
+    noted tributary, the Rede Water, which also rises in the Cheviots.
+    Rising in the hills north of Carter Fell, it flows south-east,
+    through a wild region, passing, while still high up amongst the
+    hills, the little village of Byrness, and the new reservoir at
+    Catcleugh, where a supply of pure water is stored for the use of
+    the dwellers in distant Newcastle. On its way to the Tyne, it
+    passes many an old pele-tower, and the Roman stations of Bremenium
+    (Rochester) and Habitancum, near Woodburn. The ancient Roman road
+    of Watling Street crosses the Rede at Woodburn, leading from
+    Habitancum to Bremenium.
+
+    Many mountain streams, clear and sparkling, or peaty and brown,
+    join the Rede Water on its way, amongst others the little Otter
+    Burn, by whose banks took place that stirring episode in the
+    constant quarrels between the Douglases and Percies known as “Chevy
+    Chase,” from which the fierce battle-cries ring down the five
+    centuries that have passed since that time, with sounds that echo
+    still.
+
+    The pretty village of Redesmouth (or Reedsmouth) stands where the
+    Rede Water enters the North Tyne, and a few miles further on the
+    rapid little Houxty Burn pours its peaty waters into the main
+    stream.
+
+    On the right bank of the Tyne stands Wark, conveniently placed at
+    one of the most important fords of the Tyne in former days. Like
+    other towns and villages so placed on different streams throughout
+    the country, the advantages of its situation have evidently been
+    appreciated by the successive inhabitants of the land, for there
+    are traces of its occupation by Celt, Roman, and Saxon; and, later,
+    the town was the most considerable in Upper Tynedale. During the
+    time that this part of England was ceded to the Scottish Kings,
+    David and Alexander, it was at Wark that the Scottish law courts
+    for Tynedale held their sittings. The mound called the Mote Hill,
+    near the river, marks the spot where, in all probability, the
+    ancient Celtic inhabitants met together to administer the rude
+    justice of prehistoric times, and to make the laws of their little
+    settlement, which grew to much greater proportions in later years.
+    In fact, it is supposed that the Kirkfield marks the site of a
+    church which stood in the midst of the once extensive town.
+
+    A little way up the Wark Burn, above the bridge, there may be seen
+    some upright stems of Sigillaria in the exposed face of the cliffs.
+    On the opposite side of the river from Wark is Chipchase Castle,
+    one of the finest mansions in Northumberland, standing in the midst
+    of the beautifully wooded and picturesque scenery which, from this
+    point onwards is characteristic of the North Tyne. Of the former
+    village of Chipchase scarcely a trace remains, though its name, if
+    nothing else, shows that here has been a village or small town,
+    important enough to have its well-known, market; for “Chip,” like
+    the various “Chippings” throughout England is derived from the
+    Anglo-Saxon _ciepan_—to buy and sell, to traffic. In the reign of
+    Henry II., Chipchase was the property of the Umfravilles of
+    Prudhoe; but later it passed into the hands of the well-known
+    Northumbrian family of Heron.
+
+    Not far from Chipchase Castle are the famous Gunnerton Crags,
+    formed by an out-crop of the Great Whin Sill. These lofty cliffs
+    have been the site of a considerable settlement of the ancient
+    British tribes who dwelt in the district in such numbers, as is
+    evident from the scores of camps, which may be traced all over this
+    part of Northumberland. The naturally strong position on the
+    Gunnerton Crags, would be certain to commend itself to a people,
+    the first requisite of whose dwelling places was strength and
+    consequent safety.
+
+    At Barrasford the making of the railway cutting led to the opening
+    up of a large barrow, or burial place, of the ancient Britons; and
+    a single “menhir,” supposed to be the solitary survivor of a large
+    group of these huge stones, stood near the village school some
+    years ago.
+
+    Passing Chollerton and Humshaugh, embowered amongst spreading
+    trees, we arrive at Chollerford, the prettiest village of North
+    Tyne, lying near the river where it was crossed by the Roman Wall.
+    From the bridge which spans the Tyne at Chollerford one of the
+    finest views of the river, both up and down the stream, is to be
+    seen; and to watch the swift brown stream, after a flood or a
+    freshet, foaming through the arches is an exhilarating sight. The
+    bridge itself is a modern one, for we know that all the bridges on
+    the Tyne, except that of Corbridge, were swept away by the great
+    flood of 1771.
+
+    In 1394, that prince of bridge-builders, Bishop Walter de Skirlaw
+    of Durham, granted thirteen days’ indulgence to all who should
+    assist in rebuilding the bridge at Chollerford; so that already
+    there was one here which had evidently fallen into disrepair. Yet,
+    in the ballad of “Jock o’ the Side,” the rescuers, with Jock in
+    their midst, reach Chollerford, and, after some anxious questioning
+    of an old man as to whether the “water will ride,” are compelled to
+    swim the Tyne in flood, which their pursuers, coming up, will not
+    attempt to do. Now Bishop Skirlaw’s bridges did not usually
+    disappear; those of Yarm, Shincliffe, and Auckland have stood until
+    to-day, with occasional repairs. Are we then reluctantly to
+    question the truth of “Jock o’ the Side”? Surely, if the choice
+    remain of the accuracy of the ballad or the fact of the bridge, it
+    is the duty of all leal North-country people to swear by the
+    ballad. Perhaps the good Bishop did not personally oversee the
+    rebuilding of Chollerford Bridge: more probably the Wear and Tees
+    do not come down with the angry impetuosity of the Tyne in flood!
+
+    The remains of the great Roman camp of Cilurnum (The Chesters) may
+    be seen here within Mrs. Clayton’s park. This was the largest
+    military station in Northumberland, Corstopitum, which is very much
+    larger, being more of a civil settlement. At some little distance
+    below the present bridge some of the piers of the old Roman bridge
+    are still to be seen when the river is low.
+
+    Eastward from Chollerford is the little church of St. Oswald,
+    standing where the battle of Heavenfield took place. When Penda of
+    Mercia, and the British Prince Cadwallon, were warring against
+    Northumbria, the greatest Northumbrian King, Edwin, was defeated
+    and slain by them; and on their return to the attack, Ethelfrith’s
+    eldest son, called back from exile to take the vacant throne, and
+    rule in his father’s seat of Bamburgh, also fell before their
+    fierce onslaught. His brother Oswald now took command of the
+    Bernicians and prepared to lead them against the foe. Oswald posted
+    his men in a strong position on the north side of the great Wall;
+    and, setting up a huge cross of wood, called upon all his followers
+    to bow before the God of whom he had learnt during his exile in
+    Iona, and to pray to Him for victory. His army obeyed, and, in the
+    battle which followed, Oswald’s forces were completely victorious.
+    The Mercians, and their allies, the western Britons, were routed,
+    and driven out of Bernicia, and Cadwallon was pursued as far as the
+    Denise Burn, and there slain. The Denise Burn is supposed to have
+    been the Rowley Burn, which flows into the Devil’s Water, on whose
+    banks stands Dilsten Castle. Some time later, on the spot where
+    Oswald’s Cross had stood, a church was erected and dedicated to the
+    royal Saint. It was served from Hexham Abbey.
+
+    After passing Wall, which, however, is not quite so near the Roman
+    Wall as Chollerford is, we come to the pretty village of Warden,
+    nestling beneath the woods of Warden Hill; and here, just above
+    Hexham, the North Tyne unites with its sister river in the rich
+    meadow lands which lie near the old town.
+
+    The South Tyne has journeyed from Cross Fell, where it takes its
+    rise, northward through a corner of Cumberland, past Garrygill and
+    Alston, until it enters Northumberland where the Ayle Burn on the
+    one hand, and the Gilderdale Burn on the other, flow into it. Here
+    is Whitley Castle, where was a small Roman station called Alio, and
+    Kirkhaugh Church, charmingly placed on the bank of the river, which
+    continues its course northward past Slaggyford, Knaresdale, Eals,
+    and Lambley, till it flows past the fine Castle of Featherstone,
+    and the ruins of Bellister, where it turns eastward to Haltwhistle.
+
+    The little streams which enter the South Tyne up to this point flow
+    through wild and romantic glens, two of them owning the Celtic
+    names of _Glen Cune_ and _Glen Dhu_.
+
+    The family of Featherstonehaugh is one of the oldest in the North;
+    and it was concerning the death of one of this family—Sir Albany
+    Featherstonehaugh, who was High Sheriff of Northumberland in the
+    days of Henry VIII.—that Mr. Surtees, the antiquary, wrote the
+    well-known ballad, which, when Surtees gave it him, deceived even
+    Sir Walter Scott into thinking it genuinely ancient. The first
+    verse of the ballad shows with what a verve and swing the lines go.
+  “Hoot awa’, lads, hoot awa’ Ha’ ye heard how the Ridleys, an’
+  Thirlwalls, an’ a’ Ha’ set upon Albany Featherstonehaugh; And taken
+  his life at the Deadmanshaw? There was Willimoteswick, And
+  Hard-riding Dick, An’ Hughie o’ Hawdon, an’ Will o’ the Wa’ I canno’
+  tell a’, I canno’ tell a’ And mony a mair that the de’il may knaw.”
+
+    The ruins of Bellister Castle stand against a sombre background of
+    woods, only a little way from Haltwhistle. The Castle once belonged
+    to the Blenkinsopp family, who also owned Blenkinsopp Castle, about
+    two miles away. The name was formerly spelt Blencan’s-hope—the hope
+    being valley or hollow—and the Castle, like many other places, has
+    its legendary “White Lady.”
+
+    Haltwhistle is a little straggling town lying on both sides of the
+    main road above the South Tyne, where it is joined by the
+    Haltwhistle Burn. By going up the valley of this pretty little
+    stream we shall arrive near the Roman station of AEsica, on the
+    Wall. The town of Haltwhistle is peaceful enough now, but it had a
+    stirring existence in the days when Ridleys, Armstrongs, and
+    Charltons, to say nothing of the men of Liddesdale and Teviotdale,
+    had so strong a partiality for a neighbour’s live-stock and so
+    ready a hand with arrow and spear. In the old ballad of “The Fray
+    of Hautwessel,” we are told that
+  “The limmer thieves o’ Liddesdale Wadna leave a kye in the haill
+  countrie, But an[3] we gi’e them the cauld steel, Our gear they’ll
+  reive it a’ awaye, Sae pert they stealis, I you saye. O’ late they
+  came to Hautwessel, And thowt they there wad drive a fray. But Alec
+  Ridley shot too well.”
+
+ [3] But an = unless.
+
+    The most notable feature of present-day Haltwhistle is the finely
+    placed parish church, of which the chancel is the oldest part,
+    having been built in the twelfth century, so that it was already an
+    old church when Edward I. rested here for a night in 1306, on his
+    way to Scotland for the last time. When William the Lion of
+    Scotland returned from his captivity, after being taken prisoner at
+    Alnwick in 1174, he founded the monastery of Arbroath in
+    thanksgiving for his freedom, and bestowed on the monks the church
+    of Haltwhistle.
+
+    All that remains of the old Castle, or “Haut-wysill Tower,” is the
+    building standing near the Castle Hill, which latter has been
+    fortified by earthworks. The Red Lion Hotel is a modernised
+    pele-tower. The general aspect of the place is singularly bare and
+    bleak; but from several points in the town, notably from the
+    churchyard terrace, fine views of the river valley may be obtained.
+
+    Henshaw (Hethinga’s-haugh) is a little village which King David of
+    Scotland, when he was Lord of Tynedale, gave to Richard Cumin and
+    his wife, who afterwards bestowed it on the Cathedral of Durham. It
+    lies by the side of the main road to Bardon Mill, which is the most
+    convenient station for travellers to alight at who wish to visit
+    the Roman Wall and the Roman city of Borcovicus, and the
+    Northumberland lakes. Some little distance up the hill from Bardon
+    Mill station is a very pretty little village whose name speaks
+    eloquently of other invaders than the Romans—the village of
+    Thorngrafton (the “ton” or settlement on Thor’s “graf” or dyke).
+    Near at hand there are quarries from which the Romans obtained much
+    building material for the Wall; and in one of these old quarries
+    some workmen discovered a bronze vessel full of Roman coins, a few
+    of gold, but most of silver. This was known as the “Thorngrafton
+    Find,” and the interesting story of it is told by Dr. Bruce.
+
+    On the opposite side of the South Tyne from Henshaw, Willimoteswick
+    Castle stands on the level plains which are as characteristic of
+    the south bank of the river as are the steep slopes of the north
+    bank. One of the towers of this old Castle yet remains, and forms
+    part of the more modern farm-house which stands there.
+    Willimoteswick was long in the possession of the Ridleys, and it is
+    generally accepted as having been the birthplace of Bishop Ridley,
+    though Unthank Hall, nearer to Haltwhistle, and also a home of that
+    family, disputes the honour. The Bishop, who suffered death at the
+    stake in the troublous times of Queen Mary, in touching letters
+    bids farewell to his Cousin at Willimoteswick and his sister and
+    her children at Unthank.
+
+    On the same side of the Tyne is Beltingham Church, with some
+    wonderful old trees in the churchyard, and Ridley Hall, which takes
+    its name from that family, although not now occupied by them. Here
+    the Allen flows into the South Tyne, and nowhere in the whole of
+    the county is there a more beautiful and romantic scene. By the
+    side of the stream the Ridley woods stretch for a mile or two, and
+    the delightful mingling of graceful ferns, overhanging trees, tall,
+    rugged cliffs, flowering plants, and sparkling waters forms a
+    succession of lovely scenes throughout their length, which, with
+    the play of lights and shadows on the dimpled surface of the
+    stream, and frequent glimpses of grassy glades and cool green
+    alleys, make a walk through these enchanting woods an unforgettable
+    delight.
+
+    The Allen Burn, which gives its name to the beautiful district of
+    Allendale, is, like the Tyne, formed by the junction of two
+    streams, the East and West Allen, which rise near each other in
+    hills on the border of Northumberland and Durham, down the opposite
+    slopes of which run the little streams which feed the Wear. After
+    flowing apart for some miles, the East and West Allen unite not far
+    from Staward railway station. Both rivers flow, for the first part
+    of their course, through a wild and hilly region, rich, however, in
+    minerals. On the East Allen are the towns of Allenheads, formerly a
+    busy centre of the lead-mining industry, and Allendale Town, which
+    lies about 1,400 feet above the sea-level.
+
+    As the lead-mining industry has decreased, Allendale has turned its
+    attention to other methods of living, and now caters for the army
+    of visitors who, each summer, climb its hills and wander through
+    its woods and lanes, and by its riverside, as did the Allendale
+    maid whose memory is perpetuated in the simple lines of the little
+    poem, “Lucy Gray of Allendale.”
+  “Say, have you seen the blushing rose, The blooming pink, or lily
+  pale? Fairer than any flower that blows Was Lucy Gray of Allendale.
+  Pensive at eve, down by the burn, Where oft the maid they used to
+  hail, The shepherds now are heard to mourn For Lucy Gray of
+  Allendale.”
+
+    Not far from the village of Catton, the name of “Rebel Hils”
+    reminds us that it was a vicar of Allendale, Mr. Patten, who joined
+    young Derwentwater in the rising of “The Fifteen,” and was
+    appointed chaplain of the little army. He met some half-dozen men
+    of the neighbourhood at this hill, when they set off together to
+    join the rest of the forces at Wooler.
+
+    On the West Allen is the lonely little hamlet of Ninebanks, with
+    Ninebanks Tower, concerning which little is known with certainty;
+    and on this stream also are two of the most strikingly beautiful
+    places in Northumberland—the delightfully picturesque village of
+    Whitfield, and the well-known Staward-le-Peel.
+
+    The ruins of the “Pele” tower stand on a high grassy platform,
+    safeguarded on three sides by tall cliffs and tumbled boulders; the
+    remains of a ditch may also be traced. From this point a splendid
+    view of the river valley, with its steep precipices, overhanging
+    pinewoods intermingled with trees of less sombre hue, and the
+    bright course of the river, may be obtained. At a point a little
+    higher up the valley, where the waters of the stream are held back
+    by some huge rocks, they form a deep pool, and then flow onwards
+    through a narrow gorge called Cyper’s Linn. Following the stream
+    now until it has merged its waters in those of the South Tyne, we
+    turn eastward with the main stream and come to Haydon Bridge.
+
+    This considerable village, gradually growing to the proportions of
+    a small town, lies on both sides of the river, which is here
+    crossed by the substantial bridge from which the village takes its
+    name; for the original village of Haydon stood at some distance up
+    the hill on the north side of the stream. On the hillside may still
+    be seen the ruins of the old church, in which services are
+    occasionally held in the summer time. The chancel, apparently
+    dating from the twelfth century, and a later little chapel to the
+    south of it, are all that are left of the building. Some very
+    quaint inscriptions are to be seen in the churchyard, and there are
+    many sculptured grave-covers within the church. Many of the stones
+    used in the building have evidently been brought from the great
+    Wall, or probably from the Roman station of Borcovicus, some six or
+    seven miles to the north; and what a rush of bewildering fancies
+    crowds upon one’s mind on first discovering that the font was
+    originally a Roman altar!
+
+    The old church must have looked down on many a wild and curious
+    scene in the days when Scot and Englishman sought only
+    opportunities to do each other an injury, and the river-valleys
+    were the natural passes through which the tide of invasion, raid,
+    and reprisal flowed.
+
+    In the beginning of the reign of Edward III., about 24,000 Scots,
+    under Douglas and Murray, crossed the Tyne near Haydon Bridge, and
+    rode on to plunder the richer lands that lay to the south and west.
+    They reached Stanhope and encamped there for a time. The young king
+    set out northwards with a great army to punish these marauders, and
+    he was told by his scouts that they had hastily left Stanhope on
+    his approach. He and his army pushed on quickly until they reached
+    Bardon Mill; and, crossing the Tyne, marched down to Haydon Bridge,
+    expecting the Scots to return by the way they went. It was
+    miserable weather, and the feeding of so many thousands of men was
+    no little problem. They scoured all the country round for
+    provisions, getting the most from the Hexham Abbey lands. Meanwhile
+    it rained and rained, and no Scots appeared. After a week of
+    waiting, Edward, in great disappointment, went to Haltwhistle,
+    while his followers reconnoitered in all directions. Finally, he
+    had the mortification of learning that the Scots were still at
+    Stanhope, but before anything more could be done, they betook
+    themselves back to Scotland by a different route, and there was
+    nothing left for Edward but to give up the expedition in despair.
+
+    The bridge at Haydon appears to have been the only one for some
+    distance up and down the river in the sixteenth century, for we
+    read of its being barred and chained, on various occasions of
+    marauding troubles in Tynedale, to prevent the free-booters
+    re-crossing the river.
+
+    In the days of Charles I. Colonel Lilburn marched to Haydon Bridge
+    in command of some troops of the Roundheads, on his way to join
+    their comrades at Hexham as a counter-move to the operations of the
+    Royalist troops in the North. Little more than thirty years after
+    this, when the days of Cromwell’s power had come and gone, and
+    Charles II. ruled at Whitehall, the old Grammar School was founded
+    at Haydon Bridge in 1685 by a clergyman, the Rev. John Shafto.
+    Various changes have taken place in the school from time to time,
+    necessitated by the gradual changes and educational needs of the
+    passing years; and now, like the Grammar School of Queen Elizabeth
+    at Hexham, it has been entirely re-constituted to meet modern
+    requirements. John Martin, the famous painter of “The Plains of
+    Heaven,” received the beginnings of his education at this school.
+    He was born at East Land Ends farm in 1789. In after years the
+    authorities of Haydon Bridge Reading Room, wishing no doubt to
+    afford a perfect example to future generations of the truth of the
+    proverb concerning a prophet and his own country, refused some of
+    Martin’s pictures, which the gifted painter himself offered to
+    them—an act which their successors have doubtless regretted.
+
+    At a little distance along the Langley Road, which leads past the
+    school, a memorial cross is standing. It was erected in 1883 by the
+    late Mr. C.J. Bates, the historian of Northumberland, to the memory
+    of the last of the Derwentwater family, whose castle of Langley he
+    purchased. The inscription on the cross reads:—“To the memory of
+    James and Charles, Viscounts Langley, Earls of Derwentwater,
+    beheaded on Tower Hill, London, 24th February, 1716, and 8th
+    December, 1746, for loyalty to their lawful sovereign.”
+
+    A striking testimony, this, to the fact that freedom in England is
+    a reality, and not merely a name. In what other land would an
+    inscription such as this have been allowed to remain for more than
+    twenty-four hours?
+
+    A couple of miles or more down the South Tyne is Fourstones, so
+    called because of four stones, said to have been Roman altars,
+    having been used to mark its boundaries. A romantic use was made of
+    one of these stones in the early days of “The Fifteen.” Every
+    evening, as dusk fell, a little figure, clad in green, stole up to
+    the ancient altar, which had been slightly hollowed out, and,
+    taking out a packet, laid another in its place. The mysterious
+    packets, placed there so secretly, were letters from the Jacobites
+    of the neighbourhood to each other; and the little figure in green
+    was a boy who acted as messenger for them. No wonder that the
+    people of the district gave this altar the name of the “Fairy
+    Stone.”
+
+    Between Haydon Bridge and Fourstones are both freestone and
+    limestone quarries, which latter have supplied many fossils to
+    visitors of geological tastes. Halfway between Fourstones and
+    Hexham, the two streams of North and South Tyne unite, and flow
+    together down to the old town of Hexham, with its quaintly
+    irregular buildings clustering in picturesque confusion round its
+    ancient Abbey, which dominates the landscape from whatever point we
+    approach.
+
+    Warden Village, already mentioned, lies in the angle formed by the
+    meeting of the two streams, and has an ancient church which,
+    however, has been largely rebuilt. From High Warden, near at hand,
+    a delightful view may be obtained for a long distance up the
+    valleys of North and South Tyne. On the summit of this hill there
+    are the remains of a considerable British camp, showing that they
+    had seized upon this point of vantage, and though the ancient
+    British name has not come down to us, it is evident from the Saxon
+    name of Warden (_weardian_) that Saxons as well as Britons were
+    fully alive to the merits of the situation, “guarding” the valley
+    at such a commanding point.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. DOWN THE TYNE.
+
+
+    The town of Hexham, standing on hilly ground overlooking the Tyne,
+    immediately below the point at which the North and South Tyne
+    unite, and spreading from thence down to the levels all round, is
+    one of the most ancient in the kingdom. To write of Hexham with any
+    measure of fulness would require much more space than can be given
+    to it within the limits of a small book; only a mere summary can be
+    offered here. Britons, Romans, and Saxons, in turn, have dwelt on
+    and around the hill which, in Saxon days, was to be crowned with
+    Wilfrid’s beautiful Abbey, which, we read, surpassed all others in
+    England at that time for beauty and excellence of design and
+    workmanship; nor was there another to equal it anywhere on this
+    side of the Alps.
+
+    The name of Hexham is generally understood to be derived from the
+    names of two little streams, the Hextol and the Halgut, now the
+    Cowgarth and the Cockshaw Burns, which here flow into the Tyne; or,
+    as Mr. Bates suggests, it may have been the “ham” of “some
+    forgotten Hagustald,” which the name perpetuates. In any case its
+    name was Hagustaldesham when King Ecgfrith (or Egfrid) of
+    Northumbria gave it to his queen, Etheldreda, who wished to take
+    the veil. Queen Etheldreda, however, preferred to go to East
+    Anglia, which was her home; she retired to a convent at Ely, and
+    bestowed the land at Hagustaldesham on Wilfrid, a monk of
+    Lindisfarne, clever, ambitious and hardworking, who had become
+    Bishop of York, which meant Bishop of all Northumbria.
+
+    Wilfrid had been to Rome, and seen the churches of that city and of
+    the lands through which he travelled; and, on his appointment to
+    power, he set himself to make the churches of his diocese worthy to
+    compare with those of older civilizations. He did much to the
+    cathedral of York, and built that of Ripon; but the Abbey of Hexham
+    was his masterpiece. He built a monastery and church, dedicating
+    the latter to St. Andrew, for it was in the church of St. Andrew at
+    Rome that, kneeling, he felt himself fired with enthusiasm for his
+    work, in the same church from which Augustine had set out on his
+    journey to Britain some fifty years before. The year 674 is
+    generally accepted as the date on which this noble Abbey was
+    founded.
+
+    Wilfrid lived in great splendour at York, and ruled his immense
+    diocese with a firm hand; in fact, he was the first of that line of
+    great ecclesiastics who have moved with such proud, and oft-times
+    turbulent, progress through the pages of English history. King
+    Ecgfrith’s second wife, Ermenburga, was jealous of the great power
+    and magnificence of the Northumbrian prelate, and through her
+    influence, Archbishop Theodore was induced to divide the huge
+    diocese of Northumbria into four portions—York, Hexham, Ripon and
+    Withern in Galloway. Wilfrid, naturally indignant, found all his
+    protests disregarded, and immediately set out for Rome, to obtain a
+    decree of restitution from the Pope. It was given to him, but
+    little cared the Northumbrians for that. Wilfrid was imprisoned for
+    nine months, and then banished from Northumbria.
+
+    He went southwards and dwelt in Sussex, where his genius for hard
+    work found scope in a mission to the Saxons of the south lands, and
+    where he built and founded more churches and monasteries. Readers
+    of “Rewards and Fairies” will have made acquaintance with Wilfrid
+    in his Sussex wanderings and hardships. On his recall to the North
+    by King Aldfrith, he returned to Hexham. On the death of Aldfrith,
+    the new King, Edwulf, banished Wilfrid once more, ordering him to
+    leave the kingdom within six days; but the friends of Aldfrith’s
+    young son, whom Edwulf had dispossessed, obtained the ascendancy,
+    and Wilfrid was re-instated in his Abbeys of Hexham and Ripon.
+
+    While on his way back from Rome, on his last visit, Wilfrid had a
+    severe illness, but was granted a vision in which he was told that
+    he had four years more to live, and that he must build a church to
+    the honour of the Blessed Virgin. The little church of St. Mary,
+    which stood close to the walls of the great Abbey of Hexham, was
+    erected in fulfilment of this command.
+
+    In the Abbey church itself, all that was known for centuries of the
+    original work of Wilfrid was the famous crypt, which is almost
+    unique, that of Ripon, also the work of Wilfrid, being the only one
+    like it; but recent excavations have brought much more of the
+    ancient cathedral to light, and laid bare, not only its original
+    plan, but some of the walls, and part of the very pavement trodden
+    by the feet of Wilfrid and his fellows so many centuries ago. The
+    tomb of Wilfrid, however, is not at Hexham, but at his other
+    foundation of Ripon.
+
+    The ancient Abbey suffered much at the hands of the Danes, and in
+    later years from the ravages of the Scots, having been burnt
+    several times, notably in 1296, when 40,000 Scots ravaged the North
+    of England, plundering, burning, and laying waste wherever they
+    went, exactly as the Danes had done four hundred years before. Some
+    of the stones of the old Abbey yet bear traces of the fires by
+    which the ancient building was so often nearly destroyed, and in
+    these frequent conflagrations all records, charters, etc., of the
+    Abbey, from which might have been compiled a complete history, not
+    only of the Abbey but of much of the provincial and national
+    history of the times, were lost.
+
+    The Abbey was restored and rebuilt again and again, but for varying
+    reasons was without a nave for some hundreds of years. Within the
+    last ten years, however, a complete restoration has been carried
+    out, under the loving, and, what is more to the point, the capable
+    superintendence of Canon Savage and his colleagues, in the spirit
+    and manner, as nearly as possible, of the beautiful portions
+    already standing; and several disfiguring so-called “restorations”
+    of nineteenth century work, which could only detract from the
+    beauty and dignity of the noble building, have been removed
+    entirely. This work was completed in 1908, and all who have the
+    honour of our famous county at heart must rejoice that its noblest
+    church is at last more worthy of its own high rank and glorious
+    past.
+
+    Among the many deeply interesting objects to be seen in the Abbey
+    is the stone Sanctuary seat—the Frid Stool, or seat of peace—at
+    which fugitives, fleeing from their enemies, might find refuge. It
+    is believed that this was the “Cathedra” of St. Wilfrid himself.
+    The arms and back of the chair are ornamented with a twisted
+    knot-work pattern. The right of Sanctuary extended for a mile round
+    the Abbey, the boundaries being marked by crosses, one at each
+    point of the compass at that distance.
+
+[Illustration: Hexham Abbey from North West Hexham Abbey from North
+West]
+
+    Other treasures of the Abbey are the beautiful Old Rood Screen,
+    dating from the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth
+    century; some wonderful old paintings, especially the portraits of
+    the early Bishops of Hexham, Alcmund, Wilfrid, Acca, Eata,
+    Frithbert, Cuthbert, and John, which date from the fifteenth
+    century; the mediaeval carved and painted pulpit, and the tomb of
+    good King Alfwald of Northumbria. Many of the stones used by
+    Wilfrid’s builders were of Roman workmanship, and seem to have come
+    from the Roman city of Corstopitum, at Corbridge. An inscription on
+    one of these old stones in the crypt takes us back some centuries
+    before even Wilfrid’s time, for it commemorates the Emperor Severus
+    and his two sons, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Caracalla) and Publius
+    Septimius Geta, and has the name of the latter erased, as was done
+    on all similar inscriptions throughout the Empire, by order of the
+    inhuman Caracalla, after his murder of his brother.
+
+    A very interesting feature of the building is the stone stairway in
+    the South transept, by which the monks ascended to their
+    dormitories above.
+
+    Quite near to the Abbey, at the other side of the Market Place, the
+    ancient Moot Hall claims attention. The modern visitor to the old
+    town walks beneath the gloomy archway, with its time-worn stones,
+    which forms the basement over which the Moot Hall stands. Another
+    building, grim and dark, near at hand, is the Old Manor House, in
+    which the business connected with the ancient Manor of Hexham was
+    transacted.
+
+    An old foundation in the town was the Queen Elizabeth Grammar
+    School, which, after having fallen into desuetude for many years,
+    has been revived in a form appropriate to modern needs, and housed
+    in a worthy building, formally opened by Sir Francis Blake on
+    November 2nd, 1910. The site on which the new Grammar School of
+    Queen Elizabeth stands is one of the finest in the county,
+    commanding, as it does, an uninterrupted view of the river valley
+    for some distance, and of the rising ground beyond.
+
+    At the beginning of last century, Hexham was famed for its
+    glove-making: but that industry has forsaken the town for many
+    years. Now, Hexham is surrounded by acres of market-gardens, from
+    which the produce of Tynedale is carried far and wide.
+
+    The spacious stretch of level meadow-land below Hexham, rising
+    gradually up to the swelling ridges beyond, is said to have been
+    the scene which John Martin had in mind when he painted the “Plains
+    of Heaven”; though the level reaches above Newburn, unencumbered
+    with buildings in John Martin’s time, and then a scene of quiet
+    pastoral beauty, also claim that honour.
+
+    Flowing now between well ordered gardens, green meadows, and ferny
+    banks, brawling musically over shingly shallows, or crooning gently
+    between fringing woods, the Tyne rolls onward to Corbridge,
+    receiving on its way the Devil’s Water, a sparkling stream which
+    flows through scenes of enchanting beauty, whether between rugged
+    cliffs and heather clad hills as in its upper course, through the
+    graceful overhanging trees and cool green recesses of Dipton woods
+    or between rich meadows and green pasture-land where it loses
+    itself in the bosom of the Tyne.
+
+    There is no more delightful experience than to wander through the
+    woods of Deepdene (Dipton) on a summer’s day, when it requires no
+    stretch of the imagination to believe oneself in an enchanted
+    forest, or, on hearing a crackle of twigs, or faint sounds of the
+    outside world filtering through the green solitudes, to turn round
+    expecting to see a maiden on a “milk-white steed,” or one of the
+    Knights of the Round Table come riding by, in bravery of glistening
+    armour and gay surtout, and to find oneself murmuring, “Now, Sir
+    Gawain rode apace, and came unto a right fair wood, and findeth the
+    stream of a spring that ran with a great rushing, and nigh
+    thereunto was a way that was much haunted. He abandoneth his
+    high-way, and goeth all along the stream from the spring that
+    lasteth a long league plenary, until that he espieth a right fair
+    house and right fair chapel enclosed within a hedge of wood.”
+
+    On the green meadows of Hexham Levels and near Dilston Castle—two
+    spots of more than ordinary historical interest—the Lancastrian
+    cause received, in 1464, a blow from which it never rallied, though
+    the courageous Queen fought gallantly till the final disasters at
+    Barnet and Tewkesbury. The general of her forces, the Duke of
+    Somerset, was beheaded in Hexham market-place, and, together with
+    several others of rank and station, buried at Hexham. The
+    well-known incident of Queen Margaret’s escape into Dipton, or
+    Deepdene woods, where she and young Prince Edward met with robbers,
+    and afterwards escaped by the aid of another member of that
+    fraternity, took place a year before this, after the first battle
+    of Hexham in 1463. The year had been one of constant warfare
+    between York and Lancaster in the north, the Castles of Alnwick and
+    Bamburgh having fallen into the hands of Queen Margaret’s friends
+    once more, after having been raptured by Edward of York the year
+    before; the Scots with Margaret and King Henry VI., had besieged
+    Norham, but were put to flight by the Earl of Warwick and hid
+    brother, Lord Montague; the royal fugitives sought safety at
+    Bamburgh, whence the Queen, with Prince Edward, sailed for
+    Flanders, leaving King Henry in the Castle where he was in no
+    immediate danger; Warwick, with his forces, retired southward
+    again, and the gentle King remained in his rocky stronghold, and
+    enjoyed there nine months of unwonted peace. Shortly after this,
+    the Duke of Somerset deserted the cause of York for that of
+    Lancaster, and became the leader of the Queen’s forces. In April,
+    1464, he and Sir Ralph Percy opposed, at Hedgeley Moor, the troops
+    of Lord Montague journeying northward to escort the Scottish
+    delegates who were coming to York to make terms with Edward of
+    York. Sir Ralph Percy was slain, exclaiming as he fell “I have
+    saved the bird in my bosom”—that enigmatic sentence which has given
+    rise to so much conjecture, but which is generally held to mean
+    that he had saved his honour, by dying at last, after so many
+    changes of front, in the service of that King and Queen to whom he
+    originally owed allegiance. “Percy’s Cross,” marking the site of
+    his death, may be seen by the side of the railway near Hedgeley
+    Station, on the Alnwick and Wooler line.
+
+    The rest of the force dispersed, and made their way to Hexham; and
+    Lord Montague marching upon them from Newcastle, a sharp engagement
+    took place on the Levels, near the Linnels Bridge, with the result,
+    as we have seen, of the defeat and death of Somerset, and the
+    overthrow of Queen Margaret’s hopes in the north, where she had had
+    a strong following.
+
+    The historical interest centred on Dilston Castle brings us to much
+    later times, and enshrines a story which possesses a pathetic
+    interest beyond that of any other place in Northumberland.
+    Originally the home of the family of D’Eivill, later Dyvelstone
+    (which explains the name “Devil’s Water”) Dilston Castle came into
+    the possession of the Radcliffes by marriage, and in the days of
+    the Commonwealth the Radcliffe of the day forfeited his estates on
+    account of his loyalty to the house of Stuart. Charles II. restored
+    them, and the close attachment between the houses of Stuart and
+    Radcliffe continued until the fortunes of both were quenched in
+    disaster and gloom. The figure of the young and gallant James
+    Radcliffe, last Earl of Derwentwater, holds the imagination no less
+    than the heart as it moves across the page of history for a brief
+    space to its tragic end. Though born in London, in June 1689, young
+    Radcliffe passed his childhood and youth in France in the closest
+    companionship with James Stuart, son of the exiled James II. At the
+    age of twenty-one he returned to his home in Northumbria, and took
+    up his residence there, his charming manners, kind heart, and
+    openhanded hospitality speedily endearing him to all classes. His
+    servants and tenants, in particular, were passionately devoted to
+    him. In the words of the old ballad of “Derwentwater”—
+  “O, Derwentwater’s a bonnie lord, And golden is his hair, And
+  glintin’ is his hawkin’ e’e Wi’ kind love dwelling there.”
+
+    On his marriage in 1712, the young bride and bridegroom remained
+    for two years at the home of the bride’s father, and preparations
+    were made for restoring the glories of Dilston on an extensive
+    scale. On Derwentwater’s return to his beautiful Northumbrian seat
+    in 1714, the death of Queen Anne had excited the hopes of all the
+    friends of the house of Stuart, and plots and secret meetings were
+    being planned throughout Scotland and the north of England, the
+    objective being the restoration of the exiled Stuarts to the
+    throne. Derwentwater took little part in these attempts to organise
+    rebellion for some time, but at length was drawn into the dangerous
+    game, as he was too valuable an asset to be passed over by the
+    Jacobite party.
+
+    At last rumours of the projected rising reached London, and a
+    warrant was issued for the arrest of Derwentwater, even before it
+    was known whether he had actually joined the plotters, his
+    well-known friendship with the exiled Prince making it almost
+    certain that he would be an important figure in any movement on
+    their behalf. For the next few weeks the young Earl found himself
+    obliged to remain in hiding, finding safety in the cottages of his
+    tenants, and in the houses of friends and neighbours. Finally,
+    though his good sense warned him that he was embarking on an almost
+    hopeless enterprise, he decided to throw in his lot with the
+    Jacobites.
+
+    Tradition has it that his decision was brought about by the taunts
+    of his Countess, who, like the rest of the Jacobite ladies, was
+    more enthusiastic than the men. Throwing down her fan, she
+    scornfully offered that to her husband as a weapon, and demanded
+    his sword in exchange. The immediate result was seen on that
+    October morning when Derwentwater and his little band of followers
+    rode over the bridge at Corbridge with drawn swords, on their way
+    to Beaufront, which was their first rendezvous; and from there
+    proceeded to Greenrigg, near the great Wall, which had been
+    appointed as a general meeting-place.
+
+    There they were joined by Mr. Forster, of Bamburgh, with his
+    contingent, and a few from the surrounding district. Rothbury next
+    saw the little army, which was joined on Felton Bridge by seventy
+    Scots; and thereafter Warkworth, Alnwick, and Morpeth heard James
+    Stuart proclaimed King under the title of James III.
+
+    Newcastle was to have been their next objective, but, hearing that
+    the city had closed its gates, and intended to hold out for King
+    George, the Jacobite force, after some indecision, returned
+    northward to Rothbury, where they were joined by a large company of
+    Scottish Jacobites under Lord Kenmure. Northward again they marched
+    to Kelso, where more than a thousand Scots joined forces with them.
+
+    The little army numbered now almost 2,000, and a council was held
+    to determine what their next step should be. On its being resolved
+    to enter England, some hundreds of the Highlanders returned home,
+    leaving an army of about 1,500 to march southwards to Lancashire.
+    On their way they put to flight at Penrith a motley force which was
+    raised to oppose them; and, elated with a first success, moved
+    forward to Preston, grievously disappointed on the way at the
+    failure of the people of Lancashire to rise with them, for they had
+    been given to understand that thousands in that county were only
+    awaiting an opportunity to declare for “King James.”
+
+    At Preston they barricaded the principal streets, and repulsed
+    General Willis; but the arrival of General Carpenter from Newcastle
+    changed the face of affairs. Young Derwentwater had fought
+    valiantly and worked arduously at the barricades, but Forster—whose
+    appointment as General had been made in the hope of attracting
+    other Protestant gentry to the Jacobite cause—offered to submit to
+    General Carpenter under certain conditions. Carpenter’s reply was a
+    demand for unconditional surrender, and the hopeless little
+    tragi-comedy was played out. The last scene took place on Tower
+    Hill three months later, when the gallant young Earl, then only
+    twenty-six years old, laid down the life which, after all, had been
+    spent in the service of others, with no selfish purpose in view,
+    and which was offered him, together with wealth and freedom, if he
+    would forsake his faith and throw aside his allegiance to the house
+    of Stuart. Refusing to purchase life at such a price, he was
+    condemned, and executed on Tower Hill on February 24th, 1716.
+
+    His brother Charles, who had been by his side throughout the
+    rising, had the good fortune to escape from Newgate Prison, and
+    passed most of his life abroad. Thirty years later, on his return
+    to take up arms on behalf of James’ son Charles—“bonnie Prince
+    Charlie”—when he also drew the sword in an attempt to regain the
+    throne of his fathers, Radcliffe was captured and beheaded. (For
+    account of a monument to the memory of these two brothers see in
+    previous chapter paragraph relating to Haydon Bridge.)
+
+    The story of General Forster’s escape from Newgate is told by Sir
+    Walter Besant, as all readers of his novel, “Dorothy Forster” know,
+    though the author has taken those minor liberties with unimportant
+    facts which are by common consent allowable in fiction.
+
+    James Radcliffe’s friends were allowed to have his body, though
+    they were forbidden to carry it home for burial; for such were the
+    love and esteem borne for the young Earl in the hearts of all his
+    North-country friends and dependents, that the authorities feared a
+    disturbance of the peace should his body be brought amongst them
+    while their rage and grief were still at their height.
+    Notwithstanding the prohibition, however, the body was brought
+    secretly to Dilston, and buried in the vault of the chapel, which,
+    with the ruined tower, are all that remain of the home of the
+    Radcliffes. Standing amidst luxuriant foliage, and overlooking a
+    romantic dell, the ruins of tower and chapel remain as they fell
+    into decay on the death of their luckless owners. The confiscated
+    estates were bestowed on Greenwich Hospital, whose agents
+    administer them still, with the exception of certain portions
+    purchased from time to time by various landowners. No other family
+    took the place of the Radcliffes in the deserted halls; but
+    tradition holds that the unfortunate Earl and his sorrowful lady
+    still revisit their ancient home. The Earl’s body is now at
+    Thorndon, in Essex. Below is Surtees’ beautiful ballad, “Lord
+    Derwentwater’s Farewell.”
+
+  LORD DERWENTWATER’S FAREWELL
+
+  “Farewell to pleasant Dilston Hall, My father’s ancient seat; A
+  stranger now must call thee his, Which gars my heart to greet.
+  Farewell each kindly well-known face My heart has held so dear; My
+  tenants now must leave their lord Or hold their lives in fear.
+  No more along the banks of Tyne I’ll rove in autumn grey; No more
+  I’ll hear, at early dawn, The lav’rocks wake the day; Then fare thee
+  well, brave Witherington, And Forster ever true; Dear Shaftsbury and
+  Errington, Receive my last adieu.
+  And fare thee well, George Collingwood, Since fate has put us down;
+  If thou and I have lost our lives, Our king has lost his crown.
+  Farewell, farewell, my lady dear, Ill, ill thou counsell’dst me; I
+  never more may see the babe That smiles upon thy knee.
+  And fare thee well, my bonny gray steed, That carried me aye so free;
+  I wish I had been asleep in my bed The last time I mounted thee; The
+  warning bell now bids me cease, My trouble’s nearly o’er; Yon sun
+  that rises from the sea Shall rise on me no more.
+  Albeit that here in London Town It is my fate to die; O carry me to
+  Northumberland, In my father’s grave to lie. There chant my solemn
+  requiem In Hexham’s holy towers; And let six maids of fair Tynedale
+  Scatter my grave with flowers.
+  And when the head that wears the crown Shall be laid low like mine;
+  Some honest hearts may then lament For Radcliffe’s fallen line.
+  Farewell to pleasant Dilston Hall, My father’s ancient seat; A
+  stranger now must call thee his, Which gars my heart to greet.”
+
+    Near to Corbridge the waters of the Tyne lave the ancient piers of
+    the old Roman bridge which led to Corstopitum, the most
+    considerable of the Roman stations in this region. The recent
+    careful excavations have laid bare the evidence of what must have
+    been a most imposing city, and many treasures of pottery, coins and
+    ancient jewellery and ornaments, together with large quantities of
+    the bones of animals, some of them identical with the wild cattle
+    of Chillingham, have been brought to light. The famous silver dish
+    known as the Corbridge Lanx, which was found at the riverside by a
+    little girl in 1734, had evidently been washed down from
+    Corstopitum. It is now preserved at Alnwick Castle. The antiquity
+    of Corbridge is thus superior to that of Hexham, as far as may be
+    known; but on the other hand, while Hexham in Saxon times grew to
+    power, Corbridge declined. Yet, in its time, it was more than the
+    home of a famous Abbey; it was a royal city, albeit the date of its
+    elevation to royal rank coincided with the decline of the kingdom
+    of which it was the final capital. When the fierce and ruthless
+    internal quarrels, which rent Northumbria after Edbert’s glorious
+    reign, had weakened it so that it fell a prey to the gradual
+    encroachments of its northern neighbours, the once royal city of
+    Bamburgh was left in the hands of a noble Saxon family, and the
+    court was removed to Corbridge, which remained the abode of the
+    kings of Northumbria until Northumbria possessed royal rank no
+    longer. The tale of the two hundred years during which Corbridge
+    was the capital city is a tale of red slaughter and ruin, murder
+    and bitter feud, not against outside foes, but between one family
+    and another, noble against king, king against relatives of other
+    noble houses, amongst which might possibly be found the thegn to
+    succeed him, or to murder him in order to bring about his own more
+    speedy elevation to a precarious throne.
+
+    So much was this the case, that Charles the Great, at whose court
+    the learned Northumbrian, Alcuin, was secretary, said that the
+    Northumbrians were worse than the invading heathen Danes, who, by
+    this time, had begun their ravages in the land. Amongst the rulers
+    of Northumbria in those days, the name of Alfwald the Just, who was
+    called “the Friend of God,” shines out with enduring light across
+    the stormy darkness of that terrible period; yet even his just and
+    merciful rule and noble life could not save him from the hand of
+    the assassin. He was buried with much mourning and great pomp in
+    the Abbey at Hexham; and during the recent excavations the fact of
+    a Saxon interment was verified as having taken place beneath the
+    beautiful tomb which tradition has always held to be that of King
+    Alfwald the Just. This fact also helped to demonstrate the extent
+    of the original Abbey.
+
+    There was a monastery at Corbridge in the year 771, which is
+    supposed to have been founded by St. Wilfrid. Of the four churches
+    which were erected in later times, only one survives—the parish
+    church of St. Andrew, which occupies the site of the early
+    monastery. In this ancient church may be seen part of the original
+    Saxon work, and many stones of Roman workmanship are built up in
+    the structure.
+
+    Like most other old churches in the north, it suffered severely at
+    the hands of the Scots, and, as at Hexham Abbey, traces of fire may
+    be seen on some of the stones.
+
+    King David of Scotland, on his invasion of England in 1138, which
+    was to end at the “Battle of the Standard,” at Northallerton,
+    encamped at Corbridge for a time, and terrible cruelties were
+    committed in the district by his followers. In the next century,
+    King John turned the little town upside down in his efforts to find
+    treasure which he was convinced must be concealed somewhere in the
+    houses; but his search was fruitless. In the days of the three
+    Edwards, during the long wars with Scotland, Corbridge suffered
+    terribly, being fired again and again; on one occasion, in 1296,
+    the destruction included the burning of the school with some two
+    hundred hapless boys within its walls.[4]
+
+ [4] _See_ Bates, p. 149.
+
+    Those heroes of our childhood’s days, William Wallace and Robert
+    Bruce, were far from guiltless in these cruelties, though in
+    justice to them personally, the wild and lawless character of the
+    men who formed their undisciplined hosts must be remembered; and we
+    know that Wallace tried to save the holy vessels in Hexham Abbey,
+    but, as soon as his back was turned, they were swept away in the
+    very presence of the officiating priest.
+
+    During these terrible years most of Northumberland was a desolate
+    waste; and divine service had almost ceased to be performed between
+    Newcastle and Carlisle, even Hexham being deserted for a time.
+    After the battle of Bannockburn, matters were worse, if possible,
+    and all the north lay in fear of the Scots, but from time to time
+    spasmodic efforts at retaliation were made by the boldest of the
+    Northumbrian landowners. In the reign of Edward III., however, many
+    of these great landowners thwarted the King’s designs by making a
+    traitorous peace with their turbulent neighbours.
+
+    David II. of Scotland encamped at Corbridge for a time during his
+    second attempt to invade England but this expedition ended in his
+    defeat and capture at Neville’s Cross. Thereafter the north had
+    rest for some years, and Corbridge seems to have been left in
+    peace. The Wars of the Roses passed it by; and the Civil Wars in
+    Stuart days also, except for an unimportant skirmish; and the only
+    part Corbridge saw of the Jacobite rising of “The Fifteen” was the
+    little cavalcade from Dilston which clattered over the old bridge
+    on its way to Beaufront. That bridge is the same which we cross
+    to-day; the date of its erection, 1674, may be seen on one of its
+    stones, and it was the only one on the Tyne which withstood the
+    great flood of 1771, when even the old Tyne Bridge at Newcastle was
+    swept away.
+
+    Quite close to the church there is an old pele-tower, which is in
+    an excellent state of preservation, little of it having disappeared
+    except the various floors. The vicars of Corbridge must have been
+    often thankful for such a refuge at hand, where they could bid
+    defiance to marauding bands, whether of Scottish or English
+    nationality. In the Register of the parish church may be seen a
+    most interesting entry, showing the Earl of Derwentwater’s
+    signature as churchwarden.
+
+    At a little distance from Corbridge, to the northward, is the
+    fortified manor-house of Aydon Castle, standing embowered in trees
+    where the Cor burn runs through a little rocky ravine, down whose
+    steep sides Sir Robert Clavering threw most of a marauding band of
+    Scotsmen who had attacked the grange; the place known as “Jock’s
+    Leap” obtained its name from one of the Scots who escaped the fate
+    of his comrades by his leap for life across the ravine. The Castle,
+    or hall, as it is variously called, has not suffered such
+    destruction as might have been expected, seeing that it dates from
+    the thirteenth century; but the thickness of its walls, and the
+    arrow-slits and narrow windows are obvious proof of the necessity
+    for defence which existed when it was first erected in the days of
+    Edward I. Many features of great interest, notably the ancient
+    fireplaces, remain in the interior of the building.
+
+    Returning down the Cor burn to the Tyne, our way lies eastward by
+    the side of the river, which here, after splashing and sparkling
+    over the shallows below Corbridge, narrows again to a deeper stream
+    of swifter current, and flows between green meadows and leafy
+    woods, fern-clad steeps and level haughs, all the way down to
+    Ryton, where the picturesque aspect of the river ceases, and it
+    becomes an industrial waterway. On this reach of the river are
+    several places of considerable interest.
+
+    Riding Mill, a pretty village in a well-wooded hollow, enclosed by
+    steep hills which rise ever higher and higher to the moors by
+    Minsteracres and Blanchland, stands where Watling Street, or Dere
+    Street, leading down the long slope of the country from
+    Whittonstall, on reaching the Tyne turned westward to Corstopitum.
+    Further down the stream is Stocksfield, where the aged King Edward
+    I. halted on his last journey into Scotland, on that expedition
+    which was to have executed a summary vengeance upon the Scots; he
+    journeyed forward by slow stages, but was taken ill at Newbrough,
+    where he stayed for some time, before continuing his journey by
+    Blenkinsopp, Thirlwall, and Lanercost to Carlisle.
+
+    On the opposite side of the stream from Stocksfield is the lovely
+    village of Bywell, a “haunt of ancient peace,” “sleeping soft on
+    the banks of the murmuring Tyne.” This little peaceful spot was at
+    one time a very busy centre of life and industry on a small scale;
+    in the Middle Ages the inhabitants drove a thriving trade in all
+    the necessities for a people who spent a great part of their lives
+    upon horseback, especially in the making of the ironwork
+    required—“bits, stirrups, buckles, and the like, wherein they are
+    very expert and cunning.” The Nevilles, lords of Raby and earls of
+    Westmoreland, held Bywell at this time; before that it was in the
+    hands of the Balliols, of Scottish fame, who, like the Bruces, were
+    Norman knights high in favour with their kings, Norman and
+    Plantagenet, though they afterwards became their most determined
+    foes.
+
+    Long before the advent of the Normans, a church was built here by
+    St. Wilfrid, and in it—St. Andrew’s or the “White” Church—Egbert,
+    twelfth bishop of Lindisfarne, was consecrated by Archbishop
+    Eanbald in the year 803. More than a thousand years afterwards, in
+    1896, an Ordination service was again held at Bywell, in St.
+    Peter’s church, when five deacons were ordained by Bishop Jacob.
+    And in times yet more remote than Wilfrid’s age, Roman legionaries
+    crossed the Tyne at this point over a bridge of their own
+    construction, of which the piers might be seen until our own day.
+    Bywell, too, had its “find” of Roman silver; in 1760 a silver cup
+    was found in the Tyne, bearing the inscription “Desidere vivas”
+    around the neck of the vessel.
+
+    When the Nevilles were lords of the manor of Bywell, they began to
+    build a castle here, which, however, was left unfinished; the
+    ancient tower still standing, with its picturesque draping of ivy,
+    was the gate-house of the intended fortress. On the rebellion of
+    the northern earls in 1569, Westmoreland’s forfeited lands passed
+    to the crown, so that Bywell was held by Queen Elizabeth for a year
+    or two, until she sold the estate to a branch of the Fenwick
+    family.
+
+    Bywell is unique in Northumberland in possessing two churches side
+    by side yet in different parishes. The town of Bywell, we are told
+    by the same authority before quoted, lay in a long line by the
+    north bank of the Tyne, and was “divided into two separate
+    parishes” even then, so that there ought to be traces of former
+    buildings westward from the present village. In connection with the
+    two churches which adjoin each other so closely, tradition tells
+    the well-known story of the two quarrelsome sisters who could not
+    agree on the building of a church and therefore each built one. One
+    might have imagined, with some show of reason, that there being two
+    parishes, the two churches were placed there in sheltering
+    proximity to the castle, were it not for the fact that the churches
+    were in existence long before the stronghold of the Nevilles was
+    contemplated.
+
+    St. Andrew’s, called the “White” church from the fact of its being
+    served in later days by the White friars, is the more ancient of
+    the two. As we have seen, a church erected by St. Wilfrid stood on
+    this site, and a goodly portion of the Saxon work remains in the
+    tower. The hagioscope, or “squint” in this church, and the “leper”
+    window in St. Peter’s are interesting relics of the Middle Ages.
+
+    St. Peter’s, or the “Black” church which once belonged to the
+    Benedictines or Black friars, is of much later date than its
+    neighbour, though still an ancient building, being supposed to date
+    from the eleventh century. Its most interesting possessions are two
+    very old bells, bearing Latin inscriptions, one announcing “I
+    proclaim the hour for people rising, and call to those still lying
+    down,” and the other reading “Thou art Peter.”
+
+    Bywell suffered greatly in the flood of 1771, when the bridge was
+    swept away, many houses destroyed, several people drowned, and both
+    churches greatly damaged.
+
+    It is not surprising that this tranquil little village—“the retreat
+    of the old doomed divinities of wood and fountain, banished from
+    their native haunts,” to quote Mr. Tomlinson’s happy phrase—has
+    always been beloved of artists, many of whom have transferred to
+    their canvasses the beauties of its mingled scenery of graceful
+    woods and sparkling waters, ancient fortress, peaceful meadows, and
+    gray old towers. Many noteworthy and fine old trees are to be found
+    in and around this artists’ haunt.
+
+    On the opposite side of the river, Bywell’s younger sister,
+    Stocksfield, grows apace, reaching out towards the lulls and along
+    the eastward lanes, though not as yet in such measure as to cover
+    the hillsides with any semblance of a town, being still almost
+    hidden amongst the profusion of trees that clothe most of the
+    district in their leafy greenery. On the north bank of the stream
+    the village of Ovingham now rises into view, its name telling us
+    plainly that there was a settlement here in Saxon times “the home
+    of the sons of Offa”; and the slope above the river is fittingly
+    crowned by the ancient church of St. Mary, whose tower, with its
+    curiously irregular windows, is the work of the Saxon builders of
+    the original church. The rest of the building, except some Saxon
+    work at the west end of the nave, dates from early Norman days.
+    Here is the burial place of the famous brothers John and Thomas
+    Bewick, who were born at Cherryburn House, just across the river.
+    In this delightful spot the boy Thomas Bewick grew up, absorbing
+    unconsciously the natural beauties that are to be found here by the
+    Tyne and in the little ravine through which the Cherry Burn flows,
+    which beauties he so lovingly reproduced on his engraving blocks
+    later in life.
+
+    At the fords of Ovingham, Eltringham, and Bywell, the Scots under
+    General Leslie crossed the Tyne in 1644, and made their way into
+    Durham, leaving six regiments to watch Newcastle.
+
+    The picturesque ruins of Prudhoe Castle, whose lofty towers
+    dominate the valley for some distance up and down the stream, stand
+    on a commanding rocky ridge above the Tyne. The lands of Prudhoe
+    were given, soon after the Norman Conquest, to one of Duke
+    William’s immediate followers, Robert de Umfraville; and it was
+    Odinel de Umfraville who built the present castle in the twelfth
+    century. Its strength was soon put to the test, for a few years
+    after it was built William the Lion of Scotland found that the
+    place baffled all his attempts to capture it. In his anger he
+    determined to reduce the fortress of Odinel, who had spent much
+    time at the Scottish court in his youth, the Kings of Scotland
+    being at that time lords of Tynedale. The attempt ended in total
+    failure, the greatest harm the Scots did on that occasion being to
+    destroy the cornfields and strip the bark from the apple trees near
+    the Castle; while, a day or two afterwards, Odinel de Umfraville,
+    with Glanvile and Balliol, captured the Scottish monarch himself at
+    Alnwick.
+
+    Another Umfraville, Richard, quarrelled with his neighbour of
+    Nafferton, on the opposite side of the river, for having begun to
+    erect a fortress much too near Umfraville’s own. He sent a petition
+    to the King on the subject and King John commanded Philip de
+    Ulecote’s building operations to cease. The unfinished castle,
+    known as Nafferton Tower, remains to this day as Philip’s masons
+    left it so many centuries ago.
+
+    Sir Ingram de Umfraville was by the side of Edward II. at
+    Bannockburn, when, before the battle, Bruce ordered his men to
+    kneel in prayer. Edward looked on the kneeling host, and turning to
+    Umfraville, exclaimed “See! Yon men kneel to ask mercy.” “You say
+    truth, sire,” answered the knight of Prudhoe; “they ask mercy—but
+    not of you.”
+
+    The last Umfraville, who died in 1381, left a widow, the Countess
+    Maud, who married a Percy of Alnwick, and so the castle passed into
+    the hands of that family, in whose possession it still remains.
+
+    When Odinel de Umfraville was building the keep of his castle,
+    every one in the neighbourhood was pressed into the service, and
+    all lent their aid except the men of Wylam. Wylam had been given to
+    the church of St. Oswyn at Tynemouth, and, as was customary, was
+    freed by charter from the duty of castle building, or any other
+    feudal service excepting such as were rendered to the Prior of
+    Tynemouth as occasion arose. So, in spite of the angry surprise of
+    the lord of Prudhoe, the Wylam men quietly held to their charter,
+    and not all Odinel’s threats or persuasions moved them one whit.
+
+    The Stanley Burn, which enters the Tyne close to Wylam railway
+    station, divides this part of the county of Durham from
+    Northumberland, so that from Wylam to the sea the south side of the
+    Tyne is in the county of Durham. The most noteworthy object at
+    Wylam, or, to be precise, a little way along the old post-road,
+    leading to Newcastle from Hexham, is the red-tiled cottage in which
+    George Stephenson was born in 1781. It stands on the north bank of
+    the Tyne, where it can be distinctly seen from passing trains. Its
+    neighbour cottage has been repaired and re-roofed, but Stephenson’s
+    cottage remains unaltered.
+
+    Mr. Blackett, who owned Wylam Colliery at the beginning of the
+    nineteenth century, took the keenest interest in the question of
+    locomotives, and had tried more than one on his estate before
+    George Stephenson brought them to the point of practical use. At
+    Newburn, just four miles down the Tyne, George Stephenson passed
+    many years of his youth; here he learned to read and write, when he
+    was old enough to earn a man’s wage and could afford the few pence
+    necessary; and here, in the parish church, may be seen, with an
+    interval of twenty years between them, the entries of his two
+    marriages.
+
+    Newburn is important nowadays for its steel works, within whose
+    workshops is incorporated an old building formerly known as Newburn
+    Hall; but in days long past its importance arose from its being on
+    the ford of the Tyne nearest to Newcastle. This ford was frequently
+    made use of, notably by the Scots in the reign of Charles I. Their
+    chief camping ground is pointed out to us by the name of Scotswood,
+    which also describes what Scotswood was like in those days—a great
+    contrast to its present appearance, when the lines of brick and
+    mortar stretching out uninterruptedly from Newcastle make it
+    practically one with that town. In 1640, the Scottish army, under
+    General Leslie, faced the Royalist troops, under Lord Conway, on
+    the south side of the river. The Scots mounted their rude cannon on
+    Newburn Church tower, and the English raised earthworks along the
+    bank of the river, which was here fordable in two places. The two
+    armies calmly watered their horses on opposite banks of the stream
+    all the next morning, but a shot at a Scottish officer from the
+    English ranks precipitated the battle; and the Scottish army,
+    having made a breach in both earthworks with their artillery, waded
+    across the fords and drove the Royalist troops up the bank, after
+    one spasmodic rally, which, however, failed to check the Scottish
+    advance. The way was now open for the Scottish army to continue
+    down the south bank of the Tyne and attack Newcastle from
+    Gateshead. It had been Lord Conway’s task to prevent this, but
+    owing to his incapacity or want of whole-hearted enthusiasm for his
+    cause, he failed entirely.
+
+    Not until 1644, however, was a Scottish attack on Newcastle
+    actually made, for on this occasion Leslie, as we have already
+    seen, led his men across the fords higher up the river and marched
+    southwards. The earthworks thrown up by Conway’s troops may still
+    be seen on Stella Haughs.
+
+    It is supposed that the Romans had a fort here, commanding the
+    passage of the river; indeed it would have been strange had this
+    not been the case, for the Romans were not the people to disregard
+    any point of strategical importance, especially one so near their
+    stations of Pons AElii and Condercum. Many stones of Roman
+    workmanship have been used in the building of the Newburn church.
+
+    From this point to its mouth, nearly fifteen miles away, both banks
+    of the Tyne present an unbroken scene of industry. Between the
+    steel works of Newburn and the iron and chemical works, the brick
+    and tile works of Blaydon and past the famous yards of Elswick,
+    down to the wharves and shipyards of North and South Shields, the
+    Tyne rolls its swift dark waters through a scene of stirring
+    activity; the air is dusky with soot and smoke, and reverberant
+    with the clang of hammers and the pulsing beat of machinery. Some
+    old and world-famed works have been closed or removed, like Hawks’
+    and Stephenson’s, but others, many others, have opened; and the map
+    of the positions of Tyne industries, published under the auspices
+    of the Newcastle and Gateshead Chamber of Commerce, is a record of
+    resolute toil and brilliant achievement in the many aspects of
+    industrial life represented on the river.
+
+    And, apart from the mere prosperity and commercial supremacy of the
+    district, there is another cause for pride in the many notable
+    inventions which hail from Tyneside; from the locomotive and the
+    “Geordie” lamp of Stephenson, the hydraulic machinery and the big
+    guns of Armstrong, to the wonderful turbine engines of Parsons; the
+    invention of water-ballast, too, belongs to the Tyne, for it was
+    the idea of a Gateshead man, and first used at Jarrow.
+
+    And, in connection with ships and seafarers, though not in any
+    commercial sense, we may proudly recall the fact that the first
+    Lifeboat was launched on the Tyne and named after the river; and
+    the first Volunteer Life Brigade was formed at Tynemouth. The Worth
+    Eastern Railway is carried across the Tyne by the Scotswood Bridge;
+    and it was on this part of the river that the boat-races, for which
+    the Tyne was once famous, were rowed. At Newcastle, the river is
+    bridged by four huge structures—The Redheugh Bridge, the new King
+    Edward VII. bridge, the High Level, and Swing Bridges,—all
+    connecting Newcastle with the sister town of Gateshead. An
+    interesting sight it is to see the Swing Bridge gradually turning
+    on its central pivot, until it lies in a straight line up and down
+    the stream, allowing some huge liner to pass, or some new
+    battleship, fresh from Elswick, to sail down the river, on its way
+    to make its trial trip over the “measured mile” in the open sea at
+    the mouth of the river, and thereafter to take its place among the
+    armaments of the nations.
+
+    The High Level Bridge allows ships of any height to pass under its
+    lofty and graceful arches, which look so light, but are yet so
+    strong. This splendid bridge is an enduring monument of Robert
+    Stephenson, whose work it was; and the story of its erection, at
+    the cost of nearly half a million of money, makes most interesting
+    reading. It took nearly two and a half years to build, and was
+    opened for traffic in 1849—little more than three years after the
+    first pile was driven in. A few months later, in 1850, the newly
+    built Central Station, with its imposing portico, was opened by
+    Queen Victoria.
+
+    Passing down the Tyne from Newcastle, which requires separate
+    notice, and Walker, with its reminiscences of “Walker Pit’s deun
+    weel for me,” we arrive at Wallsend, which in twenty-five years has
+    grown from a colliery village with a population of 4,000 to a town
+    of 23,000 inhabitants. Here are great shipbuilding and repairing
+    yards, chemical works and cement works; here, too, are Parsons’
+    Steam Turbine Works, where was designed and built the little
+    “Turbinia,” on which tiny vessel the early experiments were made
+    with the new engines; and here are the famous mines which have made
+    “Best Wallsend” a synonym for best household coal all over the
+    land. These mines, after having been closed for many years, were
+    reopened at the beginning of the century, and now turn out upwards
+    of one thousand tons of coal per day.
+
+    The church of St. Peter, at Wallsend, is little more than a hundred
+    years old; the old Church of Holy Cross, now long disused, was
+    built towards the end of the twelfth century. But Wallsend itself,
+    as all the world knows, is of much greater antiquity, for was it
+    not, as its name proclaims, situated at the end of the Great Wall?
+    Its name then, however, was not Wallsend but Segedunum.
+
+    Willington Quay, further down the river, was, for a time, the home
+    of George Stephenson, and here his son, Robert, was born. At
+    Howdon, which used to be known as Howdon Pans, from the salt-pans
+    there, the painter John Martin and his brothers once worked when
+    boys, being employed in some rope-works. Here, too, the Henzells, a
+    family of refugees who settled in the district in the days of
+    Elizabeth, founded some glass works, for which industry the Tyne
+    has been famous from that day to this.
+
+[Illustration: The River Tyne at Newcastle (showing Swing Bridge
+Open).]
+
+    Before the railway on the south side of the river was laid down,
+    passengers who wished to reach Jarrow had to alight at Howdon and
+    cross the river; and a racy dialect song—“Howdon for Jarrow” with
+    its refrain of “Howdon for Jarra—ma hinnies, loup oot”—commemorates
+    the fact. Willington Quay and Howdon carry on the line of
+    shipbuilding yards to Northumberland Dock and the staithes of the
+    Tyne Commissioners, where the waggon ways from various collieries
+    bring the coal to the water’s edge. Tyne Dock, just opposite, and
+    the Albert Edward Dock near North. Shields, provide abundance of
+    shipping accommodation, besides what is afforded by the river
+    itself; and now the river flows between the steep banks of North
+    and South Shields. As the names declare, these two growing and
+    prosperous towns once consisted of a few fishermen’s huts, or
+    “shielings”; but that was long ago, when the north shore of the
+    Tyne was owned by the Prior of Tynemouth, and the southern shore by
+    the Bishop of Durham, and the citizens of Newcastle complained to
+    King Edward I. that these two ecclesiastics had raised towns,
+    “where no town ought to be,” and that “fishermen sold fish there
+    which ought to be sold at Newcastle, to the great injury of the
+    whole borough, and in detriment to the tolls of our Lord the King.”
+    These quarrels between Newcastle and the other settlements on the
+    Tyne continued with varying results, until in the days of Cromwell,
+    Ralph Gardiner of Chirton, a little village close to North Shields,
+    took up the cudgels for the growing towns; and by dint of great
+    perseverance, and in spite of much persecution and ill-will,
+    succeeded in getting most of the unjust privileges of their
+    stronger neighbour abolished.
+
+    There were salt-pans, too, on both sides of the mouth of the Tyne,
+    which were worked in connection with the monasteries from very
+    early days; and Daniel Defoe, when he visited the north in 1726,
+    declared that he could see from the top of the Cheviot “the smoke
+    of the salt-pans at Sheals, at the mouth of the Tyne, which was
+    about forty miles south of this.”
+
+    North Shields clings haphazard to the steep bank of the Tyne, and
+    spreads away up and beyond it, reaching out towards Wallsend on the
+    river shore and Tynemouth along by the sea, the older parts by the
+    river looking black and grimy to the last degree; but there is a
+    silver lining to this very black cloud—not visible, it is true, but
+    distinctly audible—in the great shipbuilding and repairing works
+    known as Smith’s Dock, one of the largest concerns of the kind in
+    Great Britain, where so many hundreds of men earn their daily
+    bread; and in the fishing industry, which was the foundation of the
+    town’s prosperity, and bids fair to be so for many years to come,
+    as it is increasing year by year. The Fish Quay at North Shields is
+    a sight worth seeing; and, in the herring season, it is
+    increasingly frequented by Continental buyers.
+
+    The fortunes of South Shields and Jarrow, though these towns are
+    not in Northumberland, are yet so bound up with the story of the
+    Tyne that no one would ever think of that river without them.
+    Especially is this the case with Jarrow, which “Palmer’s” has
+    raised from a small colliery village to a large and flourishing
+    town. In those famous yards, everything that is necessary for the
+    building of the largest ironclad, from the first smelting of the
+    ore until the last rivet is in place, can be done. All
+    Northumbria—Northumbria in the ancient and widest sense of the
+    word—owes a debt of gratitude to Jarrow, for was it not the home of
+    Bede? The monk of Jarrow, who spent all his long life in the same
+    monastery by the Don, coming to it when he was a child of ten, made
+    that spot of Northumbrian ground famed to the farthest limits of
+    the civilized Europe of his day; and scholars from all over the
+    Continent came to learn at the feet of the Northumbrian teacher.
+    Beloved and revered by all, and in harness to the last hour of his
+    busy life, he died in the year 735, just one hundred years after
+    the coming of Aidan to Lindisfarne. “First among English scholars,
+    first among English theologians, first among English historians, it
+    is in the monk of Jarrow that English literature strikes its
+    roots.”—_J.R. Green_.
+
+    The Jarrow of to-day, and all its neighbours of industrial
+    Tyneside, possess no beauty of aspect such as the towns that are
+    more fortunately situated on the upper reaches of the river; they
+    are muffled in clouds of smoke and soot, and darkened by the
+    necessities of their toil in grimy ores and the ever-present coal.
+    But no one who has ever looked on these smoky reaches of the Tyne
+    with a seeing eye, or steamed down the river on a day either of
+    gloom or sunshine, can refuse to acknowledge that it has a certain
+    grandeur, a stern beauty of its own, that can stir the heart and
+    the imagination more deeply than any mere prettiness.
+
+    From the numberless hives of activity on both sides of the river
+    clouds of smoke roll heavily upward, and jets of steam from panting
+    machinery leap up in momentary whiteness on the dark background;
+    the white wings of flocks of wheeling gulls flash in the occasional
+    sunshine which lights up the scene, and between the clouds there
+    are glimpses of blue sky. Towards sunset, the evening mists drape
+    the darkening banks and crowded shipping in a soft robe of gray,
+    which, together with the glowing sky behind, produces most
+    wonderful Turneresque effects; and the fall of night on the river
+    only changes the aspect without diminishing the interest of the
+    scene. The blaze from a myriad workshops and forges glows against
+    the darkness, the lamps twinkle overhead on the steep banks, and
+    the lights from wharf and steamer are reflected in a thousand
+    shimmering lines on the dark water, which flows on soundlessly,
+    like the river of a dream.
+
+    On a day of wind and sun all these beauties are intensified a
+    thousandfold; the smoke is blown hither and thither in flying
+    clouds, the current seems to rush more swiftly, and a sense of
+    vigorous life permeates the whole scene, giving to the beholder a
+    feeling of keen exhilaration, as of new life rushing through his
+    veins. Especially is this the case on reaching the mouth of the
+    river and meeting the dancing waters of the open harbour, where the
+    twin piers of South Shields and Tynemouth reach out sheltering
+    arms. Within the wide bay they enclose, the storm-driven vessel may
+    always find comparatively smooth water, how wildly soever the waves
+    may rage and roar outside.
+
+    It is difficult to believe that so lately as the years 1858-60, the
+    “bar” at the mouth of the Tyne was an insuperable obstacle to all
+    but vessels of very moderate draught; and that ships might lie for
+    days, and sometimes weeks, after being loaded, before there came a
+    tide high enough to carry them out to sea. The river was full of
+    sand-banks, and little islands stood here and there—one in
+    mid-stream, where the ironclads are now launched at Elswick. Three
+    or four vessels might be seen at once bumping and grounding on the
+    “bar” unable to make their way over. Well might the old song say—
+  “The ships are all at the bar, They canna get up to Newcastle!”
+
+    An old map of the Tyne shows a number of sand-banks down the lower
+    reaches of the river, with ships aground on each, of them.
+
+    But the River Tyne Commissioners have changed all that, and their
+    implement of warfare has been the hideous but necessary dredger. No
+    longer need vessels of heavy tonnage desert the Tyne for the Wear,
+    as they were perforce driven to do during the first half of the
+    nineteenth century, for the Wearsiders had set about deepening and
+    widening their river long before the Tynesiders did the same by
+    theirs. Considerable and continuous pressure had to be brought to
+    bear on the civic authorities at Newcastle before they finally took
+    action; but having once done so, the future of the Tyne was
+    assured. Now it ranks second only to the Thames in the actual
+    number of vessels entering and leaving, and owns only the Mersey
+    its superior in the matter of tonnage.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.
+
+
+  “Her dusky hair in many a tangle clings About her, and her looks,
+  though stern and cold, Grow tender with the dreams of by-gone days.”
+  —_W.W. Tomlinson_.
+
+    The outward signs of “by-gone days,” in the Newcastle of to-day,
+    with the one notable exception of the Castle, must be diligently
+    sought out amongst the overwhelming mass of what is often called
+    “rampant modernity,” of which the town to-day chiefly consists. The
+    modernity, however, is not all bad, as this favourite phrase would
+    imply; much of it is doubtless regrettable and a very little of it
+    perhaps inevitable; but no one will deny either the modernity or
+    the beauty of Grey Street, one of the finest streets in any English
+    town; or the fine appearance of Grainger Street, Blackett Street,
+    Eldon Square, or any other of the stately thoroughfares with which
+    Grainger and Dobson enriched the town within the last eighty
+    years—no one, that is, who has learned to “lift his eyes to the
+    sky-line in passing along a thoroughfare” instead of keeping them
+    firmly fixed at the level of shop windows.
+
+    The grim old building which, when it was new, gave its name to the
+    town, is one for which no search needs to be made; its blackened
+    and time worn walls are seen from the train windows by every
+    traveller who enters the city from the south. So near is it to the
+    railway, that in the ultra-utilitarian days of sixty or seventy
+    years ago, it narrowly escaped the ignoble fate of being used as a
+    signal-cabin. It was rescued, however, by the Society of
+    Antiquaries, and carefully preserved by them—more fortunate in this
+    respect than the castle of Berwick, for the platform of Berwick
+    railway station actually stands on the spot once occupied by the
+    Great Hall of the Castle.
+
+    The site of the New Castle, on a part of the river bank which
+    slopes steeply down to the Tyne, had been occupied centuries before
+    by a Roman fort, constructed by order of the Emperor Hadrian, who
+    visited Britain A.D. 120. He also constructed a bridge over the
+    Tyne at this spot, fort and bridge receiving the name of Pons
+    AElii, after the Emperor (Publius AElius Hadrianus). This became
+    the second station on the Great Wall erected by Hadrian’s orders
+    along the line of forts which Agricola had raised forty years
+    before. This station shared the fate of others on the abandonment
+    of Britain by its powerful conquerors, who had now for more than
+    two hundred years been its no less powerful friends and protectors.
+    Pons AElii fell into ruins; but so advantageous a site could not
+    long be overlooked, and we read of a Saxon settlement there,
+    apparently that of a religious community, from which fact it was
+    known as Monkchester. All the records of this period seem to have
+    perished, for we hear nothing of the settlement during the Danish
+    invasions; but a Saxon town of some kind was evidently in existence
+    at the time of the Conquest, though in 1073 three monks from the
+    south who came to York, and, obtaining a guide to “Muneche-cester,”
+    sought for some religious house in that settlement, could find
+    none, and were prevailed upon by the first Norman Bishop of Durham,
+    Walcher, to stay at Jarrow. The years from 1069 to 1080 were evil
+    years for Northumberland, for at the first-named date the Conqueror
+    devastated the North, and left neither village nor farm unscathed;
+    and, as the desolated land was beginning to recover again, Odo of
+    Bayeux and Robert of Normandy relentlessly laid it waste once more,
+    partly in revenge for the murder of Bishop Walcher at Gateshead,
+    and partly to punish Malcolm of Scotland for his invasion of Norman
+    territory.
+
+    It was on his return from this expedition, which had penetrated as
+    far north as Falkirk, that Robert, by his father’s orders, raised a
+    stronghold on the Tyne on the site of the old Roman fort, in the
+    year 1080. His brother, William Rufus, erected a much stronger and
+    better one, the Keep of which, re-built by Henry II., stands to-day
+    dark and grim, looking out over river and town, as it has stood
+    since the Red King ruled the land, and, like his father, the
+    Conqueror, found it desirable to have a stronghold at this northern
+    point of his turbulent realm, around which a town might grow up in
+    safety.
+
+    The roof and battlements of the Keep are modern, but the rest of
+    it—the walls, 12 to 18 feet thick; the dismal dungeon, or guard
+    chamber, with iron rings and fetters still fastened to the walls
+    and central pillar; the beautiful little chapel, with its
+    finely-ornamented arches; the little chambers in the thickness of
+    the walls; the well, 94 feet deep, sunk through the solid masonry
+    into the rock beneath; the arrow slits in the walls; the stones in
+    the roof scored with frequent bolts from the besiegers’ crossbows,
+    one of which bolts is firmly embedded in the wall opposite one of
+    the narrow windows; the ancient weapons and armour—all these
+    breathe of the days when the Red King’s castle took its part in the
+    doings of our hardy ancestors in those stormy times in which they
+    lived and fought.
+
+    The last time the old Keep was called upon to act as fortress and
+    refuge in time of war was in Stuart days, after the ten weeks siege
+    of Newcastle by the Scottish General Leslie, Earl of Leven, in
+    1644, when brave “Governor Marley” and his friends held out in the
+    castle for a few days longer, after the town was taken. In memory
+    of this stout defence and long resistance King Charles gave to the
+    town its motto—_Fortiter defendit triumphans_, which Bates gives as
+    having originally been _Fortiter defendendo triumphat_—“She glories
+    in her brave defence.”
+
+    Two of the original fireplaces still remain in the Castle, and
+    there are besides many objects of great interest which have been
+    bestowed there from time to time for safe keeping; and many more
+    are to be seen at the Black Gate, formerly the chief entrance to
+    the Castle Hall and its surroundings. The Great Hall of the Castle,
+    in which John Baliol did homage to Edward I. for the crown of
+    Scotland, stood on the spot now covered by the Moot Hall. The Black
+    Gate, the lower part of which is the oldest part of the building,
+    which has many times been altered and repaired, is now used as a
+    museum. There were nearly a dozen rooms in it, and not so many
+    years ago the Corporation of Newcastle let these out in tenements,
+    until this building also was rescued from degradation by the
+    Newcastle Society of Antiquaries, who took down most of the
+    dividing walls, and converted it into a museum. Here may be seen
+    stored many sculptured stones, altars, and statues, which have been
+    brought from the various Roman stations in the north.
+
+    Around the walls of one room are to be seen facsimiles of the
+    famous Bayeux tapestry; there is also a model of the Castle as
+    originally built, and there are many more exhibits and loans of the
+    very greatest interest.
+
+    Of the walls of Newcastle only fragments remain, the most
+    considerable portion being found between Westgate Road and St.
+    Andrew’s Churchyard; here are also remains of several of the
+    watch-towers that stood at intervals around the walls—the Heber
+    Tower, the Mordaunt or Morden Tower, and the Ever Tower. Between
+    the two first named towers may be seen a little doorway, walled up,
+    once used by the Friars, who obtained from Edward II. permission to
+    make the doorway in order that they might the more easily reach
+    their gardens and orchards outside; but they had to be ready to
+    build it up at a moment’s notice on the approach of an enemy. One
+    of the towers—the Carliol or Weaver’s Tower—was pulled down to make
+    room for the Central Free Library, opened in 1881. Many little
+    fragments of the Castle wall are to be seen near the High Level
+    Bridge, incorporated in other walls, as far as the South Postern of
+    the Castle, which is said to be the only remaining Norman postern
+    in England and is the oldest remaining part of the Castle.
+
+    The old streets of Newcastle are fast disappearing to make room for
+    the ever-increasing needs of commerce; at the moment of writing it
+    is being proposed to pull down more of the historic street called
+    the Side, to make room for new printing offices. At the head of
+    this curious old street, which curves downward from the Cathedral
+    to the river, stood the birthplace of Cuthbert Collingwood, who was
+    to become Admiral Lord Collingwood, and second in fame only to
+    Nelson himself. Both this house and the one where Thomas Bewick had
+    his workshop, near the Cathedral, have gone to make room for new
+    buildings.
+
+    At the foot of this street, where it curves to the river front, is
+    the Sandhill, facing the Swing Bridge. Here are several old houses
+    remaining, with many-windowed fronts, looking out on the river. One
+    of these was the house of Aubone Surtees, the banker, whose
+    daughter Bessie, in 1772, stole out of one of those little windows,
+    and gave herself into the keeping of young Jack Scott, who was
+    waiting for her below. The adventurous youth became Lord Chancellor
+    of England, and is best known as Lord Eldon; his brother William
+    became Lord Stowell, and was for many years Judge of the High Court
+    of Admiralty.
+
+    Opposite the old houses of the Sandhill, close to the river bank,
+    is the old Guildhall, greatly altered in appearance from the time
+    when John Wesley preached from its steps to the keelmen and
+    fishermen of the town. It was here that a sturdy fishwife put her
+    arms round him, when some boisterous spirits in the crowd
+    threatened him with ill-usage, and, shaking her fist in their
+    faces, swore to “floor them” if they touched her “canny man.”
+
+    This spot, where the Swing Bridge unites the lower banks of the
+    stream, seems always to have been the most convenient point for
+    crossing the river, for the present bridge is the fifth that has
+    spanned the Tyne at this point: Hadrian’s bridge, Pons Aelii; a
+    mediaeval bridge destroyed by fire in 1248; the Old Tyne Bridge,
+    swept away in the flood of 1771; the successor of this, which was
+    found too low to allow of the passage of such large vessels as were
+    able to sail up the Tyne after the deepening of the river bed; and
+    the present Swing Bridge, which is worked by hydraulic machinery,
+    the invention of Lord Armstrong. We do not know how long Hadrian’s
+    bridge lasted, but William the Conqueror, when returning from his
+    expedition into Scotland in 1071, was obliged to camp for a time at
+    “Monec-cestre,” as the Tyne was in flood, and there was no bridge.
+
+    Some ancient houses are to be found in Low Friar Street, one of
+    which, with winged heads and dolphins carved on it, is said to be
+    the oldest house in Newcastle. Turning up an opening on the west
+    side of this street, all that is left of the ancient Blackfriars’
+    Monastery may be seen; some of its rooms are used as the meeting
+    places of various Trade Guilds, and the rest form low tenement
+    houses, in the walls of which are many Gothic archways and ancient
+    window-openings built up. Over the door of the Smith’s Hall is a
+    carving of three hammers, and the inscription:—
+  “By hammer and hand All artes do stand.”
+
+    This Hall was formerly the Great Hall of the monastery; and here
+    Edward Baliol did homage to Edward III. for his crown of Scotland.
+    Nun Street, leading out of Grainger Street, reminds us of the days
+    when the Nunnery of St. Bartholomew stood in this part of the town,
+    and the Nun’s Moor was part of the grounds belonging to the
+    establishment. In High Friar Street, which was not then the
+    dilapidated lane it now appears, Richard Grainger was born.
+
+    Another part of the town which has fallen from its former high
+    estate is the Close, which lies along the river front, westward
+    from the Sandhill. Here, at one time, lived many of the principal
+    inhabitants of Newcastle—Sir John Marley, Sir William Blackett, Sir
+    Ralph Millbank, and others equally important; and here, too, was
+    the former Mansion House of the city, where the Mayors resided, and
+    where they could receive distinguished visitors to the town.
+    Amongst those who have been entertained there were the Duke of
+    Wellington and the first King of the Belgians. But in 1836 the
+    Corporation of Newcastle sold the house, with the furniture, books,
+    pictures, plate, and everything else it contained.
+
+    Eastward from the Sandhill is Sandgate, immortalised in the
+    “Newcastle Anthem”—The Keel Row. Its present appearance is very
+    different from the green slope and sandy shore of former days; the
+    keelmen, too, have vanished, and their place in the commercial
+    economy of the Tyne is taken by waggon-ways and coal-shoots. The
+    old narrow alleys of the town, called “chares,” are fast
+    disappearing; the best known is Pudding Chare, leading from Bigg
+    Market to Westgate Road. Many and various are the explanations that
+    have been offered to account for its curious name, but the true one
+    does not seem yet to have appeared.
+
+    Pilgrim Street owes its name to the fact that it was the route of
+    the pilgrims who came in great numbers to visit the little chapel
+    or shrine of Our Lady of Jesmond, and St. Mary’s Well. In Pilgrim
+    Street was the gateway of a stately mansion, surrounded by
+    beautiful gardens, called Anderson Place, from a Mr. Anderson who
+    bought it from Sir Thomas Blackett in 1783. It had been built by
+    another Mr. Anderson in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, on the site
+    where once stood the monastery of the Grey Friars; he, however, had
+    named his mansion “The Newe House.” In this house Charles I. lived
+    when a prisoner in Newcastle. Anderson Place no longer exists, but
+    the Newcastle of to-day has a constant reminder of its last owners,
+    for Major George Anderson, son of the Mr. Anderson who purchased it
+    in 1783, gave to the Cathedral of St. Nicholas the great bell—known
+    on that account as “The Major”—whose deep reverberant “boom” can be
+    heard for a distance of ten miles. The bell was re-cast in 1891,
+    and in 1892 a new peal of bells was consecrated by Canon Gough.
+
+    Westgate Road is another interesting street; the old West Gate
+    stood near the site of the present Tyne Theatre, and from this
+    point onward the street follows, almost exactly, the line of the
+    Roman Wall.
+
+    Some noteworthy houses in Newcastle are—No. 17, Eldon Place, where
+    George and Robert Stephenson lived in the years 1824-25; No. 4, St.
+    Thomas’ Crescent, where the celebrated artist, Wm. Bell Scott lived
+    when he was headmaster of the School of Art, and to whom Swinburne
+    wrote a fine memorial poem; the Academy of Arts, in Blackett
+    Street, built for the exhibition of pictures by those well-known
+    painters T.M. Richardson and H.T. Parker, and for a short period
+    the home of the Pen and Palette Club, which, both here and in its
+    new home at Higham Place, has entertained many people distinguished
+    in letters, art, and travel who have visited the town of late
+    years; and No. 9, Pleasant Row, the birthplace of Lord Armstrong,
+    which has only recently been destroyed to make way for the N.E.R.
+    Company’s new ferro-concrete Goods Station in New Bridge Street.
+
+    The list of important buildings in Newcastle, exclusive of the
+    churches, is a long one; one of the most prominent is the Library
+    of the Literary and Philosophical Society, familiarly known as the
+    “Lit. and Phil.,” which stands at the lower end of Westgate Road, a
+    little way back from the roadway. It is built on the site of the
+    town house of the Earls of Westmoreland; and its fine Lecture
+    Theatre was a gift to the Society from Lord Armstrong. It is the
+    centre of the intellectual life of the city as a whole, apart from
+    the work of the justly famed Armstrong College, a teaching
+    institute of University rank. This was formerly known as the Durham
+    College of Science, and, with the Durham College of Medicine, forms
+    part of the University of Durham.
+
+    Other seats of learning in the town are the Rutherford College, in
+    Bath Lane, and the Royal Grammar School, which dates from the reign
+    of Henry VIII. It was reconstituted by Queen Elizabeth, and has had
+    many changes of abode. At one time it occupied the buildings of the
+    Convent of St. Mary, which covered the space where Stephenson’s
+    monument now stands. While the Grammar School was located there,
+    the boys Cuthbert Collingwood, William Scott, and John Scott, who
+    afterwards became so famous, attended it; and other distinguished
+    scholars were John Horsley, author of _Britannia Romana_, and John
+    Brand and Henry Bourne, the historians of Newcastle. The school is
+    now situated in Eskdale Terrace and its splendid playing fields
+    stretch across to the North Road.
+
+    One of the most interesting buildings in Newcastle is the Hancock
+    Museum of Natural History, at Barras Bridge. It contains a
+    matchless collection of birds, and some unique specimens of extinct
+    species; also the original drawings of Bewick’s _British Birds_,
+    and other works of his. The famous Newcastle naturalist, John
+    Hancock, presented his wonderful collection, prepared by himself,
+    to the museum. Here, too, is a complete set of fossils from the
+    coal measures, including some fine specimens of Sigillaria. These
+    are only a few of the treasures contained in the museum, which was
+    built chiefly through the generosity of the late Lord and Lady
+    Armstrong, Colonel John Joicey of Newton Hall, Stocksfield, and Mr.
+    Edward Joicey of Whinney House.
+
+    The new Victoria Infirmary, on the Leazes, is a magnificent
+    building, and was opened by King Edward VII. in 1906. It was
+    erected by public subscription, and when £100,000 had been
+    subscribed, the late Mr. John Hall generously offered a like sum on
+    condition that the building should be erected either on the Leazes
+    or the Town Moor. Arrangements were made to do so, and another
+    £100,000 given by the present Lord and Lady Armstrong.
+
+    But fine as all these buildings are, the pride of Newcastle is one
+    much older than any of them—the Cathedral church of St. Nicholas,
+    with its exquisitely beautiful lantern steeple. This wonderful
+    lantern was the work of Robert de Rhodes, who lived in the
+    fifteenth century. The arms of this early benefactor of the church
+    may yet be seen on the ancient font. The present church was
+    finished in the year 1350, says Dr. Bruce; but there was a former
+    one on this site to which the crypt is supposed to belong. It has
+    undergone many alterations at different times, and has sheltered
+    within its walls many and various great personages.
+
+[Illustration: Newcastle-upon-Tyne.]
+
+    In 1451, a treaty between England and Scotland was ratified in the
+    vestry. In the reign of Henry VII., his daughter, Princess
+    Margaret, attended mass here, with all her retinue, when she stayed
+    in the town on her way to Scotland to be married to the gallant
+    young king James IV. She was entertained at the house of the Austin
+    Friars, which stood where now stands the Holy Jesus Hospital at the
+    Manors, near to the Sallyport Tower. When James I. became king of
+    England, he attended service here, as he passed through Newcastle
+    on his way to his southern capital. In the reign of his ill-fated
+    son, Charles I., Newcastle was occupied by the Scots, under General
+    Leslie, for a year after the battle of Newburn in 1640; and again
+    in 1644 was besieged by them for ten weeks. On this occasion the
+    town nearly lost its chief ornament and pride—the lantern of the
+    church; for “There is a traditional story,” says Bourne, “of this
+    building I am now treating of, which may not be improper to be here
+    taken notice of. In the time of the Civil Wars, when the Scots had
+    besieged the town for several weeks, and were still as far as at
+    first from taking it, the General sent a messenger to the Mayor of
+    the town, and demanded the keys and the delivery up of the town, or
+    he would immediately demolish the steeple of St. Nicholas.
+
+    “The Mayor and Aldermen, upon hearing this, immediately ordered a
+    certain number of the chiefest Scottish prisoners to be carried up
+    to the top of the old tower, the place below the lantern, and there
+    confined. After this, they returned the General an answer to this
+    purpose, that they would upon no terms deliver up the town, but
+    would to the last moment defend it; that the steeple of St.
+    Nicholas was indeed a beautiful and magnificent piece of
+    architecture, and one of the great ornaments of the town, but yet
+    should be blown to atoms before ransomed at such a rate; that,
+    however, if it was to fall it should not fall alone; that at the
+    same moment he destroyed the beautiful structure he should bathe
+    his hands in the blood of his countrymen, who were placed there on
+    purpose, either to preserve it from ruin or to die along with it.
+    This message had the desired effect. The men were kept prisoners
+    during the whole time of the siege, and not so much as one gun was
+    fired against it.”
+
+    In 1646, when Charles I. was a prisoner in Newcastle for nearly a
+    year (from May, 1646, to February 3rd, 1647), this was the church
+    he attended; and we may picture him listening perforce to the
+    “admonishing” of the stern Covenanters. In this connection occurs
+    the oft-told story of his ready wit, when one of the preachers
+    wound up his discourse by giving out the metrical version of the
+    fifty-second Psalm, with an obvious allusion to his royal hearer:—
+  “Why dost thou, tyrant, boast abroad, Thy wicked works to praise?”
+
+    Charles quickly stood up and asked for the fifty-sixth Psalm
+    instead:—
+  “Have mercy, Lord, on me, I pray, For man would me devour.”
+
+    The good folk of Newcastle with willing voice rendered the latter
+    Psalm, doubtless to the discomfiture of the preacher.
+
+    Gray, who published his _Chorographia_, or Survey of
+    Newcastle-upon-Tyne, just three years after this, describes St.
+    Nicholas’ as having “a stately, high, stone steeple, with many
+    pinakles, a stately stone lantherne, standing upon foure stone
+    arches, builded by Robert de Rhodes.... It lifteth up a head of
+    Majesty, as high above the rest as the Cypresse Tree above the low
+    Shrubs.”
+
+    The church underwent a terrible despoliation at the hands of the
+    Scots in 1644; but more terrible still were the injuries it
+    received, a little more than a century later, from those who ought
+    to have been its friends. In the years 1784-7 there were many
+    alterations made in the building, during which almost all the old
+    memorials and monuments perished, or were removed; those which were
+    not claimed by the living representatives of the persons
+    commemorated being ruthlessly sold, or destroyed; and the brasses
+    were disposed of as old metal. The modern alterations and
+    restorations have been more happy in their effect, and one of the
+    notable additions to the church is the beautiful carved oak screen
+    in the chancel, the work of Mr. Ralph Hedley.
+
+    There are many beautiful memorial windows in the church, and many
+    memorials in other forms to the various eminent North-country folk
+    who have been connected with Newcastle and its chief place of
+    worship. The Collingwood cenotaph is the most interesting of all;
+    the brave Admiral’s body, as is well known, lies beside that of his
+    friend and commander, Nelson, in St. Paul’s Cathedral, but this
+    memorial of him is fittingly placed in the Cathedral of his native
+    town, within whose walls he worshipped as a boy. There are two
+    monuments by Flaxman—one of the Rev. Hugh Moises, the famous master
+    of the Grammar School when Collingwood was a boy; and the other of
+    Sir Matthew White Ridley, who died in 1813. Of the newer monuments,
+    those of Dr. Bruce, of Roman Wall fame, and of the beloved and
+    lamented Bishop Lloyd, are particularly fine.
+
+    Near the east end of the church, which was raised to the rank of a
+    Cathedral in 1881, is hung a large painting by Tintoretto, “Christ
+    washing the feet of the Disciples”; this was presented to the
+    church by Sir Matthew White Ridley in 1818. There are many more
+    things of interest in the Cathedral, but mention must be made of a
+    wonderful MS. Bible, incomplete, it is true, but beautifully
+    written and illuminated by the monks of Hexham, and other
+    manuscript treasures carefully kept in the care of the authorities.
+
+    The oldest church in the town is St. Andrew’s, supposed to have
+    been built by King David of Scotland at the time when that monarch
+    was Lord of Tynedale, in the reign of King Stephen. It suffered
+    greatly in the struggle with the Scots, whose cannon, planted on
+    the Leazes, did it great damage, and some of the fiercest fighting,
+    at the final capture of the town, took place close by, where a
+    breach was made in the walls. In such a battered condition was it
+    left that the parish Registers tell us that no baptism nor “sarmon”
+    took place within its walls for a year (1645). But a marriage took
+    place, the persons wedded being Scots, who, we learn from the same
+    authority, “would pay nothing to the Church.”
+
+    In the church is buried Sir Adam de Athol, Lord of Jesmond, and
+    Mary, his wife. It is supposed that this Sir Adam gave the Town
+    Moor to the people of Newcastle, though this has been disputed. A
+    fine picture of the “Last Supper,” by Giordano, presented by Major
+    Anderson in 1804, hangs in the church.
+
+    St. John’s Church ranks next to St. Andrew’s in point of age; there
+    are fragments of Norman work in the building, and it is known to
+    have been standing in 1297. To-day the venerable pile, with its age
+    worn stones, stands out in sharper contrast to its environment than
+    does any other building in the town, surrounded as it is by modern
+    shops and offices. The memories it evokes, and the past for which
+    it stands, are such as the citizens of Newcastle will not willingly
+    let die; and when, a few years ago, a proposal was made for its
+    removal, the proposition aroused such a storm of popular feeling
+    against it that it was incontinently abandoned.
+
+    All Saints’ Church was built in 1789, on the site of an older
+    building which was in existence in 1296, and which became very
+    unsafe. Here is kept one of the most interesting monuments in the
+    city—the monumental brass which once covered the tomb of Roger
+    Thornton, a wealthy merchant of Newcastle, and a great benefactor
+    to all the churches. He died in 1429. He gave to St. Nicholas’
+    Church its great east window; but, on its needing repair in 1860,
+    it was removed entirely, and the present one, in memory of Dr.
+    Ions, inserted; and the only fragment left of Thornton’s window is
+    a small circular piece inset in a plain glass window in the
+    Cathedral. He gave much money to Hexham Abbey also.
+
+    Besides the famous men already mentioned in connection with the
+    town, Newcastle possesses other well-known names not a few. In the
+    Middle Ages, Duns Scotus, the man whose skill in argument earned
+    for him the title of “Doctor Subtilis,” owned Northumberland as his
+    home, and received his education in the monastery of the Grey
+    Friars, which stood near the head of the present Grey Street. He
+    returned to this monastery after some years of study at Oxford; in
+    1304 he was teaching divinity in Paris.
+
+    Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London in the reign of Edward VI., whose
+    Northumbrian birthplace at Willimoteswick has already been noted,
+    received his early education at the Grammar School in Newcastle,
+    and on going to Cambridge was a student at Pembroke. We are told he
+    was the ablest man among the Reformers for piety, learning and
+    judgment. As is well known, he died at the stake in 1555.
+
+    William and Elizabeth Elstob, who lived in Newcastle at the end of
+    the seventeenth century, were learned Saxon scholars, but were so
+    greatly in advance of the education of their times that they met
+    with little encouragement or sympathy in their labours.
+
+    Charles Avison, the musician and composer, was organist of St.
+    John’s in 1736, and afterwards of St. Nicholas’.
+
+    It was he to whom Browning referred in the lines—
+    
+                               “On the list Of worthies, who by help of
+                               pipe or wire, Expressed in sound rough
+                               rage or soft desire, Thou, whilom of
+                               Newcastle, organist.”
+
+    These lines have been carved on his tombstone in St. Andrew’s
+    churchyard. He is best known as the composer of the anthem “Sound
+    the loud timbrel.”
+
+    Mark Akenside, the poet, was born in Butcher Bank, now called after
+    him Akenside Hill. His chief work “The Pleasures of Imagination,”
+    is not often read now, but it enjoyed a considerable reputation in
+    an age when a stilted and formal style was looked upon as a true
+    excellence in poetry.
+
+    Charles Hutton, the mathematician, was born in Newcastle in 1737.
+    He began life as a pitman; but, receiving an injury to his arm, he
+    turned his attention to books, and taught in his native town for
+    some years, becoming later Professor of Mathematics in the Royal
+    Military Academy at Woolwich.
+
+    John Brand, the antiquary and historian of Newcastle, was born at
+    Washington, County Durham, but came to Newcastle as a child. After
+    attending the Grammar School, he went to Oxford, by the aid of his
+    master, the Rev. Hugh Moises. He was afterwards curate at the
+    church of St. Andrew.
+
+    Robert Morrison, the celebrated Chinese scholar, was born near
+    Morpeth, but his parents came to Newcastle when the boy was three
+    years of age. He died in China in 1834.
+
+    Thomas Miles Richardson, the well-known artist, was born in
+    Newcastle in 1784, and was at first a cabinetmaker, then master of
+    St. Andrew’s Free School, but finally gave up all other work to
+    devote himself to his art.
+
+    Robert Stephenson went to school at Percy Street Academy, which for
+    long has ceased to exist. There he was taught by Mr. Bruce, and had
+    for one of his fellow-pupils the master’s son, John Collingwood
+    Bruce, who afterwards became so famous a teacher and antiquary.
+
+    Newcastle is not, as most southerners imagine, a dark and gloomy
+    town of unrelieved bricks and mortar, for, besides possessing many
+    wide and handsome streets, it has also several pretty parks, the
+    most noteworthy being the beautiful Jesmond Dene, one of the late
+    Lord Armstrong’s magnificent gifts to his native town. The Dene,
+    together with the Armstrong Park near it, lies on the course of the
+    Ouseburn, which is here a bright and sparkling stream, very
+    different from the appearance it presents by the time it empties
+    its murky waters into the Tyne. Besides these there are Heaton
+    Park, the Leazes Park, with its lakes and boats, Brandling Park,
+    and others smaller than these; and last, but most important of all,
+    the Town Moor, a fine breezy space to the north of the town, of
+    more than 900 acres in extent.
+
+    Of statues and monuments Newcastle possesses some half-dozen, the
+    finest being “Grey’s Monument”—a household word in the town and
+    familiarly known as “The Monument.” It was erected at the junction
+    of Grey Street and Grainger Street in memory of Earl Grey of
+    Howick, who was Prime Minister at the passing of the Reform Bill.
+    The figure of the Earl, by Bailey, stands at the top of a lofty
+    column, the height being 135 feet to the top of the figure. There
+    is a stairway within the column, by which it can be ascended, and a
+    magnificent view enjoyed from the top.
+
+    In an open space near the Central Station, between the _Chronicle_
+    Office and the Lit. and Phil., there is a fine statue of George
+    Stephenson, by the Northumbrian sculptor, Lough. It is a full
+    length representation of the great engineer, in bronze, with the
+    figures of four workmen, representing the chief industries of
+    Tyneside, around the pedestal—a miner, a smith, a navvy, and an
+    engineer. At the head of Northumberland Street, on the open space
+    of the Haymarket, stands a beautiful winged Victory on a tall
+    column, crowning “Northumbria” typified as a female figure at the
+    foot of the column. This graceful and striking memorial is the work
+    of T. Eyre Macklin, and is in memory of the officers and men of the
+    North who fell in the Boer War of 1899-1902. Two other noteworthy
+    statues in the town are those of Lord Armstrong, near the entrance
+    to the Natural History Museum at Barras Bridge, and of Joseph
+    Cowen, in Westgate Road.
+
+THE KEEL ROW
+
+  As I came thro’ Sandgate, Thro’ Sandgate, thro’ Sandgate, As I came
+  thro’ Sandgate, I heard a lassie sing “O weel may the keel row, The
+  keel row, the keel row, Weel may the keel row That my laddie’s in
+  “O who is like my Johnnie, Sae leish,[5] sae blithe, sae bonnie; He’s
+  foremost ’mang the mony Keel lads o’ coaly Tyne He’ll set and row sae
+  tightly, And in the dance sae sprightly He’ll cut and shuffle
+  lightly, ’Tis true, were he not mine!
+  “He has nae mair o’ learnin’ Than tells his weekly earnin’, Yet,
+  right frae wrang discernin’, Tho’ brave, nae bruiser he! Tho’ he no
+  worth a plack[6] is, His ain coat on his back is; And nane can say
+  that black is The white o’ Johnnie’s e’e
+  He wears a blue bonnet, Blue bonnet, blue bonnet, He wears a blue
+  bonnet, And a dimple in his chin O weel may the keel row, The keel
+  row, the keel row, Weel may the keel row That my laddie’s in.”
+
+ [5] Leish = lithe, nimble.
+
+ [6] Plack = a small copper coin, worth about one-third of a penny.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. ELSWICK AND ITS FOUNDER.
+
+
+  Sailed from the North of old The strong sons of Odin; Sailed in the
+  Serpent ships, “By hammer and hand” Skilfully builded.
+
+
+  Still in the North-country Men keep their sea-cunning; Still true the
+  legend, “By hammer and hand” Elswick builds war-ships.
+  —(_Northumbriensis_).
+
+    For a mile and a quarter, along the north bank of the Tyne, stretch
+    the world-famed Elswick Works, which have grown to their present
+    gigantic proportions from the small beginnings of five and a half
+    acres in 1847. In that year two fields were purchased as a site for
+    the new works about to be started to make the hydraulic machinery
+    which had been invented by Mr. Armstrong.
+
+    In this undertaking he was backed by the wealth of several
+    prominent Newcastle citizens, who believed in the future of the new
+    inventions—Messrs. Addison Potter, George Cruddas, Armourer Donkin,
+    and Richard Lambert. At that time Elswick was a pretty country
+    village some distance outside of Newcastle, and the walk along the
+    riverside between the two places was a favourite one with the
+    people of the town. In midstream there was an island, where stood a
+    little inn called the “Countess of Coventry”; and on the island
+    various sports were often held, including horse-racing.
+
+    The price of the land for the new shops, which were soon built on
+    the green slopes above the Tyne, was paid to Mr. Hodgson Hind and
+    Mr. Richard Grainger; the latter of whom had intended, could he
+    have carried out his plans for the rebuilding of Newcastle, not to
+    stop until he made Elswick Hall the centre of the town.
+
+    Until the new shops were ready to begin work, some of Mr.
+    Armstrong’s hydraulic cranes were made by Mr. Watson at his works
+    in the High Bridge.
+
+    All the summer of 1847, the building went briskly on; and in the
+    autumn work was started. At first Mr. Armstrong had an office in
+    Hood Street, as he was superintending his machinery construction in
+    High Bridge, as well as the building operations at Elswick. On some
+    of the early notepaper of the firm there is, as the heading, a
+    picture of Elswick as it was then, showing the first shops, the
+    little square building in which were the offices, the green banks
+    sloping down to the waterside, and the island in the middle of the
+    shallow stream, while the chimneys and smoke of Newcastle are
+    indicated in the remote background. Along the riverside was the
+    public footpath.
+
+    The first work done in the new shops was the making of Crane No. 6;
+    and amongst other early orders was one from the _Newcastle
+    Chronicle_, for hydraulic machinery to drive the printing press.
+    The new machinery rapidly grew in favour; and orders from mines,
+    docks and railways poured in to the Elswick firm, which soon
+    extended its works.
+
+    In 1854, when the Crimean War broke out, Mr. Armstrong was
+    requested to devise some submarine mines which would clear the
+    harbour of Sebastopol of the Russian war-ships which had been sent
+    there. He did so, but the machinery was never used.
+
+    At the same time, in his leisure moments, he turned his attention
+    to the question of artillery. The guns in use at that time were
+    very little better than those which had been used during the
+    Napoleonic wars; and Mr. Armstrong devised a new one, which was
+    made at his workshops. It was a 3-pounder, complete with
+    gun-carriage and mountings, and is still to be seen at Elswick.
+
+    With the usual reluctance of Government departments to consider
+    anything new, the War Office of the day was slow to believe in the
+    superiority of the new field-piece; but when every fresh trial
+    proved that superiority to be beyond doubt, the gun was adopted.
+    And then Mr. Armstrong showed the large-minded generosity which was
+    so marked a feature of his character. Holding in his hand—as every
+    man must, who possesses the secret of a new and superior engine of
+    destruction—the fate of nations, to be decided at his will, and
+    with the knowledge that other powers were willing and eager to buy
+    with any sum the skill of such an inventor, Mr. Armstrong presented
+    to the British Government, as a free gift, the patents of his
+    artillery; and he entered the Government service for a time, as
+    Engineer to the War Department, in order to give them the benefit
+    of his skill and special knowledge.
+
+    A knighthood was bestowed upon him, and he took up his new duties
+    as Sir William Armstrong. An Ordnance department was opened at
+    Elswick, and the Government promised a continuance of orders above
+    those that the Arsenal at Woolwich was able to fulfil. All went
+    well for a time, but after some years the connection between the
+    Government and Elswick ceased; the Ordnance and Engineering works
+    were then amalgamated into one concern, and Mr. George Rendel and
+    Captain Noble—now Sir Andrew Noble, and one of the greatest living
+    authorities on explosives—were placed in charge of the former.
+
+    Released from the agreement to make no guns except for the British
+    Government, Elswick was open to receive other orders, which now
+    began to roll in from all the world. Elswick prospered greatly,
+    until suddenly there came a check, in the shape of a strike for a
+    nine hours day, in 1871. After the strike had lasted for four and a
+    half months, work was resumed; but the old genial relationship
+    between masters and men had received a rude strain, and was never
+    the same as before.
+
+    Shipbuilding had been taken up a year or two before this, but the
+    earliest vessels were built to their order in Mr. Mitchell’s yard
+    at Walker. The first one was a small gunboat, the “Staunch,” built
+    for the Admiralty. In later years the Walker ship-yard was united
+    to the Elswick enterprises, and a ship-yard at the latter place was
+    also opened.
+
+    Meantime, Captain Noble had been experimenting further in
+    artillery, and in 1877 another and better type of gun was produced.
+    It was adopted by the Government, and all guns since then have been
+    modifications, more or less, of this type. In 1876 the famous
+    hundred-ton gun for Italy was made, and was taken on board the
+    “Europa” to be carried to her destination; this vessel being the
+    first to pass the newly-finished Swing Bridge, another outcome of
+    the inventive genius of the head of the Elswick firm. The gun,
+    which was the largest in the world at that time, was lowered into
+    the “Europa” by the largest pair of “sheer-legs” in existence, and
+    was lifted out again at Spezzia by the largest hydraulic crane of
+    that day, and all these were the work of the Elswick firm.
+
+    Soon after this the firm became Sir W.G. Armstrong, Mitchell, and
+    Co.; and in consequence of the continued increase of business, it
+    became necessary to open Steel Works also. This is one of the most
+    notable features of the Elswick works; the wonders of ancient
+    magicians pale into insignificance before the marvels of this
+    department, and no Eastern Genius could accomplish such seemingly
+    impossible feats with greater ease than do the workmen of Elswick.
+
+    The works continued to grow still further, and soon Elswick was
+    building cruisers for China, for Italy (where works at Pozzuoli—the
+    ancient Puteoli—were opened), for Russia, Chili, and Japan.
+    Tynesiders took a special interest in the progress of the Japanese
+    wars, for so many of that country’s battleships had their birth on
+    the banks of the river at Elswick, and Japanese sailors became a
+    familiar sight in Newcastle streets. Groups of strange faces from
+    alien lands are periodically seen in our midst, and met with again
+    and again for some time; then one day there is a launch at Elswick,
+    and shortly afterwards all the strange faces disappear. They have
+    gathered together from their various quarters in the town, and
+    manning their new cruiser, have sailed away to their own land, and
+    Newcastle streets know them no more; but, later, Tynesiders read in
+    their newspapers of the deeds done on the vessels which they have
+    sent forth to the world.
+
+    The ice-breaker “Ermack” is one of the firm’s most notable
+    achievements, the vessel having been built and designed in their
+    Walker yard, to the order of the Czar of Russia, in 1898, for the
+    purpose of breaking up ice-floes in the northern seas, and more
+    especially for keeping open a route across the great lakes of
+    Siberia.
+
+    The Elswick firm became Armstrong, Whitworth and Co., Ltd., in
+    1897, which was also the year of another great strike; and two
+    years later, a disastrous fire burned down three of their shops,
+    throwing two thousand men temporarily out of employment. Still the
+    works continued to grow, and business to increase, until, instead
+    of the five and a half acres originally purchased, the Company’s
+    works, in 1900, covered two hundred and thirty acres, and the
+    number of men on the pay-roll was over 25,000—that is, sufficient
+    with their families to people a town three times the size of
+    Hexham. And the scope and extent of these works are extending, and
+    yet extending; and now Elswick and Scotswood form an uninterrupted
+    line of closely-packed dwellings, which stretch without a break
+    from Newcastle, and make a background for the immense works on the
+    river shore; and one would look in vain for any signs of the pretty
+    country lanes and village of sixty years ago.
+
+    The founder of this great enterprise, in the early days of the
+    Company, built for his workpeople schools, library, and reading
+    rooms, as well as dwellings, and met them personally at their
+    social gatherings and entertainments—generally provided by himself;
+    but the increasing size of the concern, the excellence and
+    capability, amounting to genius, of the various heads of
+    departments chosen by him, and his own increasing years and failing
+    health, led to his gradual withdrawal from personal attendance at
+    Elswick. The last time he appeared there officially was when the
+    King of Siam visited the works in 1897.
+
+    One who knew him well has written of him, “His mind was at the same
+    time original and strictly practical; he noticed with a penetrating
+    observation, and drew conclusions with intuitive genius. Abstract
+    speculation had no charm for him; he never cherished wild dreams or
+    extravagant ideas. But if his conception was thus wisely
+    restricted, his execution of an idea was unrivalled in its
+    thoroughness. Whether he was founding an industrial establishment,
+    or building a house, or making a road, the hand of the man is quite
+    unmistakable. There is the same solid basis, the same enduring
+    superstructure. Every stone that is laid at Cragside or Bamburgh
+    seems to be stamped as it were with the impression of his great
+    personality, and the thoroughness of his work.” All his life long,
+    the thoroughness with which he was able to concentrate his mind on
+    the one subject which occupied it at the time, was a marked feature
+    of Lord Armstrong’s character.
+
+    In the early period of his career, while he was still in a
+    solicitor’s office, and when the study of hydraulics was absorbing
+    all his leisure hours, he was quizzically said to have “water on
+    the brain.” Electrical problems also engaged his attention, and in
+    1844 he lectured at the Lit. and Phil. rooms on his hydro-electric
+    machine, on which occasion the lecture room was so tightly packed
+    that he had to get in through the window. In the following year he
+    explained to the same society his hydraulic experiments and
+    achievements; in 1846 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society;
+    and the next summer, 1847, saw the Elswick Works begun.
+
+    It is difficult to realize the fact, brought home to us on looking
+    at dates like these, that Lord Armstrong and Robert Stephenson were
+    contemporaries, and that both great engineers were engaged at the
+    same time on the works which were to bring them lasting fame. The
+    life and work of Robert Stephenson seem so remote, so much a part
+    of bygone history, that it strikes the mind with an unexpected
+    shock to realise that here is a life which began about the same
+    time, yet has lasted until quite recent years; for Lord Armstrong’s
+    long and successful career only closed with the closing days of the
+    nineteenth century.
+
+    In the later years of his life he was greatly interested in
+    repairing and partly re-building the historic castle of Bamburgh,
+    which Mr. Freeman calls “the cradle of our race,” and which Lord
+    Armstrong purchased from Lord Crewe’s Trustees. Of his personal
+    character, the writer above quoted says, “Apart from his
+    intellectual gifts, Lord Armstrong’s character was that of a great
+    man. His unaffected modesty was as attractive as his broad-minded
+    charity. In business transactions, he was the soul of integrity and
+    honour, while in private life his mind was far too large to regard
+    accumulated wealth with any excessive affection. He both spent his
+    money freely and gave it away freely. His benefactions to Newcastle
+    were princely, and his public munificence was fit to rank with that
+    of any philanthropist of his time.”
+
+    Princely, indeed, were his gifts to his native town, as the list of
+    them will show; they embraced either large contributions to, or the
+    entire gift of, Jesmond Dene, the Armstrong Park, the Lecture
+    Theatre of the Literary and Philosophical Society, St. Cuthbert’s
+    Church, the Cathedral, St. Stephen’s Church, the Infirmary, the
+    Deaf and Dumb Institution, the Children’s Hospital, the Elswick
+    Schools, Elswick Mechanics’ Institute, the Convalescent Home at
+    Whitley Bay, the Hancock Museum—to which he and Lady Armstrong
+    contributed a valuable collection of shells, and £11,500 in
+    money—the Armstrong Bridge, the Armstrong College, and the
+    Bishopric Endowment Fund.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. THE CHEVIOTS.
+
+
+    From the crowded, bustling scenes of Tyneside to the solitude of
+    the Cheviot Hills is a “far cry,” even farther mentally than in
+    actual tale of miles. Yet the two are linked by the same stream,
+    which begins life as a brawling Cheviot burn, having for its
+    fellows the head waters of the Rede, the Coquet, and the Till, with
+    the scores of little dancing rills that feed them.
+
+    Nowhere in this land of swelling hills and grassy fields can one
+    get out of either sight or sound of running water. Every little dip
+    in the hills has its watercourse, every vale its broader stream,
+    and the pleasant sound of their murmurings and sweet babbling fills
+    in the background of every remembrance of days spent upon the green
+    slopes of the Cheviots. You may hear in their tones, if you listen,
+    the shrill chatter and laughter of children, soft cooing voices,
+    and the deeper notes of manhood, and might fancy, did not your
+    sight contradict the fact, that you were close to a goodly company,
+    whose words met your ear, but whose magic language you could not
+    understand.
+
+    One little burn of my acquaintance, which runs through field and
+    dell to join the Till, I have hearkened to again and again for
+    hours, unable to break away from the spell of its ever-varying, yet
+    constant music—a sort of wilder, sweeter version of Mendelssohn’s
+    Duetto, with the voices of Knight and Lady alternating and
+    intermingling amidst a rippling current of clear bell-like
+    undertones.
+
+    Down from Cheviot itself, the lovely little Colledge Water splashes
+    its way, issuing from the wild ravine called the Henhole, where the
+    cliffs on each side of the rocky gorge rise in some places to a
+    height of more than two hundred feet. Concerning this ravine, there
+    is a legend that a party of hunters, long ages ago, were
+    deer-stalking in Cheviot Forest, when on reaching the Henhole their
+    ears were greeted by the most ravishing music they had ever heard.
+    Allured by the enchanting sounds, they followed the music into the
+    ravine, where they disappeared, and were never again seen.
+
+    The range of the Cheviot Hills stretches for about twenty-two miles
+    along the north-west border of Northumberland; and as the width of
+    the range is, roughly speaking, twenty-one miles, we have a tract
+    of over three hundred square miles of rolling, grassy, and
+    heath-clad hills, of which about one-third is over the Scottish
+    border in Roxburghshire. The giants of the range, The Cheviot
+    (2,676 feet high), Cairn Hill (2,545 feet), and the striking cone
+    of Hedgehope (2,348 feet), are all near to each other on
+    Northumbrian soil, a few miles south-west of Wooler, which is a
+    most convenient starting place for a visit to any part of the
+    Cheviots, as the Alnwick and Cornhill Railway brings within easy
+    reach the heights which lie still farther north.
+
+    The quiet little market town lies pleasantly among green meadows
+    almost at the foot of the Cheviots; its low substantial stone
+    houses, with few gardens in front, give the place a somewhat
+    monotonous appearance, but the newer streets try to make amends by
+    blossoming out into brilliant flower-plots in summer-time. Still,
+    one would not quarrel with the older buildings; solid and
+    unpretentious, they must look much the same as in the days of
+    Border turmoil, when the first requisite in house or town was
+    strength, not beauty.
+
+    Near to Wooler are many interesting places; within the limits of
+    quite a short stroll one may visit the Pin Well, a wishing well of
+    which there are so many examples to be found wherever one may
+    travel; the King’s Chair, a porphyry crag on the hill above the Pin
+    Well; Maiden Castle, or, less euphoniously, Kettles Camp, an
+    ancient British encampment on the same hill, the Kettles being
+    pot-like cavities in the ravines surrounding it; and the Cup and
+    Saucer Camp, just half a mile distant from Wooler. The Golf Course
+    is now laid out on these same heights.
+
+    To reach the Cheviots from Wooler, the most usual way is by the
+    beautiful glen in which lies Langleeford. The bright streamlet
+    known as the Wooler Water runs through it from Cheviot on its way
+    to the town from which it has taken its present name; formerly it
+    was known as Caldgate Burn. It was at Langleeford that Sir Walter
+    Scott stayed, as a youth, in 1791, with his uncle, after they had
+    vainly attempted to find accommodation in Wooler. Here they rode,
+    fished, shot, walked, and drank the goat’s whey for which the
+    district was famous in those days and for long afterwards.
+
+    Cheviot itself, or “The Muckle Cheviot,” is a huge cumbrous-looking
+    mass, with rounded sides and flat top, boggy and treacherous,
+    where, nevertheless, many wild berries brighten the marshy flats in
+    their season. The name “Cheviot” is said to mean “Snowy Ridge” and
+    well does this highest summit of the range merit the name, for on
+    its marshy top and in the rocky chasms of Henhole and Bazzle, the
+    winter’s snow often lies until far into the summer. Down through
+    the weird and fairy-haunted cleft of Henhole, as we have seen, the
+    little brown stream of Colledge Water splashes its way, breaking
+    into golden foam between mossy banks as it reaches the outlet, and
+    turns northward to join the Till.
+
+    This little burn is one of the prettiest of mountain streams; and
+    in the district surrounding it are perhaps more points of interest
+    than any other stream of such inconsiderable dimensions can show,
+    saving only its neighbour, the Till. The whole of the surrounding
+    country, wild, lonely, and romantic, teems with memories and
+    reminders of the past. Sir Walter Scott, while on the visit already
+    referred to, found an additional pleasure in the presence of so
+    many relics of ancient days in the neighbourhood. “Each hill,” he
+    wrote to a friend, “is crowned with a tower, or camp, or cairn, and
+    in no situation can you be near more fields of battle.”
+
+    Indeed, the whole district of the Cheviots, and the lower lines of
+    swelling hills into which the land subsides as it nears the sea, is
+    crowded with the memorials of an earlier race; from every hill-top
+    and rocky height they speak with tantalising half-revelations of
+    that race which the Romans found here when their galleys brought
+    them to the land which was to them Ultima Thule. No convincing
+    explanation has yet been found of the concentric circular markings,
+    with radiating grooves from the cup-shaped hollow in the middle,
+    which are scored on the rocks wherever traces of an ancient camp
+    are found; and the numbers of these traces are proof that this
+    district was once a very thickly populated part of Britain.
+
+    And when Angle and Saxon were driving the early inhabitants before
+    them, westward and southward, these hills and valleys still
+    sheltered a considerable population; and Bede tells us of a royal
+    residence not far away, at the foot of the well known Yeavering
+    Bell, one of the more important hills of the range. It rises to a
+    height of more than 1,100 feet, and then abruptly ends in a wide,
+    almost level top, grass-grown and boulder-strewn, and crowned near
+    the centre with a roughly-piled cairn. The ancient name of
+    Yeavering Bell, as given by Bede in his account of the labours of
+    St. Paulinus, was Ad-gefrin.
+
+    To recall the days when King Edwin and his queen, Ethelburga, came
+    here from the royal city of Bamburgh, we must go back to a time
+    nearly forty years after the Bernician chieftain, Ida, established
+    himself in that rocky fortress, from whence he ruled a district
+    roughly corresponding to the present counties of Durham and
+    Northumberland, and known as Bernicia. One of Ida’s successors,
+    Ethelric, overcame the tribe of Angles then established in the
+    neighbouring district of Deira—the Yorkshire of to-day. His
+    successor, Ethelfrith, ruled over the united district, and married
+    the daughter of Ella, the vanquished chieftain. Her brother, Edwin,
+    he drove into exile, and the young prince found refuge at the court
+    of Redwald of East Anglia, where he remained for some years.
+
+    Redwald’s friendship, however, does not seem to have been above
+    suspicion, for we find that Ethelfrith’s bribe had on one occasion
+    nearly induced him to give up his guest, whose life, however, was
+    saved by Redwald’s wife who turned her husband from his purpose. In
+    his exile the thoughts of the young prince often turned towards his
+    own land; and, once, as he sat brooding over his misfortunes, he
+    saw in a vision one who came and spoke comforting words to him,
+    saying that he should yet be king and that his reign should be long
+    and glorious. “And if one should come to thee and repeat this
+    sign,” said the stranger, laying his right hand on Edwin’s head
+    “wouldst thou hearken to his rede?” Edwin gave his word, and the
+    vision fled. Some little time after this, Ethelfrith of
+    Northumbria, as the united districts were now called, fell in
+    battle against Redwald, and Edwin, returning northward, became
+    ruler of Northumbria, the sons of Ethelfrith fleeing in their turn
+    before the new king. Edwin wedded, as his second wife, Ethelburga,
+    daughter of that king of Kent in whose days Augustine came to
+    England; and being a Christian princess, she brought with her a
+    priest to her new home in the north. The priest’s name was
+    Paulinus; and one day he went to the King and, placing his right
+    hand on Edwin’s head, asked if he knew that sign. Edwin remembered,
+    and redeemed his promise. He hearkened to the teaching of the
+    earnest monk, with the result that before long he and his court
+    were baptised by Paulinus, Edwin’s little daughter, it is said,
+    being the first to receive the sacred rite.
+
+    This was at York; and when the king and queen went to the royal
+    city of Bamburgh, or to their country dwelling at the foot of the
+    Cheviots, Paulinus accompanied them; and wherever he went, he
+    laboured to teach the North-country Angles and Saxons the gospel of
+    Christ. This country dwelling, to which came Paulinus and his royal
+    friends, was Ad-gefrin, or Yeavering; and though it is extremely
+    unlikely that any traces of it could remain until our day, yet
+    tradition points out a fragment of an old building still standing
+    there, as a remnant of the royal residence.
+
+    In the region of Kirknewton, a pretty little village to the
+    north-west of Yeavering, where Colledge Water joins the Glen, which
+    gives its name to the romantic district of Glendale, Paulinus
+    baptised many hundreds of Edwin’s people; and the name of
+    Pallinsburn—which is now confined to a house at some little
+    distance from the burn—enshrines the memory of yet another scene of
+    the labours of the indefatigable monk.
+
+    If we stand on the wind-swept top of Yeavering Bell, we are
+    surrounded by the evidences of still more remote days, for the
+    whole of the summit was once a fortified camp of the ancient
+    Britons. A roughly-piled, but massive wall, now almost all broken
+    down, surrounded it, and within its grass-grown oval are two
+    additional walls, at the east and the west ends of the enclosure,
+    and many hut-circles, evidences of the rude dwellings of our remote
+    ancestors. Excavations here many years ago brought to light a
+    jasper ball, some fragments of a coarse kind of pottery, and some
+    oaken armlets. Evidently the enclosure on the summit was intended
+    to be a last resort in time of danger, for traces of many huts are
+    to be found outside its encircling wall, which is surrounded by a
+    ditch and a low rampart of earth. At the east end, where the
+    porphyry crag juts out from the hilltop to a height of about twenty
+    feet, full advantage has been taken of this naturally strong
+    position.
+
+    Now, instead of advancing foes, the spreading heather climbs
+    steadily up the sloping sides of this ancient stronghold, and
+    invades the central enclosure at its will; a few hardy sheep that
+    have wandered up here from the richer pastures below, and now and
+    again a stray tourist, anxious to make acquaintance at first hand
+    with one of the more famous of the Cheviot heights, and more than
+    satisfied with the glorious view spread out before him, are all
+    that disturb the brooding peace of its grassy solitudes. Up here
+    the wind blows keenly around us with an exhilarating freshness in
+    its breath, and we think regretfully of coats left behind at the
+    shepherd’s hospitable dwelling, which, with the rest of the
+    cottages clustering round the old farm house, lies sunning itself
+    in the warm glow of the September afternoon, in the green fields at
+    the foot of the sheltering hills.
+
+    Looking southward now, up the stream, there is stretching away to
+    the left the long ridge of Newton Tor, and away behind it Great
+    Hetha and Little Hetha; while half-way down the vale the Colledge
+    Water tumbles over the rocks at Hethpoole Linn (or Heathpool, as
+    the modern rendering has it), breaking into amber spray deep down
+    beneath overhanging trees and boulders and golden bracken.
+
+    This brings our thoughts to days comparatively modern, for when
+    Admiral Collingwood was raised to the peerage of Great Britain, it
+    was by the title of “Baron Collingwood of Caldburn and Hethpoole,
+    in the county of Northumberland.” The brave Admiral was fond of
+    planting an oak tree whenever he found an opportunity, to secure
+    the continuance of those wooden walls which in his hands, and in
+    those of his life-long friend, Nelson, had proved such a sure
+    defence to his country. In a letter dated March, 1806, he wrote to
+    his wife, “I wish some parts of Hethpoole could be selected for
+    plantations of larch, oak, and beech, where the ground could best
+    be spared. Even the sides of a bleak hill would grow larch and
+    fir.” In another letter some months later he told her what
+    “agreeable news” it was to hear that she was taking care of his
+    oaks, and planting some at Hethpoole; and saying that if he ever
+    returned he would plant a good deal there; adding, however, that he
+    feared before that could take place both he and Lady Collingwood
+    might themselves be planted in the churchyard beneath some old yew
+    tree.
+
+    Hethpoole presents us with a link not only with history, but with
+    romance as well. An ivied ruin near at hand, with walls of enormous
+    strength, is said to be the remains of the castle where the final
+    tragedy in “The Hermit of Warkworth” took place. Here, it is said,
+    the distracted lover came upon his lady and his brother, who had at
+    that moment effected her escape, and not recognising the youth,
+    rushed upon the pair with drawn sword, only to discover too late
+    his terrible mistake, and lose both brother and bride—for the lady
+    received a mortal wound in trying to save her rescuer.
+
+    Turning our eyes now northward across the Glen from Yeavering Bell,
+    we are looking towards Coupland Castle, and the fact that it was
+    built so late as the reign of James I. bears eloquent testimony to
+    the insecurity of life and property on the Borders even at that
+    period. The barony either gave its name to, or took its name from,
+    a well-known Northumbrian family, of which one of the most
+    prominent members was that Sir John de Coupland who succeeded in
+    capturing David of Scotland at the battle of Neville’s Cross—not,
+    however, before he had lost some of his teeth by a blow from the
+    mailed fist of that doughty monarch!
+
+    Beyond Coupland Castle we look across Milfield Plain lying in the
+    angle formed by the meeting of the Glen with the deep and sullen
+    Till, whose slow windings can be traced as it gleams at intervals
+    between the undulations of the lower hills through which it flows
+    northwestward to the Tweed. Though a brisk and sparkling stream in
+    certain parts of its course, the general characteristics of the
+    Till are well borne out by the lines—
+  Tweed says to Till “What gars ye rin sae still?” Till says to Tweed
+  “Though ye rin wi’ speed And I rin slaw; Where ye droon ae man I
+  droon twa.”
+
+    There is yet more of historical and traditional interest to note in
+    this view from the top of Yeavering Bell, which, as I saw it last,
+    lay warm in the glow of a September afternoon. Nennius is our
+    authority for stating that on Milfield Plain took place one of the
+    great conflicts in which King Arthur
+  “Fought, and in twelve great battles overcame The heathen hordes, and
+  made a realm, and reigned”
+
+    And, as we gazed, the level spaces seemed peopled once more with
+    charging knights, flashing sword and swinging battle-axe, and the
+    intervening centuries dropped away, and Arthur’s call to battle for
+    “our fair father Christ,” seemed curiously befitting that romantic
+    scene. But, as the shadows lengthened, and the streams took on a
+    golden glow in the rays of the September sun, then slowly setting,
+    “the tumult and the shouting of the captains” died away, and the
+    figure of an earnest monk seemed to stand by the riverside, with
+    prince and serf, peasant and warrior for his audience, and the cold
+    bright waters of the Glen dripping from his hand, as he enrolled
+    one after another into the ranks of an army mightier than the hosts
+    of Arthur or Edwin.
+
+    Milfield again emerges into notice out of the obscurity of those
+    dark ages, in the days of the Bernician kings who succeeded Edwin;
+    for Bede tells us that “This town (Ad-gefrin) under the following
+    kings, was abandoned, and another was built instead of it at a
+    place called Melmin,” now Milfield. Nothing, however, remains here
+    of the buildings which once sheltered the royal Saxons and their
+    court. In later days, Milfield has a melancholy interest attaching
+    to it from its connection with the battle of Flodden; for, on the
+    heights above, King James fixed his camp, in the hope that Surrey
+    would lead his troops across the plain below. Of the other
+    considerable heights of the Cheviot range, Carter Fell and Peel
+    Fell are the best known; they both lie right on the border line of
+    England and Scotland, between the North Tyne and the Rede Water. As
+    we have already seen, the men of Tynedale and Redesdale bore a
+    reputation for lawlessness in the time of the Border
+    “Moss-trooping” days, and until nearly the end of the eighteenth
+    century the tradesmen and guilds of Newcastle would take no
+    apprentice who hailed from either of these dales. The tracks and
+    passes between the hills, once alive with frequent foray and wild
+    pursuit, are now silent and solitary but for the occasional passing
+    of a shepherd or farmer, and the flocks of sheep grazing as they
+    move slowly up the hillsides. A quaint survival of the remembrances
+    of those days was unexpectedly brought before me one day. A child
+    presented me with a bunch of cotton-grass, gathered on the moors
+    not far from the Roman-Wall. I asked if she knew what they were
+    that she had brought. “Moss-troopers,” she replied.
+
+    Many of the Cheviot heights bear most suggestive and interesting
+    names, such as Cushat[7] Law, Kelpie[8] Strand, Earl’s Seat,
+    Stot[9] Crags, Deer Play, Wether Lair, Bloodybushedge, Monkside,
+    etc., etc.
+
+ [7] Cushat = a wood-pigeon.
+
+ [8] Kelpie = a water-witch.
+
+ [9] Stot = a bullock.
+
+    In these lonely wilds, which occupy all the northwest of the
+    county, one may travel all day and meet with no living thing save
+    the birds of the air, and a few shy, wild creatures of the
+    moorlands; curve after curve, the rounded hills stretch away into
+    the distance, grass-grown or heatherclad, with occasional
+    peat-mosses; above is the “grey gleaming sky,” and, all around, a
+    stillness as of vast untrodden wastes, and a sense of solitude out
+    of all proportion to the actual extent of this lonely region. The
+    fascination of it, however, admits of no denial, even on the part
+    of those newly making its acquaintance; while those who in
+    childhood or youth roam over its wild fells, and feel the spell of
+    its brooding mystery, retain in their hearts for all time an
+    unfading remembrance of its magic charm.
+  COLLEDGE WATER.
+  My sire is the stooping Cheviot mist, My mother the heath in her
+  purple train; And every flower on her gown I’ve kissed Over and over
+  and over again.
+  The secret ways of the hills are mine, I know where the wandering
+  moor-fowl nest; And up where the wet grey glidders[10] shine I know
+  where the roving foxes rest.
+  I know what the wind is wailing for As it searches hollow and hag and
+  peak; And, riding restless on Newton Tor, I know what the questing
+  shadows seek.
+  I know the tale that the brown bees tell, And they tell it to me with
+  a raider’s pride, As, drunk with the cups of Yeavering Bell, They
+  stagger home from the English side.
+  I know the secrets of haugh and hill; But sacred and safe they rest
+  with me, Till I hide them deep in the heart of Till, To be taken to
+  Tweed and the open sea.
+    —_Will. H. Ogilvie_.
+  BY PERMISSION OF MESSRS. W. AND R. CHAMBERS
+
+ [10] Glidders = Patches of loose stones on the hillside.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE ROMAN WALL.
+
+
+  “Take these flowers, which, purple waving, On the ruined rampart
+  grew, Where, the sons of Freedom braving, Rome’s imperial standard
+  flew. Warriors from the breach of danger Pluck no longer laurels
+  there; They but yield the passing stranger Wild-flower wreaths for
+  Beauty’s hair.” —_Sir Walter Scott._ (Lines written for a young
+  lady’s album.)
+
+    Of all the abundance of treasure which Northumberland possesses,
+    from a historical point of view—of all its wealth of interesting
+    relics of bygone days—ancient abbey, grim fortress, menhir and
+    monolith, camp and tumulus—none grips the imagination as does the
+    sight of that unswerving line which pursues its way over hill and
+    hollow, from the eastern to the western shores of the north-land,
+    visible emblem, after more than a thousand years, of the far-flung
+    arm of Imperial Rome.
+
+    From Wallsend on the Tyne to Bowness on the Solway Firth it strode
+    triumphantly across the land; even now in its decay it remains a
+    splendid monument to that mighty nation’s genius for having and
+    holding the uttermost parts of the earth that came within their
+    ken. As was inevitable, after the lapse of nearly eighteen
+    centuries the great work is everywhere in a ruinous condition, and
+    in many places, especially at its eastern end, has disappeared
+    altogether; but not only can its course be traced by various
+    evidences, but it was actually standing within comparatively recent
+    years. As lately as the year 1800—lately, that is, compared with
+    the date of its building—its existence at Byker was referred to in
+    a magazine of the period. Now nothing is to be seen of it excepting
+    a few stones here and there, for many miles from Wallsend; but the
+    highroad westward from Newcastle, by Westgate Road, as is well
+    known, follows the course of the Wall for nearly twenty miles. But
+    farther west we may walk along the uneven, broken surface of the
+    mighty rampart, or climb down into the broad and deep fosse which
+    lies closely against it along its northern side, without troubling
+    ourselves with the arguments and uncertainties of antiquaries, who
+    have by no means decided on what was the original function of the
+    Wall, who was its real builder, why and when the earthen walls and
+    fosse which accompany it on the south were wrought, and many other
+    smaller controversial points, which afford endless matter for
+    speculation and discussion.
+
+    Early references to the Wall show that our forefathers knew it as
+    the Picts’ Wall; it is now generally referred to as the Wall of
+    Hadrian, the general concensus of opinion yielding to that
+    indefatigable ruler the credit of having wrought the mighty work.
+    Whether built originally as a frontier line of defence or not,
+    opinions are not agreed; but it is very certain that the Wall
+    afforded the only secure foothold in the North to the Romans for
+    well-nigh two centuries of hostility from the restless Brigantes to
+    the southward, and the Picts and Scots to the north; and for
+    another century or so after their southern neighbours had become
+    friendly and peaceful, it still remained a substantial bulwark
+    against the northern barbarians.
+
+    Throughout the whole of its length it steadily holds the line of
+    the highest ridges in its course, climbing up slopes and dipping
+    down into the intervening hollows with the least possible deviation
+    from its onward course. The most interesting, because most
+    complete, portion of the Wall, is that in the neighbourhood of the
+    three loughs—Broomlee, Greenlee, and Crag Loughs, which, with
+    Grindon Lough to the south of the Wall, boast the name of the
+    Northumberland Lakes. On this portion of the wall is situated the
+    large Roman station of Borcovicus, from which we have gained a
+    great deal of our information as to what the life of the garrisons
+    on this lonely outpost of Empire was like.
+
+    The station is situated on hilly ground, which slopes gently to the
+    south, and is nearly five acres in extent. On entering the eastern
+    gateway one cannot but experience a sudden thrill on seeing the
+    deep grooves worn in the stone by the passing and repassing of
+    Roman cart and chariot wheels. That mute witness of the daily
+    traffic of the soldiery in those long-past centuries speaks with a
+    most intimate note to us who eighteen hundred years afterwards come
+    to look upon the place of their habitation. The station itself is
+    of the usual shape of the Roman towns on the course of the
+    Wall—oblong, with rounded corners. The greatest length lies east
+    and west, in a line with the Wall; and two broad streets crossing
+    each other at right angles lead from the north to the south, and
+    from the east to the western gateways. Each of the four was
+    originally a double gateway; but in every case one half of it has
+    been closed up, no doubt when the garrison was declining in
+    numbers, and the attacks of the enemy were increasing in severity.
+
+[Illustration: North Gateway, Housesteads and Roman Wall.]
+
+    Considerable portions of the guard-chambers, one at each side of
+    each gateway, still remain; and near one of them was found a huge
+    stone trough, its edges deeply worn by, apparently, the frequent
+    sharpening of knives upon it. Its use has not been determined; Dr.
+    Bruce tells us that one of the men engaged in the work of
+    excavation gave it as his firm opinion that the Romans used it to
+    wash their Scotch prisoners in! The buildings of the little town—a
+    row of houses against the western wall, two large buildings near
+    the centre of the camp, with smaller chambers to the east of
+    them—in which the garrison lived, worked, and stored their
+    supplies, are still quite plainly to be traced, although the walls
+    are only three or four courses high in most places, and of the
+    pillars the broken bases are almost all that remain.
+
+    A considerable number of people dwelt outside the walls of this, as
+    of all the stations, sheltering under its walls, and relying on the
+    protection of its garrison; the slope to the southward of
+    Borcovicus shows many traces of buildings scattered all over it. On
+    the northern side, the steep hill, massive masonry, and deep fosse
+    would seem to have offered well-nigh insuperable difficulties to an
+    attacking force such as then could be brought against the camp; yet
+    not only here, but in all the stations whose remains yet survive,
+    there is unmistakable evidence that more than once has the garrison
+    been driven out by a victorious foe, to re-enter and occupy it
+    again at a later period. And when we consider that the Wall and its
+    forts were garrisoned by the Romans for a period extending over
+    nearly three centuries, a period corresponding to the time from the
+    reign of James I. to the present day, it becomes a matter of
+    wonder, not that such was the case, but that such occurrences were
+    not more frequent than the evidences seem to declare.
+
+    In spite of all the hard fighting, however, the recreations of
+    lighter hours would seem not to have been forgotten; on the north
+    of the wall is a circular hollow in the ground, evidently a little
+    amphitheatre, in which doubtless many a captive Briton and Pict
+    played his part. On a little rise to the southward, called Chapel
+    Hill, stood the temple where the garrison paid its vows to the
+    various deities of its worship. Many remarkably fine altars found
+    on this and other sites have been preserved, either at the fine
+    museum at The Chesters, or at the Black Gate in Newcastle. One of
+    the most striking is the altar to Mithras, the Persian sun-god,
+    found in a cave near the camp, evidently constructed for the
+    celebration of the rites connected with the worship of Mithras. The
+    altar shows the god coming out of an egg, and surrounded by an oval
+    on which are carved the signs of the Zodiac.
+
+    The Teutonic element in the garrison is represented by the altars
+    to Mars Thingsus, the discovery of which caused great interest in
+    Germany, and by the altars to the Deae Matres—the mother-goddesses,
+    whose carved figures are shown seated, fully draped, and holding
+    baskets of fruits on their knees. They are generally found in sets
+    of three; but unfortunately they have been much mutilated, and all
+    the examples remaining are headless. The Deae Matres would seem to
+    correspond in some degree to the Roman Ceres and the Greek Demeter,
+    the bountiful givers of the fruits of the earth. The majority of
+    the altars found are, as was to be expected, dedicated to the
+    deities of Rome; chiefly, as shown by the constantly recurring
+    I.O.M.—_Jovi optimo maximo_—to “Jupiter, the best and greatest.”
+    The varying inscriptions which follow as reasons for their erection
+    as votive offerings give us glimpses of the life in these
+    communities clearer than those afforded by anything else. And as
+    most, if not all, of our knowledge concerning the details of the
+    Roman occupation of the north-country has to be obtained from the
+    inscriptions which the garrisons left behind them, the inscribed
+    stones as well as the altars are of the greatest possible interest
+    and value. One such stone, found at the Borcovicus mile-castle,
+    states that “the Second Legion, the August (erected this at the
+    command of) Aulus Platorius Nepos, Legate and Propraetor, in honour
+    of the Emperor Caesar Trajanus Hadrianus Augustus.”
+
+    At “Cuddy’s” (Cuthbert’s) Crag near Borcovicus is one of the most
+    picturesque bits of scenery to be found on the whole course of the
+    Wall. My first acquaintance with it was made on a day of grey mist
+    and drizzling rain, which completely hid any view of the
+    surrounding country, and of necessity confined our attention to the
+    stones (and wet grass!) immediately beneath our feet. But another
+    visit was on a day of wind and sunshine, and in the company of a
+    group of light-hearted students. We explored the ruins of
+    Borcovicus, walked along the broad and broken top of the Wall, and
+    climbed up hill and down dale with it under the pleasantest
+    conditions, if a trifle breezy on the heights. June was at her
+    traditional best, which she does not often vouchsafe to show us;
+    flowers waved all around, amongst the grass and in the crannies
+    between the stones, and more than once the lines at the head of
+    this chapter were quoted by one to another. Again and again our
+    progress was stayed while we admired the glorious view spread out
+    all around, but especially was this the case at Cuddy’s Crag. We
+    looked westward over Crag Lough, its usually dark waters flashing
+    in the afternoon sun; the three Loughs were all within view; away
+    to the southward, beyond Barcombe Hill, and the site of Vindolana,
+    Langley Castle could be seen, “standing four-square to all the
+    winds that blew”; and further away again, beyond the valley of the
+    South Tyne, to the southwest the faint outlines of Crossfell and
+    Skiddaw. Northward it was quite easy to imagine oneself looking out
+    over the Picts’ country still, so far do the moorlands stretch, and
+    so few are the signs of habitation. Rolling ridges stretch
+    northward, wave upon wave, clothed with grass and heather, amongst
+    which Parnesius and Pertinax went hunting with little Allo the
+    Pict; to the northeast the heights of Simonside showed; and far
+    beyond them, though more to the westward, the rounded summits of
+    the Cheviots lay on the horizon.
+
+    A short distance westward from the Crag is Hot Bank farmhouse, a
+    place which most visitors to the Wall remember with grateful
+    feelings; for what is more refreshing, after a long tramp, than a
+    farmhouse cup of tea accompanied by that most appetising of
+    Northumbrian dainties, hot girdle cakes! The Visitors’ Book at Hot
+    Bank is a “civil list” of all the most learned and noted names in
+    Great Britain, and many outside its shores, together with legions
+    of humbler folk. In this it resembles the one at Cilurnum, which is
+    the only other considerable station along the line of the Wall in
+    Northumberland.
+
+    This station of Cilurnum, or Chesters, is a little over five acres
+    in extent, and is quite near to Chollerford station on the North
+    British Railway. To describe Cilurnum in detail, and the
+    interesting museum connected with it, filled with a wonderful
+    collection of objects found on the line of the Wall, would require
+    a book to deal with that alone. The general plan is the same as
+    that which we have already seen at Borcovicus, with the same
+    rounded corners, and double gateway with guard-chambers at each
+    side; the western and eastern walls at Chesters, however, have each
+    an additional single gateway to the south of the larger portals. We
+    must content ourselves with a short survey of the camp, with its
+    two wide streets at right angles to each other as at Borcovicus,
+    and the rest of them very narrow—indeed, little more than two feet
+    in width; the remains of its Forum and market, its barracks and
+    houses, its open shops and colonnades, the bases of the pillars yet
+    in position; its baths, with pipes, cistern, and flues; and a
+    vaulted chamber which was thought, on its being first excavated, to
+    lead to underground stables, for a local tradition held that such
+    were in existence, and would be found, with a troop of five hundred
+    horses. The vault, however, did not lead further, so that the
+    tradition remained unproven. Notwithstanding this, there was a
+    grain of fact in it; for Chesters was a cavalry station, and five
+    hundred was the full complement of the _ala_, or troop (_ala_ being
+    a “wing,” and cavalry forming the “wing” of an army in position).
+
+    Outside the walls of Cilurnum are traces of the usual suburban
+    dwellings; and here, near the river, stood the villa of the officer
+    in command of the station. The excavation of all these buildings
+    and many others took place in the forties and fifties of last
+    century, and were due to the energy of Mr. John Clayton, the
+    learned and zealous antiquary, in the possession of whose family
+    the estate still remains. To Mr. N.G. Clayton we owe the Museum at
+    the Lodge gate, which he built for the reception of the notable
+    collection it contains of antiquities gathered from all the various
+    stations in Northumberland. A very fine altar brought from
+    Vindolana at once strikes the eye, and may be taken as a type of
+    many others, though not many are so perfect. The gravestone of a
+    standard-bearer, from the neighbouring station of Procolitia, shows
+    a full-length carving of the dead warrior. Other inscribed stones
+    are of great interest, though unfortunately most of them are but
+    fragments; still these fragments not infrequently contain a few
+    words which enable students of them to confirm a date or a fact
+    concerning the garrisons, which must otherwise have been a matter
+    of pure conjecture. For instance, it might seem very improbable
+    that the same regiments should have been quartered in certain
+    stations for over two hundred years; yet one of the inscribed
+    stones proves that such was the case at Cilurnum. The inscription
+    states that the second _ala_ of the Asturians repaired the temple
+    during the consulate of certain persons, which is found to be about
+    the year 221. In the _Notitia_, which was not compiled until the
+    beginning of the fifth century, the second _ala_ of the Asturians
+    is given as the garrison of Cilurnum.
+
+    Another thing which strikes the imagination is the sight, after the
+    lapse of so many centuries, of the erasures on various inscribed
+    stones—erasures of some emperor’s or Caesar’s name after his death
+    by the chisel of a soldier in one of his legions on this far-away
+    post of his empire. It is one thing to read one’s Gibbon, and learn
+    of the murder of Geta, son of Severus, by order of his brother
+    Caracalla, and another to see the youth’s name roughly scratched
+    out on a stone in Hexham Abbey crypt; and to read of the
+    assassination of Elagabalus does not move us one whit, but to see
+    his name erased from a stone in Chesters museum brings the
+    tumultuous happenings in ancient Rome very closely home to us.
+
+    Here are also several Roman milestones, with their lengthy and
+    sonorous inscriptions, from various points on the Wall; and a
+    miscellaneous and deeply interesting collection of smaller
+    articles, such as ornaments of bronze, jet, or gold, fibulae
+    (brooches or clasps), coins of many reigns, Samian-ware,
+    terra-cotta and glass, parts of harness, etc., etc.
+
+    Of carven figures there are several besides the standard bearer
+    already mentioned. The best is a figure of Cybele, with elaborate
+    draperies, but unfortunately headless; another, of Victory, holds a
+    palm branch in the left hand, but the right arm is missing. A
+    soldier is shown with spear, shield, and ornate head-piece; and a
+    representation of a river-god, the genius of the Tyne, is worthy of
+    notice. He is a bearded figure, after the style of the figures of
+    Nilus, or the representations in old prints of Father Thames. From
+    Procolitia comes an altar to the goddess Coventina, a name not met
+    with elsewhere, the presiding genius of the well in that station.
+    She is shown reclining on a water-lily leaf, holding in one hand a
+    water-plant, and in the other a goblet from which a stream of water
+    runs. An elaborate carving of three water nymphs, most probably
+    meant to be in attendance on the goddess, is one of the few pieces
+    of sculpture that are not greatly mutilated.
+
+    Centurial stones are numerous, having been put up at all parts of
+    the Wall to record the building of such and such parts by various
+    centurions and their companies. The mark >, which Dr. Hodgkin
+    supposes to be a representation of the vine rod, a centurion’s
+    symbol of authority, and the sign C or Q, are used to signify a
+    century. Thus a stone inscribed Q VAL. MAXI. states that the
+    century of Valerius Maximus built that part of the Wall. Two or
+    three small altars are inscribed DIBVS VETERIBVS—“To the Old Gods”;
+    and Mars Thingsus is well represented.
+
+    A very important relic of Roman times found at Cilurnum was a
+    bronze tablet of citizenship, giving this coveted privilege to a
+    number of soldiers who had served in twenty-five campaigns and
+    received honourable discharge. There have been only three specimens
+    of this diploma found in Britain, and all are preserved in the
+    British Museum. There are many memorial tablets erected by wives to
+    their husbands, and husbands to their wives, which leads to much
+    speculation as to how these ladies, high-born Roman, native Briton,
+    or freed-woman, liked their sojourn in a small garrison town on the
+    breezy heights of a Northumbrian moorland. Those ladies who dwelt
+    at Cilurnum, however, had not so much cause to complain, for such
+    natural advantages as were to be had were certainly theirs, in that
+    sheltered spot. The scenery round about Cilurnum is quiet, peaceful
+    and pastoral, altogether different from the wild beauty of Cuddy’s
+    Crag, Limestone Corner, or Whinshields.
+
+    Having now noticed the two chief stations on the line of the Wall,
+    it will be interesting to follow the course of the rampart itself
+    throughout its journey across Northumberland, though to do so in
+    detail is impossible within the limits of so small a volume as the
+    present one. Neither would it be necessary, or desirable, for the
+    last word in detailed description has been said long ago in the two
+    wonderfully exhaustive treatises on the subject by Dr. Bruce.
+
+    A list of Roman officials, civil and military, throughout the
+    empire has come down to us; in this list—_Notitia Dignitatem et
+    Administratem, tam civilium quam militarium in partibus orientis et
+    occidentis_—the portion which relates to the Wall is headed, _Item
+    per lineam Valli_—“Also along the line of the Wall.” The following
+    is a copy of this portion, as given by Dr. Bruce in his _Handbook
+    to the Roman Wall_.
+  The Tribune of the fourth cohort of the Lingones at Segedunum.
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of Cornovii at Pons AElii.
+  The Prefect of the first _ala_ of the Asturians at Condercum. The
+  Tribune of the first cohort of the Frixagi (Frisii) at Vindobala.
+  The Prefect of the Savinian _ala_ at Hunnum.
+  The Prefect of the second _ala_ of the Asturians at Cilurnum.
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of the Batavians at Procolitia.
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of the Tungrians at Borcovicus.
+  The Tribune of the fourth cohort of the Gauls at Vindolana.
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of Asturians at Aesica.
+  The Tribune of the second cohort of Dalmatians at Magna.
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of Dacians, styled Aelia, at
+  Amboglanna.
+  The Prefect of the _ala_ called “Petriana,” at Petriana.
+  The Prefect of a detachment of Moors, styled Aureliani, at Aballaba.
+  The Tribune of the second cohort of the Lingones at Congavata.
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of Spaniards at Axelodunum.
+  The Tribune of the second cohort of the Thracians at Gabrosentum.
+  The Tribune of the first marine cohort, styled Aelia, at Tunnocelum.
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of the Morini at Glannibanta.
+  The Tribune of the third cohort of the Nervians at Alionis.
+  The Cuneus of men in armour at Bremetenracum.
+  The Prefect of the first _ala_, styled Herculean, at Olenacum.
+  The Tribune of the sixth cohort of the Nervians at Virosidum.
+
+    Of these stations, with their officers and troops, only those as
+    far as Magna are in Northumberland; the rest continue the chain of
+    defences across Cumberland to the Solway Firth. Besides these
+    stations, there were _castella_ at the distance of every Roman mile
+    (seven furlongs) along the Wall, from which circumstance they are
+    known as “mile-castles.” They provided accommodation for the troops
+    necessary between the stations, which were at some distance from
+    each other; and between each two _castella_ there were also erected
+    two turrets, so that communication from one end of the Wall to the
+    other was speedy and certain.
+
+    All traces of the station of Segedunum (Wallsend) have long since
+    disappeared; the Wall from there, beginning actually in the bed of
+    the river, ran almost parallel with the N.E.R. Tynemouth Branch, a
+    little to the south of it, and climbing the hill to Byker, went
+    down the slope to the Ouseburn parallel with Shields Road, crossing
+    the burn just a little to the south of Byker Bridge. From there its
+    course has been traced to Red Barns, where St. Dominic’s now
+    stands, to the Sallyport Gate, and over the Wall Knoll to Pilgrim
+    Street; thence to the west door of the Cathedral, and on past St.
+    John’s Church, up Westgate Road.
+
+    The station at Pons AElii, it is generally agreed, occupied the
+    ground between the Cathedral church of St. Nicholas and the
+    premises of the Lit. and Phil. Society. Following the Wall up
+    Westgate Road, we are now out upon the highway from Newcastle to
+    Carlisle, which, as we have seen, is upon the very line of the Wall
+    for nearly a score of miles. At Condercum (Benwell) the next
+    station, garrisoned by a cavalry corps of Asturians from Spain, a
+    small temple was uncovered in the course of excavating, and two
+    altars found still standing in their original position. Both of
+    these were to a deity unknown elsewhere, given as Antenociticus on
+    one, and as Anociticus on the other. The former was erected by a
+    centurion of the Twentieth Legion, the Valerian and Victorious,
+    whose crest, the running boar, we shall meet with more than once in
+    our journey.
+
+    Westward from here, near West Denton Lodge, faint indications of
+    the turf wall (generally called the Vallum, to distinguish it from
+    the Murus, or stone wall), come into sight, and traces of a
+    mile-castle to the left of the road. After this the Vallum and
+    Murus accompany each other for the rest of their journey, with but
+    little intermission. The next mile-castle was at Walbottle, from
+    which point a delightful view of the Tyne valley and the
+    surrounding country can be obtained. Passing Throckley and
+    Heddon-on-the-Wall, where the fosse on the northern side of the
+    Wall is well seen, and also the Vallum and its fosse, Vindolana
+    (Rutchester) is reached; but there is little evidence here that it
+    is the site of a once busy and bustling garrison station. Indeed,
+    up to this point and for a considerable distance further, a few
+    courses of stones here and there are all that is to be seen of the
+    Roman Wall, its material having for the most part been swallowed up
+    in the construction of the turnpike road on which we are
+    travelling. This road was made in 1745 because there was no road by
+    which General Wade could convey his troops from Newcastle to
+    Carlisle, when “Bonnie Prince Charlie” marched so gaily to that
+    city on his way southward, and so sadly, in a month, returned
+    again.
+
+    The Wall now makes for the ridge of Harlow Hill, while the Vallum
+    goes on in a perfectly straight line past the picturesque Whittle
+    Dene and the waterworks, until the Wall joins it again near Welton,
+    where the old pele-tower is entirely built of Roman stones. After
+    Matfen Piers, where a road to the northward leads to the beautiful
+    little village of Matfen, and one to the southward to Corbridge,
+    the Wall passes Wall Houses and Halton Shields, where the various
+    lines of the Wall, road, and earthworks, as well as the fosse of
+    each, can be distinctly seen. Passing Carr Hill, the Wall leads up
+    to the station of Hunnum (Halton Chesters), where Parnesius was
+    stationed when Maximus gave him his commission on the Wall. It is
+    not easy to recognise the site now, but as we follow the road we
+    may comfort ourselves with the reflection that at least we have
+    walked right across it from the eastern gate to the western.
+
+    A short distance further on is Stagshawbank, famed for its fairs,
+    the glory of which, however, has greatly departed since the days
+    when Dandie Dinmont had such adventures on returning from
+    “Staneshiebank.” It stands just where the Wall crosses the Watling
+    Street, which enters Northumberland at Ebchester, and crossing the
+    moors to Whittonstall, leads down the long descent to Riding Mill;
+    there turning westward to Corbridge, it comes straight on to
+    Stagshawbank, leading thence northwestward past the Wall through
+    Redesdale to the Borders, which it reaches at Ad Fines Camp, or
+    Chew Green, where the solitudes of the Cheviots and the silence of
+    the deserted camp are soon to be startled by the rifle-shots of
+    Territorials at practice. West of Stagshawbank the earthen ramparts
+    are to be seen in great perfection.
+
+    As the Wall nears Chollerford, one may see, a little to the
+    northward, the little chapel of St. Oswald, which, as we have seen
+    in a former chapter, marks the site of the battle of Heavenfield.
+    Just before reaching this point, there is a quarry to the south of
+    the Wall from which the Romans obtained much building-stone, and
+    one of them has left his name carved on one of the stones left
+    lying there, thus—(P)ETRA FLAVI(I) CARANTINI—_The stone of Flavius
+    Carantinus_.
+
+    At Plane Trees Field and at Brunton there are larger pieces of the
+    Wall standing than we have yet seen. The Wall now parts company
+    with the highroad, which swerves a little to the north in order to
+    cross the Tyne by Chollerford Bridge, while the course of the Wall
+    is straight ahead, for the present bridge is not the one built and
+    used by the Romans. That is in a line with the Wall, and therefore
+    south of the present one; and as we have already noticed, its piers
+    can be seen near the river banks when the river is low. A diagram
+    of its position is given in Dr. Bruce’s _Handbook_.
+
+    The Wall now leads up to the gateway of Cilurnum, which we have
+    already visited; and after leaving the park, it goes on up the hill
+    to Walwick. Here it is rejoined by the road, which now for some
+    little distance proceeds actually on the line of the Wall, the
+    stones of which can sometimes be seen in the roadway. The tower a
+    little further on, on the hill called Tower Tye, or Taye, was not
+    built by the Romans, although Roman stones were used in its
+    erection; it is only about two hundred years old.
+
+    At Black Carts farm, which the Wall now passes, the first turret
+    discovered on the line of the Wall after the excavations had begun,
+    and interest in the subject was revived, was here laid bare by Mr.
+    Clayton in 1873. At Limestone Bank, not much further on, the fosse
+    north of the Wall, and also that of the Vallum, show a skill in
+    engineering such as we are apt to fancy belongs only to these days
+    of powerful machinery, and explosives for rending a way through the
+    hardest rock. The ditches have both been cut through the solid
+    basalt, and great boulders of it are strewn around; one huge mass,
+    weighing many tons, has been hoisted out—by what means, we are left
+    to wonder; and another, still in the ditch, has the holes, intended
+    for the wedges still discernible.
+
+    A mile or so further on is Procolitia (Carrawburgh), where is the
+    famous well presided over by the goddess Coventina, whose
+    acquaintance we have already made at Cilurnum. The remains of the
+    station at Procolitia are by no means to be compared with those at
+    Borcovicus or Cilurnum; very few of its stones are yet remaining.
+    The well was the most interesting find at Procolitia. It was known
+    to be there, for Horsley had mentioned it; but the waters which
+    supplied it were diverted in consequence of some lead-mining
+    operations. Then the stream formed by its overflow dried up, grass
+    grew over its course and over the well, and it was lost sight of
+    entirely. But the same thing which had led to its disappearance was
+    the means of finding it again. Some lead miners, prospecting for
+    another vein of ore in the neighbourhood, happened to dig in this
+    very spot, and soon struck the stones round the mouth of the well.
+    Mr. Clayton had it properly excavated, and was rewarded by coming
+    not only upon the well, but a rich find of Roman relics of all
+    kinds, which had either been thrown pell-mell into it for
+    concealment in a moment of danger, or, what is more likely, been
+    thrown in during the course of ages as votive offerings to the
+    presiding goddess of the well. There were thousands of coins,
+    mostly silver and copper, with four gold pieces among them; and a
+    large collection of miscellaneous objects, including vases, shoes,
+    pearls, ornaments, altars and inscribed stones, all of which were
+    taken to Chesters. The next point of interest on the Wall is the
+    farmhouse of Carraw, which the Priors of Hexham Abbey once used as
+    a summer retreat. A little further on, at Shield-on-the-Wall,
+    Wade’s road crosses to the south of the earthen lines, and parts
+    company with the Wall for a little while, for the latter bends
+    northward to take the high ridge, as usual, while the road and
+    Vallum continue in a straight line. The fragments of a mile-castle
+    are standing just at the point where the Wall swerves northward;
+    indeed, we have been passing the sites of these _castella_, with
+    fragments more or less in evidence all along the route, but those
+    which we shall now encounter are much more distinctly to be seen
+    than their fellows on the eastern part of the journey, many of
+    which have disappeared altogether.
+
+    The high crags which here shoulder the Wall are part of the Great
+    Whin Sill, an intrusive dyke of dolerite which stretches from
+    Greenhead northeastward across the county nearly to Berwick. The
+    military road here leaves the Wall, with which it does not again
+    come into close contact until both are near Carlisle, though in
+    several places the Roman road will be encountered near the Wall in
+    a well-preserved condition. The Wall now climbs another ascent to
+    the farmhouse of Sewingshields, which name is variously explained
+    as “Seven Shields,” and as “The shiels (shielings, or little huts)
+    by the seugh” or hollow—the hollow being the fosse. Sewingshields
+    Castle, long since disappeared, is the scene of the knight’s
+    adventures in Sir Walter Scott’s “Harold the Dauntless.” And
+    tradition asserts that King Arthur, with Queen Guinevere and all
+    the court, lies in an enchanted sleep beneath the castle, or at
+    least its site. Not only is there no castle, but the Wall also has
+    been despoiled to supply the material for building the farmhouse
+    and other buildings in the neighbourhood. The Wall climbs
+    unfalteringly over the crags, one after the other, until the wide
+    opening of Busy Gap is reached. This being such a convenient pass
+    from north to south, it was naturally used constantly by raiders
+    and thieves; and such an unenviable notoriety did it possess, that
+    to call a person a “Busy Gap rogue” was sufficient to lay oneself
+    open to an action for libel. Climbing the next slope we look down
+    on Broomlee Lough and reach the portion of the Wall we have already
+    noted—Borcovicus (Housesteads), Cuddy’s Crag, Hot Bank farmhouse,
+    and Crag; Lough.
+
+    The course of the Wall continues, past Milking Gap, along the
+    rugged heights of Steel Rig, Cat’s Stairs, and Peel Crag, till on
+    reaching Winshields we are at the highest point on the line, 1,230
+    feet above the sea-level. Dipping down to Green Slack, the Wall
+    crosses the valley called Lodham Slack, and begins to ascend once
+    more. The local names of gaps and heights in this neighbourhood are
+    highly descriptive, and sometimes weirdly suggestive; we have had
+    Cat’s Stairs, and now we come to Bogle Hole, Bloody Gap, and Thorny
+    Doors. A little further west from here the very considerable
+    remains of a mile-castle may be seen, in which a tombstone was
+    found doing duty as a hearth-stone. The inscription recorded that
+    it had been erected by Pusinna to the memory of her husband
+    Dagvaldus, a soldier of Pannonia.
+
+    Westward from this mile-castle the Wall climbs Burnhead Crag, on
+    which the foundations of a building, similar to the turrets, were
+    exposed a few years ago; then it dips down again to Haltwhistle
+    Burn, which comes from Greenlee Lough, and is called, until it
+    reaches the Wall, the Caw Burn. From the burn a winding watercourse
+    supplied the Roman station of AEsica (Great Chesters) with water.
+    Just here the Wall is in a very ruinous condition; and of the
+    station of AEsica but little masonry remains, though the outlines
+    of it can he clearly traced. Beyond AEsica, however, is a splendid
+    portion of the Wall, standing some seven or eight courses high.
+    Here it climbs again to the top of the crags which once more
+    appear, bold and rugged, to culminate in the “Nine Nicks of
+    Thirlwall,” so called from the number of separate heights into
+    which the crags divide, and over which the Wall takes its way.
+
+    At Walltown, on this part of its course, is to be seen an old well,
+    in which Paulinus is said to have baptised King Edwin; but the
+    local name for it is King Arthur’s Well. Now the Wall descends to a
+    level and pastoral country, leaving behind it the wild moorland and
+    craggy heights across which it has travelled so long; but
+    unfortunately much of it has been destroyed by the quarrying
+    operations at Greenhead. Of the station of Magna (Caervoran) little
+    can be seen at the present day. This station and Aesica are nearer
+    to each other than are any other two stations on the Wall, and a
+    line of camps, five in number, stand south of the Wall and Vallum,
+    from Magna to Amboglanna, showing that a third line of defence was
+    deemed necessary where the natural defences of moorland ridge,
+    lough or crag were absent.
+
+    The Roman way called the Stanegate comes from the eastward almost
+    up to the station of Magna, which stands a little to the south of
+    both Wall and Vallum, between them and Wade’s road, which here
+    approaches nearer to the Wall than it has done for many miles.
+
+    Another Roman road, the Maiden Way, comes from the South closely up
+    to the Vallum, quite near to Thirlwall castle. The name “Thirlwals”
+    was supposed to commemorate the “thirling” (drilling or piercing)
+    of the Wall at this point by the barbarians, but this is extremely
+    doubtful; though the difficulty of defending the wall on this level
+    tract lends an air of likelihood to this supposition. Near here the
+    little river Tipalt flows across the line of the Wall on its way
+    southward to join the North Tyne.
+
+    Passing Wallend, Gap, and Rose Hill, where Gilsland railway station
+    now stands, we follow the Wall to the deep dene of the Poltross
+    Burn, which forms the boundary between Northumberland and
+    Cumberland. The railway just beyond the burn crosses the line of
+    the Wall; and, further on, an interesting portion, several courses
+    high, takes its way through the Vicarage garden. Here we will leave
+    it to continue its way through Cumberland, and turn our attention
+    to the chief Roman ways which cross Northumberland, with other
+    stations standing upon them.
+
+    The Watling Street or Dere Street, we have already noticed; and the
+    chief station on it, which has also proved to be the largest in
+    Northumberland, is Corstopitum, near Corbridge. The recent
+    excavations since 1906 have resulted in the finding of many
+    interesting relics, including some hundreds of coins, amongst which
+    were forty-eight gold pieces, of later Roman date, ranging from
+    those of Valentinian I. to those of Magnus Maximus. Pottery in
+    large quantities has also been found, most of it, of course, in a
+    fragmentary condition, but some pieces, notably bowls of Samian
+    ware, almost perfect, and dating from the first century. Several
+    interesting pieces of sculpture have been unearthed; one a finely
+    sculptured lion standing over an animal which it has evidently just
+    killed; this was, no doubt, used as an outlet for water at the
+    fountain, judging by the projection of the lion’s lower lip.
+    Another piece of sculpture represents a sun-god, the rays
+    surrounding his face; and several altars and many inscribed stones
+    are also amongst the treasures lately revealed. A clay mould of a
+    human figure was also found, which is supposed to represent some
+    Keltic deity; but as the figure wears a short tunic not unlike a
+    kilt, and carries a crooked club, the workmen promptly christened
+    it Harry Lauder! The buildings in this town, for it is much more
+    than a military station, have been large and imposing, as is shown
+    by each successive revelation made by the excavators’ spades. The
+    portion of the Watling Street leading from Corstopitum to the river
+    has also been laid bare.
+
+    The Roman road called the Stanegate runs westward from the North
+    Tyne at Cilurnum, a little to the north of Fourstones railway
+    station, through Newbrough, on past Grindon Hill, Grindon Lough,
+    which it passes on the south, and Grindon Dykes, to Vindolana
+    (Chesterholm) another Roman town, which lies a mile due south from
+    Hot Bank farmhouse on the Wall. Vindolana stood on a most
+    favourable site, a high platform protected on three sides, and it
+    covered three and a half acres of ground. Here no excavations have
+    yet been made, and the site is grass grown and desolate although
+    the outlines of the station may be distinctly traced. A ruinous
+    building to the west of this station was popularly called the
+    Fairies’ Kitchen, a name given to it on account of the marks of
+    fire and soot on the pillars. From the station several inscribed
+    stones and altars have been taken to the museum at Chesters. One of
+    them is dedicated to the Genius of the Camp by Pituanius Secundus,
+    the Prefect of the fourth Cohort of the Gauls, which cohort, as we
+    have already seen by the _Votitia_, was stationed here. In the
+    valley below Vindolana a little cottage is standing. It is built
+    entirely of Roman stones, and was erected by an enthusiastic
+    antiquary, Mr. Anthony Hedley, for himself. Many of the stones used
+    in its construction have inscriptions on them; and in the covered
+    passage, leading from the cottage down to the burn, we come upon
+    one of them inscribed with the name of our old friend the XXth
+    Legion, and its crest, the running boar. The most interesting relic
+    of all in the neighbourhood is a Roman mile-stone, standing in its
+    original position on the Stanegate.
+
+    Leaving Vindolana, this road goes on westward to Magna, where it
+    joins the Maiden Way, another important Roman road, which runs from
+    north to south. Coming from the neighbourhood of Bewcastle Fells,
+    it enters Northumberland at Gilsland, and leading eastward as far
+    as Magna, then turns directly southward past Greenhead.
+
+    In concluding this chapter on the Roman remains in our county,
+    _apropos_ of the wholesale destruction of the Wall and larger
+    stations which has taken place in the last century or two, I will
+    quote the words of two historians on that subject. Dr. Thomas
+    Hodgkin says: “In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Camden, the
+    enthusiastic antiquary, dared not traverse the line of the wall by
+    reason of the gangs of brigands by whom it was infested. The union
+    of the two countries brought peace, and peace brought prosperity;
+    prosperity, alas! more fatal to the Wall than centuries of Border
+    warfare. For now the prosperous farmers of Northumberland and
+    Cumberland awoke to the building facilities which lurked in these
+    square green enclosures on their farms, treated them as their best
+    quarries, and robbed them unmercifully of their fine well-hewn
+    stones. Happily that work of demolition is now in great measure
+    stayed, and at this day we visit the camps for a nobler purpose, to
+    learn all they can teach us as to the past history of our country.”
+
+    None, I think, will disagree with these words of the learned
+    Doctor, whether or not they may go as far as Cadwallader J. Bates,
+    who, in concluding his chapter on the Roman Wall, gave it as his
+    opinion that “unless the island is conquered by some civilized
+    nation, there will soon be no traces of the Wall left. Nay, even
+    the splendid whinstone crags on which it stands will be all
+    quarried away to mend the roads of our urban and rural
+    authorities.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. SOME NORTHUMBRIAN STREAMS.
+
+
+  “Come, don’t abuse our climate, and revile The crowning county of
+  England—yes, the best.
+
+  Have you and I, then, raced across its moors. Till horse and boy were
+  well-nigh mad with glee, So often, summer and winter, home from
+  school, And not found that out? Take the streams away, The country
+  would be sweeter than the South Anywhere; give the South our streams,
+  would it Be fit to match our Borders? Flower and crag, Burnside and
+  boulder, heather and whin,—you don’t Dream you can match them south
+  of this? And then, If all the unwatered country were as flat As the
+  Eton playing-fields, give it back our burns, And set them singing
+  through a sad South world, And try to make them dismal as its fens—
+  They won’t be! Bright and tawny, full of fun And storm and sunlight,
+  taking change and chance With laugh on laugh of triumph—why, you know
+  How they plunge, pause, chafe, chide across the rocks, And chuckle
+  along the rapids, till they breathe And rest and pant and build some
+  bright deep bath For happy boys to dive in, and swim up. And match
+  the water’s laughter.”
+
+
+    Northumberland is fortunate in the number of rivers which, owing to
+    the position of the Cheviot Hills, flow right across the county
+    from west to east. These Northumbrian streams have a distinct
+    character of their own, and are of a different breed from those of
+    the southern; counties. They are neither mountain torrents nor
+    placid leisurely rivers, such as are met elsewhere in Britain, but
+    busy, bright, joyous, and sparkling, never sluggish, never silent,
+    even when deep and full, as is the Tyne in its lower reaches. With
+    the Tyne and its tributary streams we have already travelled; but
+    there are others yet awaiting us, claiming our attention sometimes
+    for the romantic scenery through which they run their bright
+    course, sometimes for the historic sites they pass on their way,
+    sometimes for both reasons. Wansbeck, Coquet, Aln, or Till—each has
+    its own interest, as has also the Tweed in that score or so of
+    miles along which it can he spoken of in connection with
+    Northumberland.
+
+    The source of the Wansbeck, the only “beck” the county possesses,
+    is amongst the “Wild Hills o’ Wannys” (Wanny’s beck) a group of
+    picturesque sandstone crags which surround Sweethope Lough, a sheet
+    of water which covers 180 acres. The scenery of this upper course
+    of the Wansbeck is very striking, from the Lough to
+    Kirkwhelpington, flowing between bleak moorland and rich pasture,
+    and on to Littleharle Tower, which stands secluded in deep woods.
+
+    Another mansion near at hand, and most picturesquely situated, is
+    Wallington Hall, lying a short distance away on the north bank of
+    the Wansbeck. It is one of the most notable country houses in
+    Northumberland, and especially so on account of its unique
+    picture-gallery, roofed with dull glass, and containing several
+    series of pictures connected with Northumbrian history. One of
+    these is a series of frescoes by William Bell Scott, whose name was
+    for so many years associated with all that was best in art in
+    Newcastle, and whose picture of the “Building of the Castle” may be
+    seen at the head of the staircase in the Lit. and Phil. building.
+    His pictures at Wallington are:—1. The Building of the Roman Wall.
+    2. The visit of King Egfrid and Bishop Trumwine to St. Cuthbert on
+    Fame. 3. A Descent of the Danes. 4. Death of the Venerable Bede. 5.
+    The Charlton Spur. 6. Bernard Gilpin taking down a challenge glove
+    in Rothbury Church. 7. Grace Darling and her father on the way to
+    the wreck. 8. The Nineteenth Century—showing the High Level Bridge,
+    the Quayside, an Armstrong gun, etc., etc. Another series consists
+    of medallions and portraits of famous men connected with
+    Northumbrian events, from Hadrian and Severus down to George
+    Stephenson and others of modern times; while yet another depicts
+    all the incidents of “Chevy Chase.”
+
+    Some miles further eastward, the Wansbeck receives the Hart
+    Burn—which, by the way, is larger than the parent stream at this
+    point—and, a little later, the Font. The lovely little village of
+    Mitford, once important enough to overshadow the Morpeth of that
+    day, lies at the junction of Font and Wansbeck. The Mitfords of
+    Mitford can boast, if ever family could, of being Northumbrian of
+    the Northumbrians, as they were seated here before the days of the
+    Conqueror, who made such a general upsetting amongst the Saxon
+    landowners.
+
+    The beauty of the two miles walk along the banks of the Wansbeck
+    from here to Morpeth is not easy to surpass in all the county,
+    though several parts of the Coquet valley may justly compete with
+    it. William Howitt has left on record his admiration for this
+    lovely region, and said Morpeth was “more like a town in a dream”
+    than a reality. Especially is this so when looking at the town from
+    the neighbourhood of the river. Before actually reaching Morpeth
+    the Wansbeck waters the fair fields that once held Newminster Abbey
+    in its pride; now, nothing remains but an arch or so and a few
+    stones, to remind us of the noble abbey which Ralph de Merley built
+    so long ago. When only half built it was demolished by the Scots
+    under King David; but willing hands set to work again, and the
+    abbey and monastery were completed.
+
+    In the town of Morpeth, though newer buildings are stretching out
+    towards the outskirts, many of the ancient buildings and streets
+    remain, and the general aspect of this part of it is much the same
+    as when the Jacobites of Northumberland gathered together here, and
+    the clergyman, Mr. Buxton, proclaimed James III. in its Market
+    Place. Of Morpeth Castle, built by a De Merley soon after the
+    Conquest, only the gateway tower remains, but the outlines of the
+    original boundary walls can be clearly traced. A company of five
+    hundred Scots, whom Leslie had left as a garrison in 1644, held out
+    here for three weeks against two thousand Royalists under Montrose.
+    After the cannonading received during that siege, the walls were
+    not repaired again, and the castle fell into decay. The inhabitants
+    of Morpeth have a daily reminder of times yet more remote, for the
+    Curfew Bell still rings out over the little town every evening at
+    eight o’clock.
+
+    Another walk of three miles along the still beautiful banks of the
+    Wansbeck brings us to Bothal, another little village of great
+    beauty, embowered and almost hidden amongst luxuriant woods. Its
+    curious name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon _bottell_, a place of
+    abode (as in Walbottle). The name conjures up memories of the
+    knights of old, their loves and their fortunes, fair or disastrous;
+    for the best-known version of “The Hermit of Warkworth” tells us
+    that it was a Bertram of Bothal who was the luckless hero of that
+    tale, though another version avers that he belonged to the house of
+    Percy.
+
+    Wansbeck’s fellow stream, the Coquet, has its birth amongst some of
+    the wildest scenery of the Cheviot Hills, where the heights of
+    Deel’s Hill and Woodbist Law look down on the now silent Watling
+    Street and the deserted Ad Fines Camp. In its windings along the
+    bases of the hills it is joined by the Usway Burn, said to be named
+    after King Oswy, between which and the little river Alwine lies the
+    famous Lordship of Kidland, once desolate on account of the
+    thieving and raiding of its neighbours of Bedesdale and Scotland.
+
+    Hodgson, in his “Northumberland,” says of this region, “All the
+    said Kydlande is full of lytle hilles or mountaynes, and between
+    the saide hilles be dyvers valyes in which discende litle Ryvvelles
+    or brokes of water, spryngynge out of the said hilles and all
+    fallynge into a lytle Rever or broke callede Kidlande water, w’ch
+    fallethe into the rever of cockette nere to the towne of
+    alwynntonn, w’tin a myll of the castell of harbottell.” The reasons
+    for the desolation of Kidland are graphically set forth:—“In somer
+    seasons when good peace ys betwene England and Scotland,
+    th’inhabitantes of dyv’se townes thereaboutes repayres up with
+    theyr cattall in som’ynge (summering) as ys aforesaid, and so have
+    used to do of longe tyme. And for the pasture of theyr cattall, so
+    long as they would tarye there they payed for a knoweledge two pens
+    for a household, or a grote at the most, though they had nev’ so
+    many cattalles. And yet the poore men thoughte their fermes dere
+    enoughe. There was but fewe yeres that they escaped w’thout a
+    greatter losse of their goodes and cattalles, by spoyle or thefte
+    of the Scottes or Ryddesdale men, then would have paide for the
+    pasture of theyr cattail in a much better grounde. And ov’ (over,
+    besides) that, the saide valyes or hopes of Kidlande lyeth so
+    distant and devyded by mounteynes one from an other, that such as
+    Inhabyte in one of these hoopes, valeys, or graynes, can not heare
+    the Fraye outcrye, or exclamac’on of such as dwell in an other
+    hoope or valley upon the other side of the said mountayne, nor come
+    or assemble to theyr assystance in tyme of necessytie. Wherefore we
+    can not fynde anye of the neyghbours thereabouts wyllinge
+    cotynnally to Inhabyte or plenyshe w’thin the saide grounde of
+    Kydland, and especially in wynter tyme.”
+
+    These reasons were given by the people of “Cockdale” in the
+    neighbouring valley, to account for the desolation of Kidland,
+    which lay open on the northward to attacks from the Scots, and had
+    no defence on the south from the rievers of Redesdale. The
+    inhabitants of Coquetdale seem to have been a right valiant and
+    hardy fraternity, honest and fearless, well able to give good blows
+    in defence of their possessions, for it is left on record that “the
+    people of the said Cock-dayle be best p’pared for defence and most
+    defensyble people of themselfes, and of the truest and best sorte
+    of anye that do Inhabyte, endlonge, the frounter or border of the
+    said mydle m’ches of England.” The traces of these days of raid and
+    foray are to be found in abundance all over Coquetdale, as indeed
+    all over Northumberland, in pele-tower and barmkyn, fortified
+    dwelling and bastle house.
+
+    Harbottle Castle would have a good deal to tell, could it only
+    speak, of siege and assault from the day when, “with the aid of the
+    whole county of Northumberland and the bishopric of Durham,” it was
+    built by Henry II., until, after the Union of the Crowns, it shared
+    the fate of many of the Border strongholds, and fell into gradual
+    decay, or was used as a quarry from which to draw building material
+    for new and modern mansions. At Rothbury, a pele-tower has formed
+    the dwelling of the Vicars of that town from the time that any
+    mention of Whitton Tower is to be found, it being first noticed as
+    “Turris de Whitton, iuxta Rothebery.” Rothbury itself occupies
+    quite the finest situation of any of the Northumbrian towns.
+    Others, besides it, lie on the banks of a pretty river; others,
+    too, possess fair meadows and rich pastures; but none other has the
+    combination of these attractive features with the finer
+    surroundings of hill, crag, and moorland as picturesquely beautiful
+    as those of Rothbury. In the old church here Bernard Gilpin, “the
+    Apostle of the North,” often preached; and even the fierce rival
+    factions of the Borderland were so influenced by the gentle, yet
+    fearless preacher, that they consented to forego their usual
+    pleasure of “drawing” whenever they met one of a rival family, at
+    least so long as Gilpin dwelt among them, and especially to refrain
+    from showing their hostility in church.
+
+    There are in Coquetdale, as elsewhere, memorials of the ancient
+    British days in the many camps to be found on the summits of the
+    hills near the town, on Tosson Hill and the Simonside Hills; and
+    not camps only, but barrows, cist-vaens, and flint weapons in
+    considerable numbers. The magnificent view to be obtained, on a
+    clear day, from Tosson Hill or the Simonsides is one to be
+    remembered; to the west and north stretch the vales of Coquet and
+    Alwin, with the rolling heights of the Cheviots bounding them;
+    northward are the woods surrounding Biddlestone Hall, the
+    “Osbaldistone Hals” of Scot’s _Rob Roy_, awakening memories of Di
+    Vernon; far to the eastward a faint blue haze denotes the distant
+    coastline; while southward, over the dales of Rede and Tyne, the
+    smoke of industrial Tyneside lies on the horizon, with the spires
+    and towers of Newcastle showing faintly against the heights of the
+    Durham side of the Tyne.
+
+    One of the chief sights of Rothbury is the beautiful mansion of
+    Cragside and the wonderful valley of Debdon and Crag Hill, as
+    transformed by the first Lord Armstrong into a paradise of beauty,
+    where art and nature are so blended as to make a romantically
+    artistic whole. Another lovely spot on the banks of Coquet is at
+    Brinkburn, where the famous Priory stands almost hidden at the foot
+    of thickly wooded slopes. A very much larger portion of this fine
+    Priory is still standing than is the case with many other religious
+    houses of the same age, for it dates from the reign of Henry I. The
+    story is told of Brinkburn as well as of Blanchland, that a party
+    of marauding Scots on one of their forays passed by the Priory
+    without discovering it in its leafy bower; and so overjoyed were
+    the monks at their escape that they incautiously rang the bells by
+    way of showing their delight. The Scots, who had passed out of
+    sight but not out of hearing, immediately returned on their tracks,
+    and, guided by the joyful peal, reached the Priory, sacked the
+    buildings, and then set them on fire. It may well be that the
+    tragedy occurred at both places, on different occasions.
+
+    Farther eastward down the Coquet are two places pre-eminently noted
+    as centres for the sport for which the river is famed above all
+    other Northumbrian streams, though some of them are worthy rivals.
+    These two places are Weldon Bridge and Felton; the old Angler’s Inn
+    at the first-named is a favourite rendezvous of the fraternity of
+    rod and creel. Fishermen have long known the fascination of these
+    two places, and I quote from the “Fisherman’s Garland” two stanzas
+    written by two enthusiastic anglers in praise of them. The writers
+    are Robert Roxby and Thomas Doubleday.
+  “But we’ll awa’ to Coquetside, For Coquet bangs them a’; Whose
+  winding streams sae sweetly glide By Brinkburn’s bonny Ha’!”
+  _Written in 1821_
+  “The Coquet for ever, the Coquet for aye! The _Woodhall_ and _Weldon_
+  and _Felton_ so gay, And _Brinkburn_ and _Linden_, wi’ a’ their sweet
+  pride, For they add to the beauty of dear Coquetside.”
+  _Written in 1826_
+
+    Felton, a charmingly placed little village, on the banks of the
+    river where they are overhung by graceful woods, and diversified by
+    cliff and grassy slope, stands just where the great North Road
+    crosses the Coquet. By reason of this position it has been the
+    scene of one or two events of historical interest, notably those
+    connected with the “Fifteen” and the “Forty-five.” On the former
+    occasion, the gallant young Earl of Derwentwater, with his
+    followers, was joined here by a band of seventy gentlemen from the
+    Borders, and they rode on to Morpeth to proclaim James III. And
+    thirty years later, the soldiers of George II. passed over the
+    bridge from the southward, led by the Duke of Cumberland, and
+    pressed on towards the Scottish moor where they dealt the final
+    blow to the Stuart cause at Culloden. The interesting old church at
+    Felton, dating from the thirteenth century, is well worth a visit.
+    After leaving Felton behind, the Coquet enters on the most marked
+    windings of all its winding course, until, when it enters the sea
+    at Warkworth Harbour, just opposite Coquet Island, it has contrived
+    to lengthen out its journey to a distance of forty miles.
+
+    The bright clear stream of the Aln also begins its short journey
+    across Northumberland from the heights of Cheviot, but in the
+    narrower northern portion of the county. Alnham, with its
+    pele-tower Vicarage, ancient church, and memories of a castle,
+    stands just at the foot of the hills, near the source of the river.
+    Some three or four miles eastward along its banks, a walk through
+    leafy woods brings us to Whittingham—the final syllable of which,
+    by the way, one pronounces as “jam,” as one does that of nearly all
+    the other place-names ending in “ing-ham” in Northumberland,
+    contrary though it be to etymological considerations—excepting,
+    curiously enough, Chillingham, situated in the very midst of all
+    the others. The “ing” and “ham” are in themselves a historical
+    guide to the days in which the various villages received their
+    names, these two syllables being a certain indication of a Saxon
+    settlement, the “home of the sons, or descendants of” whatever
+    person the first syllable indicates. Thus, Edlingham, only a few
+    miles away, is the “home or settlement of the sons of Eadwulf”;
+    Ellingham, the “home of the sons of Ella,” and so on. How the
+    “Whitt” syllable was spelled we do not know; most probably Hwitta
+    or Hwitha—for all our _wh’s_ were _hw_ originally—_hwaet, hwa,
+    hwaether_ and so forth.
+
+    This ancient village is in these days a charming and peaceful
+    place, lying in the midst of rich meadow lands, and surrounded by
+    magnificent trees. It had its romances, too, in the course of
+    years; so long ago as the days of the early Danish invasions a
+    certain widow in Whittingham, in the reign of King Alfred, had no
+    less a person than a Danish prince among her slaves; he was
+    ransomed, however, and made king of the Danes in the North, in
+    consequence of a vision in which St. Cuthbert had directed the
+    Abbot of Carlisle to see this done. Young Prince Guthred’s
+    gratitude showed itself in a substantial grant of land to St.
+    Cuthbert at Durham. Whittingham Church is supposed to have been
+    founded by the Saxon king Ceolwulf, whose acquaintance we have
+    already made at Holy Island, and he bestowed the lands of
+    Whittingham on the church at Lindisfarne. It still shows some of
+    the original Saxon work at the base of the tower, and much more was
+    to be seen before the so-called “restoration” of the church in
+    1840. The pele-tower on the south side of the river, after its days
+    of storm and stress are over, still serves as a shelter in time of
+    need, for it is now used as an almshouse for the poor of the
+    village, a former Lady Ravensworth having originated the quaint
+    idea and seen it carried out.
+
+    Whittingham Fair, now Whittingham Sports, a well-known rendezvous
+    of the whole countryside, has lost some of its former splendour,
+    but is still looked forward to with great enjoyment in the
+    surrounding district. The old coaching road from Newcastle to
+    Edinburgh passed through the village, crossing the Aln by the stone
+    bridge, from whence it went on through Glanton and Wooler to
+    Cornhill.
+
+    In the vale of Whittingham, the little Aln flows placidly along,
+    its waters murmuring a soothing refrain, a peaceful interlude
+    between its busy bustling beginning and its ending. Before reaching
+    Alnwick it flows past the ancient walls of Hulne Abbey, the
+    monastery of Carmelite friars so romantically founded by the
+    Northumbrian knight and monk after his visit to the monastery on
+    Mount Carmel. A considerable portion of the ancient building is
+    still standing, and few sites chosen by the old monks, who had an
+    unerring eye for beauty as well as safety and convenience in their
+    choice of abode, can surpass this one, surrounded by fair meadows,
+    and standing on the green hill-side, with the rippling Aln flowing
+    through the levels below. In Hulne Park is also the Brislee Tower,
+    erected by the first Duke of Northumberland in 1781, on the top of
+    Brislee Hill.
+
+[Illustration: Alnwick Castle]
+
+    Alnwick itself, with its quaint, uneven, narrow streets, and grey
+    stone houses, looks the part of a Border town even in these days;
+    and the grim old Hotspur tower, bestriding the main street like an
+    ancient warrior still on guard, helps to give the illusion an air
+    of reality. The tower, however, was not built by Hotspur, but by
+    his son. The names of the streets, too, are redolent of the days
+    when the only safety for the inhabitants of a town worth plundering
+    lay in the strength of its walls and gateways. Bondgate,
+    Bailiffgate, and Narrowgate, still speak of the days of siege and
+    sortie, of fierce attack and stout defence.
+
+    The magnificent castle which dominates the town stands majestically
+    at the top of a green slope above the Aln, its vast array of walls
+    and towers far along the ridge, fronting the North as though still
+    looking, albeit with a seemingly languid interest, for the coming
+    of the Scots who were such inveterate foes of its successive lords.
+    The principal entrance, however, the Barbican, faces southwards to
+    the town, and here the massive gateway, with portcullis complete,
+    and crowned by quaint life-size figures of warriors in various
+    attitudes of defence, conveys the impression that the huge giant is
+    still alert and on guard. The history of Alnwick is the history of
+    the castle and its lords, from the days of Gilbert Tyson, variously
+    known as Tison, Tisson, and De Tesson, one of the Conqueror’s
+    standardbearers, upon whom this northern estate was bestowed, until
+    the present time. After being held by the family of De Vesci (of
+    which the modern rendering is Vasey—a name found all over
+    south-east Northumberland) for over two hundred years, it passed
+    into the hands of the house of Percy. The Percies, who hailed from
+    the village of Perce in Normandy, had large estates in Yorkshire,
+    bestowed by the Conqueror on the first of the name to arrive in
+    England in his train. The family, however, was represented by an
+    heiress only in the reign of Henry II., whose second wife, a
+    daughter of the Duke of Brabant, thought this heiress, with her
+    wide possessions, a suitable match for her own young half-brother
+    Joceline of Louvain. The marriage took place; and thereafter
+    followed the long line of Henry Percies (Henry being a favourite
+    name of the Counts of Louvain) who played such a large part in the
+    history of both England and Scotland; for, as nearly every Percy
+    was a Warden of the Marches, Scottish doings concerned them more or
+    less intimately—indeed, often more so than English affairs.
+
+    It was the third Henry Percy who purchased Alnwick in 1309 from
+    Antony Bec, Bishop of Durham and guardian of the last De Vesci, and
+    from that time the fortunes of the Percies, though they still held
+    their Yorkshire estates, were linked permanently with the little
+    town on the Aln, and the fortress which alike commanded and
+    defended it. The fourth Henry Percy began to build the castle as we
+    see it now; but to call him “the fourth” is a little confusing, as
+    he was the second Henry Percy, Lord of Alnwick. On the whole, it
+    will be clearer to begin the enumerations of the various Henry
+    Percies from the time they became Lords of Alnwick. It was, then,
+    Henry Percy the second, Lord of Alnwick, who began the re-building
+    of the castle; he also was jointly responsible for the safety of
+    the realm during the absence of Edward III. in the French wars, and
+    in this official capacity, no less than in that of a Border baron
+    whose delight it was to exchange lusty blows with an ever-ready
+    foe, he helped to win the battle of Neville’s Cross. His son,
+    Henry, married a sister of John of Gaunt, and their son, the next
+    Henry Percy, was that friend who stood John Wycliffe in such good
+    stead, when he was cited to appear before the Bishop of London.
+    Henry Percy, who had been made Earl Marshal of England, and the
+    Duke of Lancaster took their places one on each side of Wycliffe,
+    and accompanied him to St. Paul’s, clearing a way for him through
+    the crowd. It does not belong to this story to tell how their
+    private quarrels with the Bishop prevented Wycliffe’s
+    interrogation, and how he left the Cathedral without having uttered
+    a word; we are concerned at the moment with his North-country
+    friend, who, the same year, was created Earl of Northumberland,
+    which title he was given after the coronation of Richard II. Nor
+    was this all, for he was that Northumberland whose doings in the
+    next reign fill so large a part of Shakespeare’s Henry IV., and he
+    was the father of the most famous Percy of all, the gallant Henry
+    Percy the fifth, better known as “Harry Hotspur.” Hotspur never
+    became Earl of Northumberland, being slain at Shrewsbury in the
+    lifetime of his father, whose estates were forfeited under
+    attainder on account of the rebellion of himself and his son
+    against King Henry IV.
+
+    King Henry V. restored Hotspur’s son, the second Earl, to his
+    family honours, and the Percies were staunch Lancastrians during
+    the Wars of the Roses which followed, the third Earl and three of
+    his brothers losing their lives in the cause. The fifth Earl was a
+    gorgeous person whose magnificence equalled, almost, that of
+    royalty. Henry Percy, the sixth Earl of Northumberland, loved Ann
+    Boleyn, and was her accepted suitor before King Henry VIII.
+    unfortunately discovered the lady’s charm, and interfered in a
+    highhanded “bluff King Has” fashion, and young Percy lost his
+    prospective bride. He had no son, although married later to the
+    daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and his nephew, Thomas Percy,
+    became the seventh Earl.
+
+    Thereafter, a succession of plots and counterplots—the Rising of
+    the North, the plots to liberate Mary Queen of Scots, and the
+    Gunpowder Plot—each claimed a Percy among their adherents. On this
+    account the eighth and ninth Earls spent many years in the Tower,
+    but the tenth Earl, Algernon, fought for King Charles in the Civil
+    War, the male line of the Percy-Louvain house ending with
+    Josceline, the eleventh Earl. The heiress to the vast Percy estates
+    married the Duke of Somerset; and her grand-daughter married a
+    Yorkshire knight, Sir Hugh Smithson, who in 1766 was created the
+    first Duke of Northumberland and Earl Percy, and it is their
+    descendants who now represent the famous old house.
+
+    At various points in the town are memorials of the constant wars
+    between Percies and Scots in which so many Percies spent the
+    greater part of their lives. At the side of the broad shady road
+    called Rotten Row, leading from the West Lodge to Bailiffgate, a
+    tablet of stone marks the spot where William the Lion of Scotland
+    was captured as we have already seen, in 1174, by Odinel de
+    Umfraville and his friends; and there are many others of similar
+    interest.
+
+    Within the park, approached by the gate at the foot of Canongate,
+    is the fine gateway which is all that is left of Alnwick Abbey. No
+    more peaceful spot could have been found than this, on the level
+    greensward, surrounded by fine trees which shelter it on all sides
+    save one, and near the brink of the little Aln, whose banks are
+    thickly covered with wild flowers, while the steep slope on the
+    opposite side of the river is overhung with shady woods. The extent
+    of the parks may be judged from the fact that the enclosing wall is
+    about five miles long. At the foot of Bailiffgate, on the edge of a
+    steep ridge above the descent to Canongate and the banks of the
+    river, the ancient parish church, dedicated to St. Mary and St.
+    Michael stands in a commanding position. The present building dates
+    from the fourteenth century, and occupies the site of an earlier
+    one, whose few remaining stones have been built into the present
+    structure. Two other reminders of long-past days are to be found in
+    Alnwick; one is the large stone in the Market Place to which the
+    bull ring used to be fixed in the days when bull-baiting and
+    bear-baiting took place; and the other, a relic of days still
+    further back in the distant years, is the sounding of the Curfew
+    Bell, which is still rung here every evening at eight o’clock.
+    Altogether there is the quaintest and most unexpected mingling of
+    the ancient and modern in the little feudal town.
+
+    Between Alnwick and the sea, the Aln winds its way past Alnmouth
+    Station, formerly known as Bilton Junction, and past Lesbury, a
+    pretty little tree-shaded village, to the sandy flats by Alnmouth
+    where it ends its journey in the North Sea.
+
+    The Till, by whose side we shall next wander, flows in the opposite
+    direction, for that historic stream is a tributary of “Tweed’s fair
+    river, broad and deep,” and curves from the Cheviots round to the
+    North-west, where it enters the larger stream at Tillmouth. It
+    begins life as the Breamish, tumbling down the slopes of Cushat Law
+    within sight of all the giants of the Cheviot range. The Linhope
+    Burn, a fellow traveller down these steep hillsides, forms in its
+    course the Linhope Spout, one of the largest waterfalls to be found
+    amongst the Cheviots, before it joins the Breamish, which then
+    flows through a country of green slopes and grassy levels to
+    Ingram. This village possesses an old church with massive square
+    tower and windows which suggest the fortress rather than the
+    church. The heights which stretch eastward from the Cheviots and
+    bound the valley of the Till add not a little to the beauty and
+    variety of the scenery in this district.
+
+    The little stream, which turns northward near Glanton railway
+    station, moves on in loops and windings past Beanley, which Earl
+    Gospatric held in former days by virtue of the curious office of
+    being a kind of official mediator between the monarchs of England
+    and Scotland when they came to blows; and past Bewick, with its
+    little Norman church buried from sight amongst leafy trees. The
+    effigy of a lady in the chancel of this church is said to be that
+    of Matilda, wife of Henry I. This is the more likely in that the
+    lands of Bewick formed part of her dowry, and were given by her to
+    the monks of Tynemouth Priory. At Bewick Bridge the little stream
+    ceases to be the Breamish, and becomes the Till; as an old rhyme
+    has it—
+  “The foot of Breamish, and head of Till, Meet together at Bewick
+  Mils”
+
+    Some miles to the northward, the Till reaches the little village of
+    Chatton, having, on the way, passed a little to the westward of
+    Chillingham Castle and Park, where is the famous herd of wild
+    cattle. Roscastle, a craggy height covered with heather, stands at
+    the edge of the chase, and looks over a wild and romantic scene of
+    moorland and pastureland, deep glens and heathery hills. The
+    Vicarage at Chatton is another of those north-country vicarages in
+    which an old pele-tower forms part of the modern residence. On the
+    top of Chatton Law is an ancient British encampment, with inscribed
+    circles similar to those on Bewick Hill.
+
+    From Chatton, the loops and windings of the Till grow more
+    insistent, and the little stream adds miles to its length by reason
+    of its frequent doubling on its tracks; this, however, but gives an
+    added charm to the landscape, as the silvery gleams of the winding
+    river come unexpectedly into view again and again. It flows on
+    through Glendale, with which attractive region we have already made
+    acquaintance; and on its banks are the two prettiest villages in
+    Northumberland—Ford and Etal.
+
+    Ford Castle, as seen at the present day, is chiefly modern, but the
+    northwest tower is part of the old fortress of Odenel de Forde,
+    which experienced so many vicissitudes in its time. One of the most
+    famous owners of Ford Castle was Sir William Heron, who married
+    Odenel’s daughter, and who held the responsible and troublesome
+    office of High Sheriff of Northumberland for eleven years, besides
+    being Captain of Bamburgh and Warden of the northern forests. The
+    castle was burnt down by James IV. of Scotland just before the
+    battle of Flodden, which was not by any means the only time in its
+    career that it was demolished, entirely or in part, and restored
+    again.
+
+    In the village of Ford, the walls of the schoolroom are decorated
+    by a series of pictures of the children of Scripture story, for
+    whose portrayal it is said the Marchioness of Waterford, the
+    artist, took the village children as models. The late Vicar of
+    Ford, the Rev. Hastings Neville, has laid all who are interested in
+    the rural life of Northumberland, and the quaint and traditional
+    manners and customs of the North-country which are so fast
+    disappearing, under the greatest obligation to him for his
+    interesting and entirely delightful little book, “A Corner in the
+    North.” Historical records, and matters of business, ownerships,
+    etc., connected with any special area can always be turned up for
+    reference when required; but the manner of speech, the customs of
+    daily life, the quaint survivals of former usages and
+    half-forgotten lore, being entirely dependent on individual memory
+    and oral tradition, only too often disappear before any adequate
+    record can be made. Hence it is a matter for congratulation that
+    such a book should have been written.
+
+    Etal, Ford’s pretty neighbour, also boasts a castle, built only two
+    years after that of Ford and by the same masons. A considerable
+    portion of the ruins remains, but, unlike Ford Castle, it was never
+    restored after James the Fourth’s drastic handling of it, but was
+    left to decay. Opposite Ford and Etal, on the left bank of the
+    Till, is Pallinsburn House, referred to in another chapter, and the
+    village of Crookham; and beyond the woods of Pallinsburn, Flodden
+    ridge, with its memories of the disastrous field on which James was
+    slain.
+
+    The mansion house of Tillmouth Park, owned by Sir Francis Blake, is
+    built of stones from the ruins of Twizell Castle, on the northern
+    bank of the Till; the castle was begun by a former Sir Francis
+    Blake but never finished. Between the two buildings the Berwick
+    Road crosses the Till by Twizell Bridge, over which Surrey marched
+    his men southward on the morning of Flodden. Not far from this
+    bridge, to the westward, is St. Helen’s Well, alluded to by Scott
+    in his account of the battle, in “Marmion”—
+  “Many a chief of birth and rank, St. Helen, at thy fountain drank.”
+
+    Sibyl’s well, from which Lady Clare brought water to moisten the
+    lips of the dying Marmion, is beside the little church at Branxton.
+    Tillmouth, however, has older memories still; for it was to the
+    little chapel there that St. Cuthbert’s body floated in its stone
+    coffin from Melrose, dating the course of its seven years’
+    wandering, ere it found a final rest at Durham.
+  “From sea to sea, from shore to shore, Seven years Saint Cuthbert’s
+  corpse they bore They rested them in fair Melrose, But though alive
+  he loved it well Not there his relics might repose, For, wondrous
+  tale to tell, In his stone coffin forth he glides, A ponderous bark
+  for river tides, Yet light as gossamer it glides Downward to
+  Tillmouth cell.
+
+  Chester-le-Street and Ripon saw His holy corpse, ere Wardilaw Hailed
+  it with joy and fear; Till, after many wanderings past, He chose his
+  lordly seat at last Where his cathedral, huge and vast, Looks down
+  upon the Wear.”
+  _Sir W. Scott_—MARMION.
+
+    The “stone coffin” was boat-shaped, “ten feet long, three feet and
+    a half in diameter, and only four inches thick, so that, with very
+    little assistance, it might certainly have swum; it still lies, or
+    at least did so a few years ago, in two pieces, beside the ruined
+    chapel at Tilmouth.”—_Sir W. Scott’s Notes to “Marmion.”_
+
+    Three or four miles from Tillmouth, south-westward up the valley of
+    the Tweed, and just beyond Cornhill, lies the village of Wark, near
+    which the remains of the famous Border castle are still standing.
+    The castle was built on a stony ridge of detritus called the
+    _Kaim_, which stretches from Wark village towards Carham. In the
+    reign of Henry I. all those who owned land in the North were
+    seemingly animated simultaneously by a lively desire to secure
+    their Borders; Bishop Flambard began to build Norham Castle,
+    Eustace Fitz-John, husband of Beatrice de Vesci, built the greater
+    part of Alnwick Castle, and Walter Espic raised the mighty
+    fortress, the great “Wark” or work (A.S. _were_ or _weare_) on the
+    steep ridge above Tweed, in “his honour (seignieury) of Carham.”
+
+    From that time the castle of Wark went through a greater succession
+    of sieges, assaults, burnings, surrenders, demolitions, and
+    restorations than any other place in England, except, perhaps,
+    Norham Castle or Berwick-upon-Tweed. In an age and situation where
+    hard blows given and returned, desperate adventures and equal
+    chances of life or death were the common-places of everyday
+    existence, Wark was probably the place where these excitements were
+    to be had oftener than anywhere else.
+
+    The romantic episode which gave rise to the establishment of the
+    Order of the Garter is generally allowed to have taken place at
+    Wark Castle. The young king of Scotland, David Bruce, had “ridden a
+    raid” into England, and ravaged and plundered on his way as far as
+    Auckland, after having burnt the town of Alnwick, amongst others,
+    but having been repulsed before the castle. King Edward III. was at
+    Stamford when he heard of the invasion; but hurrying northward he
+    reached Newcastle in four days. The Scots, retreating before him,
+    passed Wark Castle, which was held by the Countess of Salisbury and
+    her nephew, in the absence of her husband. The young man was loth
+    to let so much English booty be carried off under his very eyes, so
+    he fell upon the rearguard, and succeeded in bringing a number of
+    packhorses to the castle. On this the whole Scottish array turned
+    back, and a siege of the castle began; but the Countess spiritedly
+    held out, and Edward meanwhile drew nearer. Some of the Scotsmen
+    were captured, and from them the Countess’s nephew heard that
+    Edward had reached Alnwick. He stole out of the castle before
+    dawning in heavy rain, to let the King know where his help was
+    urgently needed; and by noon of the same day Edward was at Wark,
+    only to find his quarry flown, the Scots having retreated a few
+    hours earlier. The King was joyfully received and thanked by the
+    grateful Countess; and he in his turn was much struck by the beauty
+    and grace of the high-spirited lady, and showed his admiration
+    plainly. In the evening, according to tradition, a ball was held,
+    at which the incident occurred, so often related, of the accidental
+    losing of her garter by the fair chatelaine, and the restoration of
+    it by the King, with the remark, as a rebuke to the smiling
+    bystanders,—“_Honi soit qui mal y pense._” This he afterwards
+    adopted as the motto of the Order he established in honour of the
+    beautiful Countess.
+
+    The Garter is the most exclusive of Orders, and consists of the
+    reigning Sovereign and twenty-five Companions, of whom the Prince
+    of Wales is always one; and it takes precedence of all other
+    titles, ranking next to royalty. It is a matter of great pride to
+    all Northumbrians that perhaps the only instance of its having been
+    bestowed on any except a peer of the realm or a foreign Sovereign,
+    has occurred recently in the bestowal of the coveted decoration on
+    Sir Edward Grey, a member of the ancient and important Northumbrian
+    house of that name.
+
+    Every King of England from Henry I. to Henry IV., seems to have
+    been at Wark at some time during his reign, with the exception of
+    Richard Coeur-de-Lion and Richard II. After the Union of the
+    Crowns, Wark, like most other fortresses in the north that were not
+    in use as the dwellings of their owners, was allowed to fall into
+    decay. From Wark to Carham is a walk of only two miles along the
+    road which follows the course of the river, and ultimately leads to
+    Kelso. Carham has the remains of an ancient monastery; and here the
+    Danes, after having plundered Lindisfarne, fought a battle in which
+    the Saxons, led by several Bishops, were defeated with great
+    slaughter. From Carham, having reached the last point of interest
+    on the Tweed within the Northumbrian border, we must retrace our
+    steps to Tillmouth, and follow the Tweed through pasture land and
+    level haughs, until we come in sight of the steep cliffs and
+    overhanging woods by Norham Castle.
+
+    Naturally here, the words of the opening canto of “Marmion” are
+    recalled to our memory—
+  “Day set on Norham’s castled steep, On Tweed’s fair river, broad and
+  deep, And Cheviot’s mountains lone The battled towers, the donjon
+  keep, The loophole grates, where captives weep, The flanking walls
+  that round it sweep, In yellow lustre shone.”
+
+    The “castled steep” is still crowned by a massive fragment of the
+    old fortress that has braved, in its time, so many days of storm
+    and stress. A good deal of the curtain wall, too, is standing, and
+    the natural defences of the castle are admirable, for a deep ravine
+    on the east and the river with its steep banks on the south made it
+    practically unassailable at these points. It was built in 1121, as
+    we have seen, by Bishop Flambard of Durham, as a defence for the
+    northern portions of his diocese. The necessity for its presence
+    there was soon made apparent, for it was attacked by the Scots
+    again and again; and by the time thirty years had passed. Bishop
+    Pudsey found it necessary to strengthen it greatly. When Edward I.
+    was called to arbitrate between the claimants to the Scottish
+    throne, he came to Norham and met the rival nobles, who, with their
+    followers, were quartered at Ladykirk, on the opposite side of the
+    Tweed. It was known as Upsettlington then, however; the name of
+    Ladykirk was bestowed upon it long afterwards, when James IV. built
+    the little chapel there, in gratitude for an escape from drowning
+    in the Tweed. Edward held his interview with the Scottish nobles in
+    Norham church, and announced that he had come there in the
+    character of lord paramount, and as such was prepared to make
+    choice of one among them. Edward did not by any means make up his
+    mind quickly, and the various places in which the successive acts
+    in the affair took place are widely scattered, for he met the
+    nobles at Norham, some time afterwards delivered his decision at
+    Berwick, and finally received the homage of John Balliol at
+    Newcastle.
+
+    Norham, like Wark, has also its romantic episode—or rather, an
+    episode more conspicuously so in a series of them to which the name
+    might with justice be applied. It occurred during the time that Sir
+    Thomas Gray was holding the castle against a determined blockade of
+    it by the Scots in 1318. A certain fair lady of Lincolnshire sent
+    one of her maidens to a knight whom she loved, Sir William Marmion
+    (whose name probably suggested to Sir Walter Scott the name for the
+    hero of his tale of Norham and Flodden). Sir William was at a
+    banquet when the maiden came before him bearing a helmet with a
+    golden crest, together with a letter from his lady bidding him go
+    “into the daungerust place in England, and there to let the heaulme
+    be seene and knowen as famose.” Evidently it was well known where
+    “the daungerust place in England” was to be found, for the story
+    laconically says “So he went to Norham.” He had not been there more
+    than a day or two when a band of nearly two hundred Scots, bold and
+    expert horsemen, led by Philip de Mowbray, made an attack on the
+    castle, rousing Sir Thomas and his garrison from their dinner. They
+    quickly mounted, and were about to sally forth when Sir Thomas
+    caught sight of Marmion, in rich armour, and on his head the helmet
+    with the golden crest; and halting his men, he cried out, “Sir
+    knight, ye be come hither as a knight-errant to fame your helm; and
+    since deeds of chivalry should rather be done on horseback than on
+    foot, mount up on your horse, and spur him like a valiant knight
+    into the midst of your enemies here at hand, and I forsake God if I
+    rescue not thy body dead or alive, or I myself will die for it.” At
+    this Marmion mounted and spurred towards the Scots, by whom he was
+    instantly set upon, wounded, and dragged from the saddle. But
+    before they had time to give him the final blow they were scattered
+    by the rapid charge of Sir Thomas and his men, who quickly rescued
+    Marmion and set him on his horse again; and using their lances
+    against the horses of the Scots, caused many of them to throw their
+    riders, while the rest galloped away. The women of the castle
+    caught fifty of the riderless horses, on which more of the garrison
+    mounted and joined in the pursuit of the flying Scots, whom they
+    chased nearly to Berwick.
+
+    The tables were sometimes turned, however; and on one of these
+    occasions the valiant Sir Thomas Gray and his son were enticed out
+    of the castle into an ambush laid for them by their foes, and both
+    captured.
+
+    In 1513, just before the battle of Flodden, its walls were at
+    length laid low by James IV., but not until the famous cannon “Mons
+    Meg”—still, I believe, to be seen at Edinburgh Castle—had been
+    brought against it. One of the cannon-balls fired from “Mons Meg”
+    was found, and is still kept with others at the Castle. It is said
+    that the Scots were told of the weakest spot in the fortifications
+    by a treacherous inmate of the castle, who doubtless expected a
+    rich reward for his information. Indeed, the ballad of “Flodden”
+    says he came for it; but the valiant and chivalrous king would give
+    him no reward but that which he said every traitor deserved—a rope.
+
+    Afterwards the castle was restored once more, but its more stirring
+    days were over; and, to-day, it stands a shattered but dignified
+    ruin, overlooking the tranquil river and peaceful woodlands which
+    once echoed so continuously to the clash of arms and the shouts of
+    besiegers and besieged.
+
+    The village of Norham was in Saxon days known as Ubbanford—the
+    Upper Ford of two that were available in those days on the Tweed.
+    There was a church here, too, in Saxon times, for Bishop Ecfrid
+    built one about the year 830, and in it was buried the Saxon king
+    Ceolwulf who became a monk: the present church has a good deal
+    remaining of the one built on the same site by Bishop Flambard,
+    about the same time as the castle. Earl Gospatric, whom William the
+    Conqueror made Earl of Northumberland in return for a considerable
+    sum of money—doubtless thinking that to give a Northumbrian the
+    Earldom would reconcile the North to his rule—is buried in the
+    church porch. Gospatric joined in the resistance of the North to
+    William, but returned to his allegiance later. The Market Cross of
+    Norham stands on the original base.
+
+    From Norham to Tweedmouth the river sweeps forward between
+    picturesque ever-widening banks, and often hidden by a leafy
+    screen, past the village of Horncliffe, beneath the Union
+    Suspension Bridge, one of the first erected of its kind, until at
+    length its bright waters lave the historic walls of
+    Berwick-upon-Tweed, and in the quiet harbour there meet the
+    inrushing tide from the North Sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. DRUM AND TRUMPET.
+
+
+    “The history of Northumberland is essentially a drum and trumpet
+    history, from the time when the _buccina_ of the Batavian cohort
+    first rang out over the moors of Procolitia down to the
+    proclamation of James III. at Warkworth Cross”—_Cadwallader J
+    Bates_.
+
+    This sentence of the historian of Northumberland sums up the story
+    of our northern county no less admirably than tersely, and it would
+    be difficult to find one which should more clearly bring before us
+    the whole atmosphere of north-country history and north-country
+    doings for many centuries.
+
+    Within the limits of this chapter it is impossible to go into the
+    details of every “foughten field” within the county; the most that
+    can be done is to indicate the many and treat in detail only the
+    few. A goodly number have already been alluded to in connection
+    with the place where each occurred.
+
+    After the Roman campaigns, from those of Agricola to those of
+    Theodosius the elder and Maximus, and the legion sent by Stilicho,
+    the earliest battle story is that of the one in Glendale fought by
+    King Arthur. Then the forming of the kingdom of Bernicia with the
+    advent of Ida at Bamburgh was the beginning of a long-protracted
+    struggle between the various little states, each fighting for its
+    life, and surrounded by others equally determined to take every
+    advantage that offered against it. The sons of Ida fought against
+    the celebrated Urien, a Keltic chief, who almost succeeded in
+    dispossessing them of their kingdom of Bernicia. Hussa, one of
+    Ida’s sons, ultimately vanquished Urien’s son Owen, “chief of the
+    glittering West”; and after Hussa’s death Ethelric of Bernicia, as
+    we have seen, overcame the neighbouring chieftain of Deira, thus
+    forming the kingdom of Northumbria. His successor, Ethelfrith, in
+    the year 603 gained a great victory over a large force of northern
+    Britons under a leader named Aedan at a place called Daegsanstan,
+    which is thought to be Dissington, near Newcastle. His further
+    victories were gained outside the limits of our present survey.
+
+    After the long and glorious reign of Edwin, his successor,
+    Ethelfrith’s sons came back to Bamburgh; the eldest, Eanfrid, was
+    slain within a year, and his brother Oswald carried on the struggle
+    against Penda of Mercia. We have seen how he fought against Penda
+    and Cadwallon on the Heavenfield near Chollerford, and gained a
+    victory which obtained for him many years of peace. Penda was
+    finally slain by Oswald’s successor Oswy in a great battle which is
+    supposed to have taken place on the banks of the Tweed.
+
+    Many years afterwards, Sitric, grandson of that Prince Guthred who
+    was once a slave at Whittingham, married a sister of King
+    Athelstan, grandson of Alfred the Great. When Sitric died,
+    Athelstan came northward to claim Northumbria for himself. He
+    captured Bamburgh—the first time that stronghold of the Bernician
+    kings had ever been taken—and arranged for two earls to govern
+    Northumbria for him. They attempted unsuccessfully to oppose a
+    force of Scots under Anlaf the Red, who was joined by two earls of
+    Bretland (Cumbria); and the whole force encamped near a place
+    called Weondune, supposed to be Wandon near Chatton. Athelstan
+    advanced against them and challenged them to a pitched battle on
+    this ground. They agreed, and with much deliberation the course was
+    staked out with hazel wands between a wood and a river (Chillingham
+    woods and the Till). The Scots greatly outnumbered Athelstan’s men,
+    who set up their tents at the narrowest part of the plain, giving
+    their king time to reach a little “burg” (Old Bewick) in the
+    neighbourhood. A running fight followed, which was carried on the
+    next day, and with the help of two brothers, Egil and Thorold, who
+    were Norsemen, it ended in a complete victory for Athelstan. While
+    in the north, King Athelstan gave the well-known rhyming charter to
+    a certain Paulan of Roddam;
+  “I kyng Adelstan giffs hier to Paulan Oddam and Roddam als gud and
+  als fair als evyr thai myne war, and thar to wytness Mald my Wiffe.”
+
+    Shortly after this, at the Battle of Brunanburh, Athelstan
+    vanquished Anlaf Sitricsson and Constantine, king of the Scots. The
+    site of this battle would seem to have been in Northumbria, as it
+    was into the Humber that Anlaf and Constantine sailed with their
+    large fleet; but the precise spot has never been determined.
+
+    In the reign of Knut the Dane, the Scots obtained the whole of
+    Lothian from the Saxon earl of Northumberland, and the vast
+    possessions of St. Cuthbert beyond the Tweed seemed about to be
+    lost to the church of Durham. Accordingly, the clergy called upon
+    all the people of St. Cuthbert from the Tees to the Tweed—all
+    those, that is, who dwelt on lands granted by various donors to the
+    church of St. Cuthbert—to rise and march northward to fight for
+    their lands. This great company set out, in the autumn of 1018, and
+    reached Carham on the Tweed, where they were met by Malcolm king of
+    the Scots. A comet had been seen in the sky for some weeks and the
+    fears inspired by this dread visitant seem to have had more effect
+    upon the Northumbrians than upon the Scots. From whatever cause it
+    arose, when the two forces joined in battle a panic spread among
+    the followers of St. Cuthbert. They were utterly routed, and most
+    of the leading Northumbrians as well as eighteen priests were
+    slain—thus curiously repeating the experience of the earlier battle
+    of Carham.
+
+    For the next three hundred years Northumberland was swept by
+    successive waves of raid and reprisal, in the course of which
+    occurred the two well-known events, the attack of William the Lion
+    of Scotland on Alnwick Castle, and the more famous affair still,
+    the struggle between Percy and Douglas known as the battle of
+    Otterburn, which was fought in “Chevy Chase” (Cheviot Forest). More
+    important poetically than politically, it stands out more vividly
+    in the records of the time than many other conflicts of larger
+    import. The personal element in the fight, the deeds of gallantry
+    recorded, the sounding roll of the chief knights’ names, and the
+    high renown of the two leaders, throw a glamour around this
+    particular contest which is kept alive by the ballads that chant
+    the praises of Percy or Douglas according as the singer was Scot or
+    Saxon. Sir Philip Sidney, that “verray parfit gentil knight” and
+    discriminating _litterateur_, said “I never heard the old song of
+    Percie and Douglas that I found not my hart mooved more than with a
+    trumpet: and yet it is sung but by some blynd Crowder,[11] with no
+    rougher voyce than rude stile! which beeing so evill apparelled in
+    the dust and cobweb of that uncivill age, what wolde it work
+    trimmed in the gorgeous eloquence of Pindare!”
+
+ [11] Crowder = fiddler.
+
+    In the endless warfare of the Borders the second of two short-lived
+    periods of truce had just expired, and an organised raid on a large
+    scale was arranged by the Scots. The main body was to ravage
+    Cumberland; and a smaller, but picked force led by Earls Douglas,
+    Moray, and March came southward by way of Northumberland. But
+    Northumbrian towers and towns knew nothing of their passing; they
+    marched rapidly and by stealth into Durham, having crossed the Tyne
+    between Corbridge and Bywell, and began to harry and lay waste the
+    greener pastures and richer villages of the southern county, the
+    smoke of whose burning homesteads was the first intimation to the
+    unlucky English of the fact that a Scottish host was in their
+    midst.
+
+    The Earl of Northumberland remained at Alnwick in the hope that he
+    might be able to attack the Scots on their homeward journey; but he
+    despatched his sons Henry Hotspur and Ralph in all haste to defend
+    Newcastle. The Scots in due time appeared before the walls.
+  And he marched up to Newcastel And rode it round about; “O wha’s the
+  lord o’ this castel? Or wha’s the lady o’t?”
+  But up spake proud Lord Percy then, And O but he spake hie! “I am the
+  lord o’ this castel, My wife’s the lady gay.”
+
+    Douglas challenged Percy to meet him in single combat, and Percy
+    promptly accepted. In the duel Percy was unhorsed, and Douglas
+    captured his pennon and his gauntlet gloves, embroidered with the
+    Percy lion in pearls. This trophy Douglas vowed he would carry off
+    to Scotland with him, and set it in the topmost tower of his castle
+    of Dalkeith, that it might be seen from afar. “By heaven! that you
+    never shall,” replied Percy; “you shall not carry it out of
+    Northumberland.” “Come and take it, then,” was Douglas’ answer; and
+    Hotspur would have attempted its recovery there and then, but he
+    was restrained by his knights. Douglas, however, said he would give
+    Percy a chance to recover it, and agreed to await him at Otterburn.
+  “Yet I will stay at Otterbourne, Where you shall welcome be; And if
+  ye come not at three dayis end, A fause lord I’ll call thee”
+
+    Next day the Scots left Newcastle and marched northward. They took
+    Sir Aymer de Athol’s castle of Ponte-land, and the good knight Sir
+    Aymer himself, and went on their way, harrying and burning as they
+    went. At Otterburn they halted, and rested all night, making huts
+    for themselves of boughs and branches. The spot they had chosen was
+    a strong one, on the site of a former British camp; and not only
+    was it surrounded by trees, but was near marshy ground as well.
+    Next day they attempted to take Otterburn tower, but without
+    success.
+
+    Meanwhile word was brought to Hotspur that the Scots would spend
+    the night at Otterburn; and he, without waiting for Walter de
+    Skirlaw, Bishop of Durham, who was expected that evening with a
+    strong force, at once set off with 600 spearmen, and a force on
+    foot which is variously given as anything from 800 to 8,000. They
+    covered the thirty-odd miles by the time evening fell: and as the
+    Scots were at supper in their little huts, they were startled by a
+    tumult amongst their grooms and camp-followers, and cries of “a
+    Percy! a Percy!” and the Englishmen were among them. The Scottish
+    leaders had placed their camp-followers and servants at the
+    outermost; part of their encampment, facing the Newcastle road; and
+    Hotspur’s force, ignorant of this, mistook it for the main camp.
+    While they were thus engaged, the Scottish knights were enabled to
+    make a detour around the scene of the first attack, and take the
+    English in the rear. With loud shouts of “Douglas! Douglas!” they
+    fell upon them, and a fierce hand-to-hand struggle began. The moon
+    rose clear and bright, and the quiet evening air was filled with
+    the din of battle, the ring of steel on steel, the crash of axe on
+    armour, the groans of the wounded, and the battle-cries of the
+    combatants on each side. Sir Ralph Percy, pressing too rashly
+    forward, was captured by a newly-made Scottish knight, Sir John
+    Maxwell. The battle was turning in favour of Hotspur, when Douglas
+    sent his silken banner to the front and with renewed shouts of
+    “Douglas!” the Scots pressed forward and overbore their foes.
+    According to Froissart, there was not a man there, knight, squire,
+    or groom, who played the coward. “This bataylle was one of the
+    sorest and best foughten without cowards or faynte hearts; for
+    there was neither knight nor I squire but that did his devoyre and
+    foughte hande to hande.” Great deeds were done, and the fame of
+    none amongst them is greater than that of the gallant Widdrington;
+  “For Witherington my heart is woe, That ever he slaine sholde be! For
+  when his legs were hewn in two He knelt and fought on his knee”
+
+    Douglas rushed into the thickest of the fray, and Hotspur tried to
+    find him, but in the dim light that was difficult, especially as
+    Douglas had, in his haste, come to the fight without helmet or
+    breastplate. Presently he was borne to the ground by three English
+    spears; and as he lay guarded by his faithful chaplain, Sir John
+    and Sir Walter Sinclair, with Sir James Lindsay, came upon him.
+    “How fare you, cousin?” asked Sir John. “But poorly, I thank God,”
+    answered Douglas; “for few of my ancestors died in bed or chamber.
+    I count myself dead, for my heart beats slow. Think now to avenge
+    me. Raise my banner and shout ‘Douglas!’ and let neither my friends
+    nor my foes know of my state, lest the one rejoice and the other be
+    discomforted.” His dying commands were obeyed; and while his
+    battle-cry was raised anew, his dead body was laid by a “bracken
+    bush,” and the fact of his death concealed from friend and foe
+    alike. The furious onslaught of the Scots now carried all before
+    them; and Hotspur fell a captive to the sword of Sir Hugh
+    Montgomery, a nephew of Douglas, after a fierce hand-to-hand
+    encounter. The two chief English leaders being captured, the day,
+    or rather the night, was with the Scots, in fulfilment of an old
+    prophesy that “a dead Douglas should win a field.”
+  “This deed was done at Otterbourne At the breaking of the day; Earl
+  Douglas was buried at the braken bush, And the Percy led captive
+  away.”
+
+    When the fray was over, the two sides treated their captives with
+    knightly courtesy, many being allowed to go to their homes until
+    they recovered from their wounds, on giving their word of honour to
+    send the amount of their ransom, or themselves return to their
+    captors.
+
+    The Bishop of Durham, immediately after having had some refreshment
+    at Newcastle, had set out to join the Percies; but as he and his
+    men neared Otterburn, they met so many fugitives who gave them
+    anything but reassuring accounts of the fortunes of their friends,
+    that half of his force melted away, and the Bishop had perforce to
+    return to Newcastle; it was scarcely to be expected, indeed, that
+    everyone should have that thirst for hard blows which distinguished
+    the knights and their immediate followers. The Bishop, however,
+    made one capture—Sir James Lindsay, who had ridden so far in
+    pursuit of Sir Matthew Redman that he found himself amongst the
+    force advancing under the leadership of the warlike prelate.
+
+    When the Scots retired from their camp, they took the body of
+    Douglas from the “bracken bush” where it lay, and carried it away
+    for burial in Melrose Abbey; and Hotspur, as the price of his
+    ransom, built a castle for Sir Hugh Montgomery.
+
+    After this there was peace on the Borders for the next ten years or
+    so, when the game began again as merrily as ever. When Sir Thomas
+    Gray was absent from his castle of Wark-on-Tweed, attending
+    Parliament, the Scots came down upon it and carried off his
+    children and servants. Sir Robert Umfraville met and checked
+    another company that were harrying Coquetdale. In the year 1400,
+    Henry Bolingbroke himself led an army to Edinburgh; but a guerilla
+    band of Scots, avoiding his line of march, stole behind him and
+    ravaged Bamburghshire.
+
+    Two years after this, a party of Scots under the next Douglas rode
+    into Northumberland, coming nearly as far south as Newcastle.
+    Hotspur set off from Bamburgh, of which castle he was Constable at
+    the time, to intercept them. He awaited them on the banks of the
+    Glen, near Wooler; and the archers of his force went out for forage
+    meanwhile. When the Scots arrived, they found themselves in the
+    presence of an enemy whom they had imagined to be behind them, and
+    they immediately occupied Homildon Hill. The archers, returning,
+    saw the Scottish force on the hill, and began the attack forthwith,
+    letting fly their arrows upon the foe with deadly precision. Flight
+    after flight fell upon the Scots, who were completely bewildered,
+    and seemed incapable of action. A Scottish knight, Sir John
+    Swinton, implored the leaders to charge, passionately exclaiming,
+    “What madness has seized you, my brave countrymen, that you stand
+    here like deer to be shot down? Follow me, those who will! We will
+    either gain the victory, or die like men of courage.”
+
+    On hearing these brave words, Adam de Gordon, Swinton’s deadly foe,
+    felt his hatred turn to admiration, and kneeling before Swinton,
+    begged that he might receive the honour of knighthood from so
+    valiant a hand. The two gallant knights then charged the enemy,
+    followed by a number of the Scots; but the showers of arrows forced
+    them to retreat towards the river, and thither also moved the whole
+    Scottish force, followed still by that grim and deadly hail from
+    the English bows. Hotspur would now have charged, but the Earl of
+    March, his former antagonist, now his friend, restrained his
+    impetuous leader, and persuaded him to let the archers continue
+    their effective work.
+
+    The event proved his wisdom; the Scots were utterly routed by the
+    archers alone. The unfortunate Archibald Douglas added another to
+    his long list of reverses; he was taken prisoner, sorely wounded,
+    as was also Sir Hugh Montgomery, and over four-score others of
+    importance. It was in connection with these prisoners, whom Hotspur
+    refused to deliver up to Bolingbroke, that the quarrel took place
+    which eventually led Northumberland and his son Hotspur openly to
+    throw off their allegiance to Henry Bolingbroke and join in the
+    rebellion of Owen Glendower. Not only did Hotspur refuse to give up
+    Douglas and the others to King Henry, but he wished Henry to ransom
+    his brother-in-law Mortimer.
+  _K. Henry_. But sirrah, henceforth Let me not hear you speak of
+  Mortimer. Send me your prisoners with the speediest means, Or you
+  shall hear in such a kind from me As will displease you.—My lord
+  Northumberland, We licence your departure with your son.— Send us
+  your prisoners, or you’ll hear of it.
+
+    (_Exeunt_ K. Henry, Blunt, _and train_)
+  _Hotspur_. And if the devil come and roar for them I will not send
+  them:—I will after, straight, And tell him so.
+
+  _Worcester_. These same noble Scots That are your prisoners—
+  _Hotspur_. I’ll keep them all; By heaven, he shall not have a Scot of
+  them; No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not; I’ll keep
+  them, by this hand.
+  _Worcester_. You start away, And lend no ear unto my purposes. Those
+  prisoners you shall keep.—
+  _Hotspur_. Nay, I will, that’s flat:— He said he would not ransom
+  Mortimer; Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer; But I will find him
+  when he lies asleep, And in his ear I’ll holla “Mortimer!” Nay, I’ll
+  have a starling shall be taught to speak Nothing but “Mortimer,” and
+  give it him To keep his anger still in motion.
+  _The First Part of_ KING HENRY IV., _Act I., Scene 3_.
+
+    The fight at Homildon Hill took place on a Monday in August, 1402,
+    and the memory of it is kept alive by the name of the “Monday
+    Clough” near Wooler, where the archers commenced the fight.
+
+    More than a hundred years after this, the last, and in many
+    respects the greatest, battle ever fought on Northumbrian soil took
+    place at Flodden. King James IV. of Scotland had several grievances
+    against England, which had rankled in his mind for some time; he
+    had not yet received the full amount of the dowry which had been
+    promised with his wife, Margaret Tudor, sister of Henry VIII.,
+    although they had been married for many years; a Scottish noble,
+    Sir Robert Ker, had been killed in Northumberland, and the slayer
+    could not be found to be brought to justice—he was outlawed, but
+    that seemed to King James very insufficient; a Border raid on a
+    large scale, led by Lord Hume, had met with disastrous defeat on
+    Milfield Plain at the hands of Sir William Bulmer; and Andrew
+    Barton, a notable sea-captain, whom James was looking forward to
+    seeing as one of the best leaders of his new navy, had been killed
+    in a sea-fight by Thomas Howard, Lord Admiral of England. Added to
+    all this, France had appealed to him to invade England in order to
+    force Henry VIII. to abandon his French war; the English monarch
+    was just then conducting the siege of Terouenne, and the Queen of
+    France sent a romantic appeal to James (together with a large sum
+    of money) begging him to march “three feet on to English ground”
+    for her sake.
+
+    No time could have been more favourable in James’ eyes for the
+    enterprise; and in a very short space of time he had an army of
+    100,000 men collected, and marched from Edinburgh to the Tweed,
+    which he crossed near Coldstream. He laid siege to Norham, and
+    captured it after a week’s investment; and thereafter Wark, Ford,
+    Etal, Duddo and Chillingham fell before him. He took up his
+    quarters at Ford Castle, and on marching later to meet Surrey, left
+    it almost in ruins.
+
+    Surrey meantime had gathered a large force from the northern
+    counties, much to James’ surprise, for he had taken it for granted
+    that nearly every English fighting man would be with Henry in
+    Flanders. There were bowmen and billmen from Cheshire and
+    Lancashire under the Stanley banner; and James Stanley, Bishop of
+    Ely, brought the banner of St. Etheldreda, the Northumbrian queen
+    who founded the monastery of Ely. Admiral Sir Thomas Howard brought
+    a band of sailors to join his father at Alnwick. Dacre came with a
+    strong contingent from the western Marches, men from Alston Moor,
+    Gilsland, and Eskdale, and also some from Tynemouth and Bamburgh;
+    and Sir Brian Tunstall with Sir William Bulmer led the men of the
+    Bishopric under the banner of St. Cuthbert.
+
+    From Alnwick Surrey sent a letter pledging himself to meet James by
+    September 9th, and challenging him to battle, a challenge which was
+    promptly accepted by the Scottish king. Marching from Alnwick
+    towards the Scottish army, Surrey encamped on September 6th on
+    Wooler Haughs. James had formed his camp on Flodden Hill, and all
+    Surrey’s devices could not induce him abandon this strong position.
+    Many of his own nobles advised him not to risk a battle, but to
+    withdraw while there was yet time; and some were ready to leave the
+    camp and return home, which thousands of the more undisciplined in
+    his army had done already, being more anxious to carry off their
+    plunder safely than to stay and fight. But James was eager for the
+    contest, and felt himself bound in honour to give battle to Surrey;
+    he answered haughtily those who counselled retreat, and scornfully
+    told Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, that he might go home if he
+    were afraid. The old man sorrowfully left the field, but his two
+    sons remained with their rash but gallant king, and were both
+    slain.
+
+    On the day before the battle took place, Surrey, that “auld crooked
+    carle,” as James called him, marched his men northward across the
+    Till and encamped for the night near Barmoor Wood. To the Scots
+    this looked as though they had gone off towards Berwick, to repeat
+    James’ own manoeuvre, and invade the country in the absence of its
+    king; and they must have thought that there would be little chance
+    of the battle for which James had punctiliously waited taking place
+    on the morrow. But Surrey’s purpose proved to be quite otherwise.
+    On the following morning he sent the vanguard of his army, with the
+    artillery, to make a detour of several miles round by Twizell
+    bridge, where they re-crossed to the south bank of the Till; and
+    coming south-eastward towards Flodden, they were joined by the rest
+    of the army, which had plunged through the stream, swollen by
+    continuous rains, at two points near Crookham. The two divisions
+    met at Branxton, after having waded through a marsh which extended
+    from Branxton nearly to the Till, and which the Scots had thought
+    impassable.
+
+    Seeing that the English were about to occupy Branxton Hill, which
+    would entirely cut him off from communication with Scotland, James
+    was forced to abandon his advantageous position; he gave orders for
+    the camp-refuse to be fired, and under cover of the dense clouds of
+    smoke marched down to forestall Surrey and occupy Branxton ridge.
+    The two armies suddenly found themselves within a few spears’
+    length of each other, and the battle was begun by the artillery on
+    both sides.
+      Sudden, as he spoke, From the sharp ridges of the hill, All
+      downward to the banks of Till Was wreathed in sable smoke.
+      Volumed, and vast, and rolling far, The cloud enveloped
+      Scotland’s war As down the hill they broke; Nor martial shout,
+      nor minstrel tone Announced their march; their tread alone, At
+      times one warning trumpet blown, At times a stifled hum. Told
+      England, from his mountain throne King James did rushing come.
+      Scarce could they hear or see their foes Until at weapon-point
+      they close.
+
+    Many of the raw levies on the English side fled at the first sound
+    of the Scottish cannon; but the master of the ordnance, Lord
+    Sinclair, was killed, and his guns silenced. Then the battle
+    joined, and the first result was that the English right wing under
+    Sir Edmund Howard was scattered and broken before the impetuous
+    charge of the Gordons and Highlanders under the Earl of Huntley and
+    Lord Home. Sir Edmund narrowly escaped with his life; but Lord
+    Dacre bringing up his reserve of horsemen at that moment checked
+    the further advance of the Scots. The two central divisions of the
+    armies engaged each other fiercely, the Earl of Surrey, with his
+    son Sir Thomas Howard commanding the English centre, and King
+    James, with the Earls of Crawford and Montrose that of the Scots.
+    Sir Thomas, after having been so hard pressed as to send the _Agnus
+    Dei_ he wore to his father as a signal for help, afterwards with
+    Sir Marmaduke Constable defeated the Earl of Crawford, whose
+    division was opposed to him. Dacre and Sir Thomas now charged Lord
+    Home and drove him some little way back, but could not dislodge his
+    men entirely from their position. The Earl of Bothwell, who
+    commanded the Scottish reserves, now came up to the help of the
+    king, and the day seemed about to be decided in favour of the
+    Scots, when Lord Stanley, on the English left, exactly reversed the
+    fortunes of the right wing, and scattered and routed the
+    Highlanders led by the Earls of Lennox and Argyle. Then with his
+    Lancashire lads he attacked the rear of the Scottish position, as
+    did also Dacre and Sir Thomas Howard.
+  “They saw Lord Marmion’s falcon fly, And stainless Tunstall’s banner
+  white And Edmund Howard’s lion bright All bear them bravely in the
+  fight, Although against them come Of gallant Gordons many a one, And
+  many a stubborn Highlandman, And many a rugged Border clan With
+  Huntly and with Home. Far on the left, unseen the while, Stanley
+  broke Lennox and Argyle.”
+
+    Nothing now remained for the Scottish centre, hemmed in on all
+    sides, but to make a stubborn last stand; and gallantly did they do
+    it. The flower of Scotland’s chivalry surrounded their brave
+    monarch, and in the falling dusk fought desperately to guard their
+    king.
+  “No thought was there of dastard flight; Linked in that serried
+  phalanx tight, Groom fought like noble, squire like knight, As
+  fearlessly and well. The stubborn spearmen still made good Their dark
+  impenetrable wood, Each stepping where his comrade stood The instant
+  that he fell.”
+
+    As night fell, the fierce struggle continued until the darkness
+    made it impossible to see friend or foe, but the fate of Scotland’s
+    bravest was sealed. The king lay dead, covered with wounds, and
+    around him a heap of slain; those who were able made their way in
+    haste from the field, while the English host encamped where it
+    stood. The more lawless in each army plundered both sides
+    impartially, and when the king’s body was found next day, it too
+    was stripped like many others around it.
+  “Then did their loss his foemen know, Their king, their lords, their
+  mightiest low, They melted from the field as snow Dissolves in silent
+  dew. Tweed’s echoes heard the ceaseless plash While many a broken
+  band, Disordered, through its currents dash To gain the Scottish
+  land; To town and tower, to down and dale, To tell red Flodden’s
+  dismal tale, And raise the universal wail.”
+
+    The tragic effects of that terrible day were long felt in Scotland.
+    Every family of note in the land lost one or more of its members on
+    the fatal field, besides the thousands of humbler beings who fell
+    at the same time. Scotland did not recover from the crushing blow
+    for more than a hundred years; and for many a day the people could
+    not believe that their gallant king was really slain, but continued
+    to hope that he had escaped in the darkness, and would one day
+    return.
+
+    There has recently been erected on Flodden Field a simple cross of
+    stone as a memorial of that tragic day. It was unveiled on
+    September 27th, 1910, by Sir George Douglas, Bart. The inscription
+    on the stone is “To the Brave of both Nations.”
+  THE FLOWERS OF THE FOREST.
+  A LAMENT FOR FLODDEN.
+  I’ve heard the liltin’ at our ewe-milking, Lasses a’ liltin’ before
+  dawn o’ day; But now they are moaning on ilka green loaning— The
+  Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.
+  At bughts,[12] in the mornin’, nae blythe lads are scornin’, Lasses
+  are lonely and dowie and wae; Nae daffin’, nae jabbin’, but sighin’
+  and sabbin’, Ilk ane lifts her leglin[13] and hies her away.
+  In harst, at the shearing, nae youths now are jeering, Bandsters are
+  lyart,[14] and runkled, and gray; At fair or at preaching, nae
+  wooing, nae fleeching[15] The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.
+  At e’en, in the gloaming, nae younkers are roaming ’Bout stacks, with
+  the lasses at “bogle” to play; But ilk ane sits drearie, lamenting
+  her dearie— The Flowers of the Forest are weded away.
+  Dool and wae for the order sent our lads to the Border! The English
+  for ance by guile wan the day; The Flowers of the Forest, that fought
+  aye the foremost, The prime of our land, are cauld in the clay.
+  We’ll hear nae mair liltin’ at our ewe-milkin’; Women and bairns are
+  heartless and wae; Sighing and moaning on ilka green loaning— The
+  Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.
+
+ [12] Bughts = sheep-pens.
+
+ [13] Leglin = milk-pail.
+
+ [14] Lyart = grizzled.
+
+ [15] Fleeching = coaxing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. TALES AND LEGENDS.
+
+
+    Northumberland, as might be guessed from its wild history, is rich
+    in tales of daring and stories of gallant deeds; there are true
+    tales, as well as legendary ones, which latter, after all, may be
+    true in substance though not in detail, in spirit and possibility
+    though not in a certain sequence of facts. Now-a-days we look upon
+    dragons as fabulous animals, and stories of the destruction they
+    wrought, their fierceness and their might are dismissed with a
+    smile, and mentally relegated to a place amongst the fairy tales
+    that delighted our childhood’s days, when the idea of belief or
+    disbelief simply did not enter the question. Yet what are the
+    dragon stories but faint memories of those gigantic and fearsome
+    beasts which roamed the earth in the “dim, red dawn of man”—their
+    names, as we read the labels on their skeletons in our museums,
+    being now the most fearsome things about them! No one can deny that
+    the ichthyosaurus, plesiosaurus, and all the rest of their tribe
+    did exist; and were they to be encountered in these days would
+    spread the same terror around, and find man almost as helpless
+    before them as did any fierce dragon of the fairy tales. That part
+    of the legends, therefore, has its foundation in fact; though from
+    the nature of the case, we certainly do not possess an
+    authenticated account of any particular contest between primitive
+    man and one of these gigantic creatures. That oldest Northumbrian
+    poem, however, the “Beowulf,” chants the praises of its hero’s
+    prowess in encounters of the kind; and the north-country still has
+    its legends of the Sockburn Worm, the Lambton Worm, and the
+    “Laidly” Worm of Spindleston Heugh, the two first having their
+    _venue_ in Durham, and the last in Northumberland. The
+    Spindlestone, a high crag not far from Bamburgh, and Bamburgh
+    Castle itself, form the scene of this well-known legend. The fair
+    Princess Margaret, daughter of the King of Bamburgh was turned into
+    a “laidly worm” (loathly or loathsome serpent) by her wicked
+    stepmother, who was jealous of the lovely maid. The whole district
+    was in terror of this dreadful monster, which desolated the
+    country-side in its search for food.
+  “For seven miles east and seven miles west And seven miles north and
+  south, No blade of grass or corn would grow, So deadly was her mouth.
+  The milk of seven streakit cows It was her cost to kepe, They brought
+  her dayly, whyche she drank Before she wente to slepe.”
+
+    This offering proved successful in pacifying the creature, and it
+    remained in the cave at Spindleston, coming out daily to drink its
+    fill from the trough prepared for it. But the fear of it in no wise
+    diminished, and
+  “Word went east, and word went west, And word is gone over the sea,
+  That a laidly worm in Spindleston Heugh Would ruin the North
+  Countree.”
+
+    The news in due course comes to the ears of Princess Margaret’s
+    only brother, the Childe Wynde, who is away seeking fame and
+    fortune abroad. In fear for his lovely sister, he calls together
+    his “merry men all,” and they set to work to build a ship
+  “With masts of the rowan-tree,”
+
+    a sure defence against the spells of witchcraft; and hoisting their
+    silken sails they hasten homeward.
+  “... ... The wind with speed Blew them along the deep. The sea was
+  calm, the weather clear, When they approached nigher; King Ida’s
+  castle well they knew, And the banks of Bamburghshire.”
+
+    The wicked queen saw the little bark coming near, and knew that her
+    guilt was about to meet its reward. In haste she tried to wreck the
+    vessel, but the rowan-tree masts made her spells of no avail. Then
+    she bade her servants go to the beach and oppose the landing of the
+    Childe and his crew; but the servants were beaten back, and the
+    young knight and his men landed in Budle Bay. The worm came
+    fiercely to the attack, as the Childe Wynde advanced against it;
+    but on meeting him, and feeling the touch of his “berry-brown
+    sword,” it besought him to do it no harm.
+  “‘O quit thy sword, unbend thy brow, And give me kisses three; For
+  though I be a laidly worm No harm I’ll do to thee.
+  O quit thy sword, unbend thy brow, And give me kisses three; If I’m
+  not won ere the sun goes down Won shall I never be.’
+  He quitted his sword, and smoothed his brow, And gave her kisses
+  three; She crept intill the hole a worm, And came out a fayre ladie.”
+
+    The knight clasped his lovely sister in his arms, and, casting
+    around her his crimson cloak, led her back to her home, where the
+    trembling queen awaited them. Her doom was spoken by the Childe
+    Wynde—
+  “Woe be to thee, thou wicked witch; An ill death mayst thou dee! As
+  thou hast likened my sister dear, So likened shalt thou be”
+
+    and he turned her into the likeness of an ugly toad, in which
+    hateful shape she remained to her dying day, wandering around the
+    castle and the green fields, an object of hatred to all who saw
+    her. The “Spindlestone,” a tall crag on which the young knight hung
+    his bridle, when he went further on to seek the worm in the
+    “heugh,” is still to be seen, but the huge trough from which the
+    worm was said to drink has been destroyed.
+
+    There are two legends somewhat similar to each other which are told
+    of a company held in the spell of a magic sleep, to be awakened by
+    certain devices, in which the blowing of a horn and the drawing of
+    a sword are prominent. One is the story of “Sir Guy the Seeker,”
+    and is told of Dunstanborough Castle. Sir Guy sought refuge in the
+    Castle from a storm; and while within the walls a spectre form with
+    flaming hair addressed him,
+  “Sir knight, Sir knight, if your heart be right, And your nerves be
+  firm and true,”
+
+    (fancy “nerves” in a ballad!)—
+  “Sir knight, Sir knight, a beauty bright In durance waits for you.”
+
+    The ballad, written by M.G. Lewis, now describes in a painfully
+    commonplace manner the knight’s further adventures. He and his
+    guide wandered round and round and high and low in the maze of
+    chambers within the castle, until at last a door of brass, whose
+    bolt was a venomous snake, gave them entrance to a gloomy hall,
+    draped in black, which the “hundred lights” failed to brighten. In
+    the hall a hundred knights of “marble white” lay sleeping by their
+    steeds of “marble black as the raven’s back.” At the end of the
+    hall, guarded by two huge skeleton forms, the imprisoned lady was
+    seen in tears within a crystal tomb. One skeleton held in his bony
+    fingers a horn, the other a “falchion bright,” and the knight was
+    told to choose between them, and the fate of himself and the lady
+    would depend upon his choice. Sir Guy, after long hesitation, blew
+    a shrill blast upon the horn; at the sound the hundred steeds
+    stamped their hoofs, the hundred knights sprang up, and the unlucky
+    knight fell down senseless, with his ghastly guide’s words ringing
+    in his ears—
+  “Shame on the coward who sounded a horn When he might have unsheathed
+  a sword!”
+
+    In the morning, the unfortunate Sir Guy awoke to find himself lying
+    amongst the ruins, and forthwith began his ceaseless and unavailing
+    search for the lady he had failed to rescue.
+
+    The legend similar to this in many respects is that of King Arthur
+    and his court at Sewingshields, to which allusion has already been
+    made in the chapter on the Roman Wall. I cannot do better than give
+    this in the words of Mr. Hodgson, who tells the story in his
+    History of Northumberland. “Immemorial tradition has asserted that
+    King Arthur, his queen Guenever, his court of lords and ladies, and
+    his hounds were enchanted in some cave of the crags, or in a hall
+    below the castle of Sewingshields, and would continue entranced
+    there until someone should first blow a bugle-horn that lay on a
+    table near the entrance of the hall, and then with the ‘sword of
+    the stone’ (was this Excalibur?) cut a garter, also placed there
+    beside it. But none had ever heard where the entrance to this
+    enchanted hall was, till the farmer at Sewingshields, about fifty
+    years since, was sitting knitting on the ruins of the castle, and
+    his clew fell, and ran downwards through a rush of briars and
+    nettles, as he supposed, into a subterraneous passage. Full in the
+    faith that the entrance to King Arthur’s hall had now been
+    discovered, he cleared the briary portal of its weeds and rubbish,
+    and entering a vaulted passage, followed in his darkling way the
+    thread of his clew. The floor was infested with toads and lizards;
+    and the dark wings of bats, disturbed by his unhallowed intrusion,
+    flitted fearfully around him. At length his sinking courage was
+    strengthened by a dim, distant light, which as he advanced grew
+    gradually brighter, till all at once he entered a vast and vaulted
+    hall, in the centre of which a fire without fuel, from a broad
+    crevice in the floor blazed with a high and lambent flame, that
+    showed all the carved walls and fretted roof, and the monarch and
+    his queen and court reposing around, in a theatre of thrones and
+    costly couches. On the floor beyond the fire lay the faithful and
+    deep-toned pack of thirty couple of hounds; and on a table before
+    it the spell-dissolving horn, sword, and garter. The shepherd
+    reverently, but firmly, grasped the sword, and as he drew it
+    leisurely from its rusty scabbard, the eyes of the monarch and his
+    courtiers began to open, and they rose till they sat upright. He
+    cut the garter; and as the sword was being slowly sheathed the
+    spell assumed its ancient power, and they all gradually sank to
+    rest; but not before the monarch had lifted up his eyes and hands,
+    and exclaimed—
+  “O woe betide that evil day On which this witless wight was born, Who
+  drew the sword, the garter cut. But never blew the bugle horn!”
+
+    Terror brought on loss of memory, and the shepherd was unable to
+    give any correct account of his adventure, or to find again the
+    entrance to the enchanted hall.
+
+    Another legend is connected with Tynemouth. Just above the short
+    sands was a cave known as Jingling Geordie’s Hole; the “Geordie” is
+    evidently a late interpolation, for earlier mention of the cave
+    gives it as the Jingling Man’s Hole. No one knows how it came by
+    its name; tradition says that it was the entrance to a subterranean
+    passage leading from the Priory beneath the Tyne to Jarrow. In this
+    cave it was said that a treasure of a fabulous amount was
+    concealed, and the tale of this hoard fired a boy named Walter to
+    seek it out, when he heard the tale from his mother. On his
+    attaining to knighthood, he resolved to make the finding of the
+    treasure his particular “quest,” and arming himself, he adventured
+    forth on the Eve of St. John. Making his way fearlessly down into
+    the cave, undaunted by spectre or dragon, as they attempted to
+    dispute his passage, he arrived at a gloomy gateway, where hung a
+    bugle, fastened by a golden cord. Boldly he placed the bugle to his
+    lips, and blew three loud blasts. To his amazement, at the sound
+    the doors rolled back, displaying a vast and brightly-lit hall,
+    whose roof was supported on pillars of jasper and crystal; the glow
+    from lamps of gold shone softly down on gold and gems, which were
+    heaped upon the floor of this magic chamber, and the treasure
+    became the rich reward of the dauntless youth.
+  “Gold heaped upon gold, and emeralds green, And diamonds and rubies,
+  and sapphires untold, Rewarded the courage of Walter the Bold.”
+
+    The fortunate youth became a very great personage, indeed, as by
+    means of his great riches he was “lord of a hundred castles” and
+    wide domains.
+
+    Of a very different character is the story of the Hermit of
+    Warkworth. It is unfortunate that this, the most tragic and moving
+    of all Northumbrian tales, should be most widely known by means of
+    the prosy imitation ballad by Dr. Percy, whose ability as a poet
+    did by no means equal his zeal as a collector of ballads. The hero
+    of the sorrowful tale is said to have been a Bertram of Bothal, who
+    loved fair Isabel, daughter of the lord of Widdrington. Bertram was
+    a knight in Percy’s train, and at a great feast made by the lord of
+    Alnwick the fair maiden and her father were amongst the guests. As
+    the minstrels chanted the praises of their lord, and sang of the
+    valiant deeds by which his noble house had won renown, the heart of
+    Isabel thrilled at the thought of her true knight rivalling those
+    deeds of fame. Summoning one of her attendant maidens, she sent her
+    to Bertram, bearing a helmet of steel with crest of gold. With the
+    helmet the maiden gave her mistress’ message, that she would yield
+    to her knight’s pleadings and become his bride, as soon as he had
+    proved himself a valiant and worthy wearer of the golden-crested
+    helm. Reverently Bertram accepted the commands of his lady, and
+    vowed to prove his devotion wherever hard blows were to be given
+    and danger to be found. The lord of Alnwick straightway arranged
+    for an expedition on to Scottish land, in requital of old scores,
+    and assembled together a goodly company to ride against the Scots.
+    Earl Douglas and his men opposed them, and blows were dealt thick
+    and fast on both sides. Bertram was sorely wounded, after showing
+    wondrous prowess in the fight; but being rescued by Percy, was
+    borne to the castle of Wark upon the Tweed, to recover from his
+    wounds in safety. Isabel’s aged father had seen the young knight’s
+    valour, and promised that the maiden herself should tend his hurts
+    and care for him until he recovered. Day after day passed, however,
+    and still she came not. At last the knight, scarcely able to take
+    the saddle, rode back to Widdrington, tended by his gallant young
+    brother, to satisfy himself of what had become of his lady. They
+    reached Widdrington tower to find it all in darkness; and after
+    repeated knockings the aged nurse came to the gateway and demanded
+    the name of those who so insistently clamoured at the door. Bertram
+    enquired for the lady Isabel; and then, indeed, all was dismay. The
+    nurse, trembling with fear, told the two youths that her mistress
+    had set out immediately on hearing of her lover’s plight,
+    reproaching herself for having led him to adventure his life so
+    rashly, and it was now six days since she had gone. Weary and weak,
+    Bertram rested the night at the castle, and then set out on his
+    search for his lost lady. That they might the sooner search the
+    country round, he and his brother, who loved him dearly, took
+    different directions, one going eastward, and the other north. They
+    put on various disguises as they went, Bertram appearing now in the
+    guise of a holy Palmer, now as a wandering minstrel As he was
+    sitting, despondent and well-nigh despairing, beneath a hawthorn
+    tree, an aged monk came by, and on seeing the supposed minstrel’s
+    face of sorrow, said to him,
+  “All minstrels yet that e’er I saw Are full of game and glee, But
+  thou art sad and woe-begone; I marvel whence it be.”
+
+    Bertram replied that he served an aged lord whose only child had
+    been stolen away, and that he would know no happiness until he had
+    found her. The pilgrim comforted him and bade him hope, telling him
+    that
+  “Behind yon hills so steep and high, Down in a lonely glen, There
+  stands a castle fair and strong, Far from the abode of men.”
+
+    Saying that he had heard a lady’s voice lamenting in this lonely
+    tower, he passed on, giving Bertram the hope that now at last his
+    quest was ended. He made his way to that strong castle, and with
+    his music prevailed upon the porter to let him stay near at hand in
+    a cavern; for the porter refused to admit him to the castle in the
+    absence of his lord, though at the same time giving him food and
+    directing him to the cave. He piped all day and watched all night,
+    and was rewarded by hearing his lady’s voice lamenting within the
+    walls of her prison. On the second night he caught a glimpse of her
+    beauteous form, fair as the moonbeams that shone around the tower.
+    On the third night, worn with watching, he slept, and only awakened
+    as dawn drew nigh. Grasping his weapon, he stole near to the castle
+    walls, when to his amazement, he saw his lady descend from her
+    window by a ladder of rope, held for her by a youth in Highland
+    dress. Stunned at the sight, he could not move to follow them, till
+    they had left behind them the castle where the lady had been held
+    captive, and were about to disappear over the hill. Silently and
+    swiftly then he drew near, and crying furiously, “Vile traitor!
+    yield that lady up!” fell upon the youth who accompanied her, who
+    in his turn fought as furiously as he. In a few moments Bertram’s
+    antagonist lay stretched on the ground; and as he gave him the
+    fatal thrust he cried, “Die, traitor, die!” The lady recognised his
+    voice, and rushing forward, shrieked, “Stay! stay! it is thy
+    brother.” But the sword of Bertram, already descending with the
+    force of rage and fury in the blow, could not be stayed until too
+    late. The fair maid’s breast was pierced by the sword of the knight
+    who loved her, and she sank down by the side of the youth who had
+    delivered her. It was indeed Bertram’s brother, who had succeeded
+    in his search; and the dying maiden found time to tell of his
+    devotion, in rescuing her from this castle of the son of a Scottish
+    lord who fain would have made her his bride, before she, too, lay
+    lifeless by the side of her brave rescuer, leaving her lover too
+    despairing and desolate to seek safety in flight, so that the band
+    of searchers from the castle, seeking their prisoner on the hills,
+    and dreading their lord’s wrath on his return, bore him back with
+    them to the dungeon. Their lord, however, had meantime been taken
+    captive by Percy (Hotspur), who, as soon as he heard of Bertram’s
+    capture, quickly exchanged the Scottish chief for his friend.
+    Bertram’s sorrow lasted for the rest of his days; he gave away his
+    lands and possessions to the poor, and retiring to a lovely spot on
+    the banks of the Coquet, where rocky cliffs overhung the river, he
+    carved out in the living stone a little cell, dormitory, and
+    chapel, and dwelt there, passing his days in mourning, meditation,
+    and prayer. In the chapel, with its gracefully arched roof, he
+    fashioned on an altar-tomb the image of a lady, and at her feet the
+    figure of a hermit, in the attitude of grief, one hand supporting
+    his head and the other pressed against his breast, leaning over and
+    gazing at the lady for ever. The poignant sentence “My tears have
+    been my meat day and night,” is carved over the entrance to the
+    little chapel. Here, in this beautiful spot, almost under the
+    shadow of the castle walls belonging to his noble friend, the
+    sorrowing knight, now a holy hermit, spent the remainder of his
+    life in the little dwelling he had wrought in the living rock. It
+    remains to-day more beautiful, if possible, than ever, overhung by
+    a canopy of waving greenery, and draped with ferns and mosses,
+    their graceful fronds laved by the rippling Coquet whose gentle
+    murmurings fill the still air with music.
+
+    The next tale takes us to the neighbourhood of Belford, and out
+    upon the old post road from London to Edinburgh. In the unsettled
+    times of James the Second’s reign, one Sir John Cochrane of
+    Ochiltree was condemned to death for his part in the rising which
+    was led by the Duke of Argyle. Powerful friends, heavily bribed by
+    Sir John’s father, the Earl of Dundonald, were working in Sir
+    John’s favour, and they had strong hopes of obtaining a pardon. But
+    meanwhile, Sir John lay in the Tolbooth at Edinburgh, and the
+    warrant for his execution was already on its way northward, in the
+    post-bag carried forward by horseman after horseman throughout the
+    length of the way. Could the arrival of the warrant only be delayed
+    by some means, his life might be saved. In this strait, his
+    daughter Grizzel, a girl of eighteen, conceived the desperate idea
+    of preventing the warrant’s reaching its destination. Saying
+    nothing to anyone of her intentions, she stole away from home, and
+    rode swiftly to the Border. Following the road for about four miles
+    on the English side, she arrived at the house of her old nurse; and
+    here she changed her clothes, persuading the old dame to lend her a
+    suit belonging to her foster-brother. Making her way southward, she
+    went to the inn at Belford where the riders carrying the mail
+    usually put up for the night. Here, the same night, came the
+    postman, and the seeming youth watched nervously, but determinedly,
+    for an opportunity of finding out whether the fateful paper was in
+    his bag or not. No slightest chance presented itself, however, and
+    an attempt to obtain the mail-bag during the night failed by reason
+    of the fact that the man slept upon it. One thing she did
+    accomplish, which gave her hope that the encounter for which she
+    was nerving herself might end successfully for her; she managed,
+    unseen, to draw the charges from his pistols. Then the courageous
+    girl rode off through the dark night to select a favourable spot in
+    which to await his coming. For two or three lonely hours she
+    waited, the thought that she was fighting for her father’s life
+    giving her courage. In the dim light of the early dawn she heard
+    the sound of his horse’s hoofs from where she stood in the shadow
+    of a clump of trees; and steeling herself for the part she was to
+    play, and in ignorance of whether he might have found out that the
+    charges had been withdrawn from his pistols and might have
+    re-loaded them, she waited until he was almost abreast of her, and
+    fired at his horse, bringing it down. Before he could extricate
+    himself she was upon him with drawn sword; but promising to spare
+    his life if he would let her have the mail-bag, she seized it and
+    darted away. He attempted to follow to recover his charge, but she
+    reached her horse, and rode off like the wind. When she reached a
+    place of safety and examined the contents of the bag, what was her
+    joy to find that the warrant was there. It was speedily destroyed;
+    and during the time that elapsed before the news of the loss could
+    be sent to London and another one made out, the friends of Sir John
+    succeeded in obtaining his pardon. “Cochrane’s bonny Grizzy” lived
+    to a good old age; and “Grizzy’s clump” on the north road near the
+    little village of Buckton keeps green the memory of her daring
+    exploit.
+
+    “Bonny Grizzy” was a Scottish maid, though her gallant if lawless
+    deed was performed on Northumbrian soil; but there is one
+    Northumbrian maiden whose fame will live as long as the sea-waves
+    beat on the wild north-east coast, and as long as men’s hearts
+    thrill to a tale of courage and high resolve. Grace Darling’s name
+    still awakens in every bosom a response to all that is
+    compassionate, courageous, and unselfish; and the thoughts of all
+    north-country folk bold that admiration for the gentle girl which
+    has been voiced as no other could voice it, in the magical words of
+    Swinburne—
+  “Take, O star of all our seas, from not an alien hand, Homage paid of
+  song bowed down before thy glory’s face, Thou the living light of all
+  our lovely stormy strand, Thou the brave north-country’s very glory
+  of glories, Grace.”
+
+    The story of her gallantry has been many times re-told, but never
+    grows wearisome. The memory of that stormy voyage of the
+    _Forfarshire_, which ended in disaster on the Harcar rocks in the
+    Farne group, remains in men’s minds as the dark and tragic setting
+    which throws into bright relief the gallant action of the father
+    and daughter who dared almost certain death to rescue their
+    fellow-creatures in peril. It was in September, 1838, that the
+    ill-fated vessel left Hull for Dundee; but a leak in the boilers
+    caused the fires to be nearly extinguished in the storm the vessel
+    encountered. It reached St. Abb’s Head by the aid of the sails, but
+    then drifted southward, driven by the storm, and struck in the
+    early morning, in a dense fog, on the Harcar rocks. Nine of the
+    people on board managed to escape in a small boat, which was driven
+    in a miraculous manner through the only safe outlet between the
+    rocks. They were picked up by a passing boat and taken to Shields.
+    Meanwhile a heavy sea had crashed down upon the _Forfarshire_, and
+    broken it in half, one portion, with the greater number of crew and
+    passengers, being swept away immediately. The remaining portion,
+    the fore part of the vessel, was firmly fixed upon the rock. Here
+    the shivering survivors clung all that stormy day, the waves
+    dashing over them continually. The captain and his wife were washed
+    overboard, clasped in each others’ arms; and two little children, a
+    boy of eight and a girl of eleven years of age, died from exposure
+    and the relentless buffeting of the waves, their distracted mother
+    clasping them by the hand long after life was extinct. To a
+    terrible day succeeded a yet more terrible night.
+  “Scarce the cliffs of the islets, scarce the walls of Joyous Gard
+  Flash to sight between the deadlier lightnings of the sea; Storm is
+  lord and master of a midnight evil-starred, Nor may sight nor fear
+  discern what evil stars may be.”
+
+    Until the morning they endured; and in the stormy dawn the keeper
+    of the Longstone lighthouse, William Darling, and his daughter
+    Grace saw them huddled in a shivering heap upon the wave-swept
+    fragments of the wreck. The girl begged her father to try to save
+    them, and to allow her to help in the task, and after some natural
+    hesitation he consented. The brave-hearted mother helped them to
+    launch the boat, and they set forth.
+
+[Illustration: The Wreck of the “Forfarshire”]
+
+  “Sire and daughter, hand on oar and face against the night. Maid and
+  man whose names are beacons ever to the north. ...... all the madness
+  of the stormy surf Hounds and roars them back, but roars and hounds
+  them back in   vain.
+  Not our mother, not Northumberland, brought ever forth. Though no
+  southern shore may match the sons that kiss her mouth, Children
+  worthier all the birthright given of the ardent north, Where the fire
+  of hearts outburns the suns that fire the south.”
+  They reached the rock, where nine persons were still clinging to the
+  wreck, and
+  “Life by life the man redeems them, head by storm-worn head, While
+  the girl’s hand stays the boat whereof the waves are fain.”
+
+    With five of the exhausted survivors the boat returned to the
+    Longstone; and two of the men went back with William Darling for
+    the other four. All were safely housed in the lighthouse and tended
+    by the noble family of the Darlings; but the storm raged for
+    several days longer, and made it impossible for them to be put
+    ashore. When at length they returned to their homes, and the story
+    of the rescue was made known, the whole country was moved by it;
+    and presents of all kinds, money, and offers of marriage poured in
+    upon Grace, who remained quite unmoved by it all, and was still the
+    gentle unassuming girl that she had always been. She refused to
+    leave her home, though she was offered twenty pounds a night at the
+    Adelphi if she would consent merely to sit in a boat for London
+    audiences to gaze upon her. Sad to say, she died of consumption
+    about two years afterwards, after having tried in vain to arrest
+    the course of her sickness by change of air at Wooler and Alnwick;
+    and she sleeps in Bamburgh churchyard, within sound of the sea by
+    which she had spent her short life.
+  “East and west and south acclaim her queen of England’s maids. Star
+  more sweet than all their stars, and flower than all their flowers.”
+
+    The actual boat in which the gallant deed was performed was long
+    preserved at Newton Hall, Stocksfield; but the owners have lately
+    presented it to the Marine Laboratory at Cullercoats.
+
+[Illustration: Drawing of boat]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. BALLADS AND POEMS.
+
+
+    The ballads of Northumberland, as all true ballads should do,
+    partake of the characteristics of the district which is their home.
+    As we should expect, they treat chiefly of warlike themes, of the
+    chieftain’s doughty deeds, the moss-trooper’s daring and skill, of
+    the knight’s courtesies and gallant feats of arms, and the feuds of
+    rival clans; in fact, they portray for us vividly the time of which
+    they treat, and in a few graphic touches bring before us the very
+    spirit of the period. In direct and simple phrases the narrative
+    proceeds, giving with rare power just the necessary expression to
+    the tale.
+
+    These ballads fall naturally into three main divisions. The
+    historical ballad is at its best in the famous “Chevy-Chase,” which
+    has been the delight of gentle and simple for centuries; and the
+    oft-quoted declaration of Sir Philip Sidney concerning it still
+    finds an echo in our own day.
+
+    Of the two best known versions of the ballad, the one here given is
+    the more poetical by far; the other, however, contains the account
+    of the courage of Hugh Widdrington which has made the gallant
+    squire immortal.
+
+    The latter version is as evidently English as the former is
+    Scottish; or rather, each has grown to its present form as the
+    reciters exercised their art to please an English or a Scottish
+    audience. In the one version it is Douglas who takes the offensive,
+    and challenges Percy, waiting for him at Otterbourne; in the other
+    we are told that
+  “The stout Erle of Northumberland A vow to God did make, His pleasure
+  in the Scottish woods Three summer days to take.”
+
+    On the death of Douglas—
+  “Erle Percy took The dead man by the hand, And said, ‘Erle Douglas,
+  for thy life Would I had lost my land!’”
+
+    When the battle is over,
+  “Next day did many widdowes come Their husbands to bewayle; Their
+  bodyes bathed in purple blood They bore with them away; They kist
+  them dead a thousand times Ere they were cladd in clay.”
+
+    It was neither of these versions, however, that so moved the heart
+    of gallant Sidney, but a much older one, beginning
+  “The Perse owt off Northomberlande And a vow to God made he, That he
+  wold hunt in the mountayns Off Chyviat within days iii.”
+
+    Other historical ballads are “The Rising of the North,” “The Raid
+    of the Reidswire,” “Flodden Field,” “Homildon Hils” and “Hedgeley
+    Moor.”
+
+    The next division may be termed semi-historical; that is, they
+    treat of events which actually happened, but which have chiefly a
+    local interest; and these may therefore be said to be more truly
+    Northumbrian than any others. Such are “Jock o’ the Side,” “Johnnie
+    Armstrong,” “Hobbie Noble” and “The Death of Parcy Reed.”
+
+    Of the third class, the romantic ballads, we have not so rich a
+    store; yet “The Gay Goss-hawk,” the “Nut-browne Mayde” and the
+    touchingly beautiful “Barthram’s Dirge” may stand amongst the best
+    of their kind.
+
+    “The Gay Gross-hawk” is one of those delightful and imaginative
+    productions of which there are so many examples, in which birds and
+    hounds share their lords’ and ladies’ secrets, and serve them
+    staunchly in hours of peril; they belong to the times when fairies
+    were still seen holding their moonlight revels, when witches
+    exercised their baleful arts, and fearsome dragons wore still to be
+    met and conquered—“and if you do not believe it,” said Dr. Spence
+    Watson, “I am sorry for you!”
+
+    The “Nut-browne Mayde” is supposed to have been a Lady Margaret
+    Percy, who lived in the reign of Henry VIII.; and the lover to whom
+    she was so faithful, notwithstanding his trial of her love by
+    declaring that he was an outlaw, and “must to the greenwood go,
+    alone, a banished man,” was Henry Clifford, son of the Earl of
+    Westmoreland. The inordinate length of this ballad forbade its
+    inclusion in the present selection; I am sensible that that
+    selection may appear somewhat meagre, but only want of space has
+    prevented the inclusion of others that many of my readers would
+    doubtless have been glad to see.
+
+    Of songs in dialect, Joe Wilson’s “Aw wish yor Muthor wad cum!”
+    stands easily first; and the other, “Sair feyl’d, hinny!” is given
+    as an example of the Northumbrian muse in another mood.
+
+    In conclusion, let me say that of the modern verse every example is
+    from the pen of a Northumbrian.
+  CHEVY CHASE I.
+  It fell about the Lammas tide, When muir-men win their hay, The
+  doughty Douglas bound him to ride Into England to drive a prey.
+  He chose the Gordons and the Graemes, With them the Lindsays, light
+  and gay; But the Jardines would not with them ride, And they rue it
+  to this day.
+  And he has burned the dales o’ Tyne, And part o’ Bamburghshire; And
+  three good towers on Reidswire fells He left them all on fire.
+  And he marched up to New Castel, And rode it round about; “O wha’s
+  the lord of this castel? Or wha’s the lady o’t?”
+  And up spake proud Lord Percy then, And O! but he spake hie! “O I’m
+  the lord of this castel, My wife’s the lady gay.”
+  “If thou art the lord of this castel, Sae weel it pleases me! For ere
+  I cross the Border fells, The tane of us sall die.”
+  He took a lang spere in his hand Shod wi’ the metal free, And for to
+  meet the Douglas there He rode right furiouslie!
+  But oh! how pale his lady looked Frae off the castle wa’, When down
+  before the Scottish speare She saw proud Percy fa’!
+  “Had we twa been upon the green, And never an eye to see, I wad hae
+  had you, flesh and fell, But your sword shall gae wi’ me.”
+  “But gae ye up to Otterbourne And wait there dayis three, And if I
+  come not ere three dayis end, A fause knight ca’ ye me.”
+  “The Otterbourne’s a bonnie burn, ’Tis pleasant there to be; But
+  there is naught at Otterbourne To feed my men and me.
+  “The deer rins wild on hill and dale, The birds fly wild frae tree to
+  tree, But there is neither bread nor kale To feed my men and me.
+  “Yet I will stay at Otterbourne Where you sall welcome be; And if ye
+  come not at three dayis end A fause lord I’ll call thee.”
+  “Thither will I come,” proud Percy said, “By the might of Our Ladye!”
+  “Thither will I bide thee,” said the Douglas, “My troth I plight to
+  thee.”
+  They lighted high on Otterbourne, Upon the bent sae brown; They
+  lighted high on Otterbourne And threw their pallions down.
+  And he that had a bonnie boy, Sent out his horse to grass; And he
+  that had not a bonnie boy, His ain servant he was.
+  And up then spake a little foot-page, Before the peep o’ dawn— “O
+  waken, waken ye, my good lord, The Percy is hard at hand!”
+  “Ye lee, ye lee, ye leear loud! Sae loud I hear ye lee! For Percy had
+  not men yestreen To dight my men and me!”
+  “But I hae dreamed a dreary dream, Beyond the Isle of Skye; I saw a
+  dead man win a fight, An’ I think that man was I.”
+  He belted on his gude braid-sword, And to the field he ran; But he
+  forgot his helmet good, That should have kept his brain.
+  When Percy wi’ the Douglas met I wat he was fu’ fain! They swakked
+  their swords till sair they swat, The blude ran down like rain.
+  But Percy, with his gude braid-sword, That could sae sharply wound,
+  Has stricken Douglas on the brow, Till he fell to the ground.
+  Then he called on his little foot-page And said, “Run speedilie, And
+  fetch my ain dear sister’s son, Sir Hugh Montgomerie.”
+  “My nephew good,” the Douglas said, “What recks the death of ane?
+  Last night I dreamed a dreary dream, And I ken the day’s thy ain.
+  “My wound is deep, I fain wad sleep; Take thou the vanguard of the
+  three, And hide me by the bracken bush That grows on yonder lilye
+  lea.
+  “O bury me by the bracken bush, Beneath the bloomin’ brier; Let never
+  a living mortal ken That ever a kindly Scot lies here.”
+  He lifted up that noble lord, Wi’ the saut tear in his e’e; He hid
+  him in the bracken bush That his merrie men might not see.
+  The moon was clear, the day drew near, The speres in flinders flew,
+  And mony a gallant Englishman Ere day the Scotsmen slew.
+  The Gordons gude, in English blude They steeped their hose and shoon;
+  The Lindsays flew like fire about Till a’ the fray was dune.
+  The Percy and Montgomerie met, And either of other was fain; They
+  swakkèd swords, and sair they swat, And the blude ran doun like rain.
+  “Now yield thee, yield thee, Percy!” he cried; “Or else will I lay
+  thee low.” “To whom sall I yield?” quoth Erle Percy, “Sin I see it
+  maun be so.”
+  “Thou shalt not yield to lord or loon, Nor yet shalt thou yield to
+  me, But thou shalt yield to the bracken bush That grows on yon lilye
+  lea.”
+  “I will not yield to a bracken bush; Nor yet will I yield to a brier;
+  But I would yield to Erle Douglas, Or Hugh Montgomerie if he were
+  here.”
+  As soon as he knew it was Montgomerie He stuck his sword’s-point in
+  the gronde; The Montgomerie was a courteous knight, And quickly took
+  him by the honde.
+  This deed was done at the Otterbourne, About the breaking of the day;
+  Erle Douglas was buried at the bracken bush. And the Percy led
+  captive away.
+  JOCK O’ THE SIDE.
+  Now Liddesdale has ridden a raid, But I wat they had better hae staid
+  at hame; For Michael o’ Winfield he is dead, And Jock o’ the Side is
+  prisoner ta’en.
+  For Mangerton house Lady Downie has gane, Her coats she has kilted up
+  to her knee; And down the water wi’ speed she rins, While tears in
+  spates fa’ fast frae her e’e.
+  Then up and spoke our guid auld laird— “What news, what news, sister
+  Downie, to me?” “Bad news, bad news, for Michael is killed, And they
+  hae taken my son Johnnie.”
+  “Ne’er fear, sister Downie,” quo’ Mangerton, “I have yokes of owsen,
+  twenty and three, My barns, my byres, and my faulds a’ weel filled,
+  I’ll part wi’ them a’ ere Johnnie shall dee.
+  “Three men I’ll send to set him free, A’ harnessed wi’ the best o’
+  steel; The English loons may hear, and drie The weight o’ their
+  braid-swords to feel.
+  “The Laird’s Jock ane, the Laird’s Wat twa, O Hobbie Noble, thou ane
+  maun be! Thy coat is blue, thou has been true Since England banished
+  thee to me.”
+  Now Hobbie was an English man, In Bewcastle dale was bred and born;
+  But his misdeeds they were so great, They banished him ne’er to
+  return.
+  Laird Mangerton them orders gave, “Your horses the wrang way maun be
+  shod; Like gentlemen ye maunna seem, But look like corn-cadgers ga’en
+  the road.
+  “Your armour gude ye maunna show, Nor yet appear like men of weir; As
+  country lads be a’ array’d, Wi’ branks and brecham on each mare.”
+  Sae their horses are the wrang way shod, And Hobbie has mounted his
+  gray sae fine; Jock his lively bay, Wat’s on his white horse behind.
+  And on they rode for the water of Tyne.
+  At the Cholerford they a’ light doun, And there wi’ the help o’ the
+  light o’ the moon, A tree they cut, wi’ fifteen nogs on each side, To
+  climb up the wa’ of Newcastle toun,
+  But when they cam’ to Newcastle toun, And were alighted at the wa’
+  They fand their tree three ells ower laigh, They fand their stick
+  baith short and sma’.
+  Then up and spak the Laird’s ain Jock, “There’s naething for’t; the
+  gates we maun force.” But when they cam’ the gate untill, A proud
+  porter withstood baith men and horse.
+  His neck in twa the Armstrangs wrung; With fute or hand he ne’er
+  played pa! His life and his keys at once they hae ta’en, And cast the
+  body ahint the wa’.
+  Now sune they reach Newcastle jail, And to the prisoner thus they
+  call: “Sleeps thou, or wakes thou, Jock o’ the Side, Or art thou
+  weary of thy thrall?”
+  Jock answered thus, wi’ doleful tone, “Aft, aft I wake—I seldom
+  sleep; But wha’s this kens my name sae weel, And thus to ease my wae
+  does seek.”
+  Then out and spake the gude Laird’s Jock, “Now fear ye na’, my
+  billie,” quo’ he; “For here are the Laird’s Jock, the Laird’s Wat,
+  And Hobbie Noble, come to set thee free.”
+  “Now haud thy tongue, my gude Laird’s Jock, For ever, alas! this
+  canna be; For if a’ Liddesdale were here the night, The morn’s the
+  day that I maun dee.”
+  “Full fifteen stane o’ Spanish iron They hae laid a’ right sair or
+  me; Wi’ locks and keys I am fast bound Into this dungeon dark and
+  dreirie!”
+  “Fear ye nae that,” quo’ the Laird’s Jock; “A faint heart ne’er won a
+  fair ladie; Work thou within, we’ll work without, And I’ll be sworn
+  we’ll set thee free.”
+  The first strong door that they cam’ at, They loosed it without a
+  key; The next chain’d door that they cam’ at They gar’d it a’ to
+  flinders flee.
+  The prisoner now upon his back The Laird’s Jock has gotten up fu’
+  hie; And down the stair, him, irons and a’, Wi’ nae sma’ speid and
+  joy brings he.
+  “Now Jock, my man,” quo Hobbie Noble, “Some o’ his weight ye may lay
+  on me.” “I wat weel no,” quo’ the Laird’s ain Jock; “I count him
+  lighter than a flee.”
+  Sae out at the gates they a’ are gane, The prisoner’s set on
+  horseback hie; And now wi’ speed they’re ta’en the gate, While ilk
+  ane jokes fu’ wantonlie.
+  “O Jock! sae winsomely ’s ye ride, Wi’ baith your feet upon ae side;
+  Sae weel ye’re harnessed, and sae trig, In troth ye sit like ony
+  bride!”
+  The night, tho’ wat, they didna mind, But hied them on fu’ merrilie
+  Until they cam’ to Cholerford brae, Where the water ran baith deep
+  and hie.
+  But when they came to Cholerford, There they met with an auld man,
+  Says, “Honest man, will the water ride? Tell us in haste, if that ye
+  can.”
+  “I wat weel no,” quo’ the gude auld man; “I hae lived here thirty
+  years and three, And I ne’er yet saw the Tyne sae big, Nor running
+  anes sae like a sea.”
+  Then out and spake the Laird’s Saft Wat, The greatest coward in the
+  companie; “Now halt, now halt, we needna try’t, The day is come we a’
+  maun dee.”
+  “Puir faint-hearted thief!” cried the Laird’s ain Jock, “There’ll nae
+  man die but him that’s fey; I’ll guide ye a’ right safely thro’, Lift
+  ye the prisoner on ahint me.”
+  Wi’ that the water they hae ta’en; By anes and twas they a’ swam
+  thro’; “Here we are a’ safe,” quo’ the Laird’s Jock, “And puir faint
+  Wat, what think ye now?”
+  They scarce the other brae had won When twenty men they saw pursue;
+  Frae Newcastle toun they had been sent, A’ English lads baith stout
+  and true.
+  But when the land-serjeant the water saw, “It winna ride, my lads,”
+  says he; Then cried aloud—“The prisoner take, But leave the fetters,
+  I pray, to me.”
+  “I wat weel no,” quo’ the Laird’s Jock; “I’ll keep them a’; shoon to
+  my mare they’ll be. My gude bay mare—for I am sure She has bought
+  them a’ right dear frae thee.”
+  Sae now they are on to Liddesdale, E’en as fast as they could them
+  hie; The prisoner is brought to his ain fireside, And there o’ his
+  airns they mak’ him free.
+  “Now, Jock, ma billie,” quo’ a’ the three, “The day is com’d thou was
+  to dee. But thou’s as weel at thy ain ingle-side, Now sitting, I
+  think ’twixt thou and me.”
+  BARTHRAM’S DIRGE.
+  They shot him dead at the Nine-stane Rig, Beside the Headless Cross,
+  And they left him lying in his blood, Upon the moor and moss.
+  They made a bier of the broken bough The sauch and the aspin grey,
+  And they bore him to the Lady Chapel, And waked him there all day.
+  A lady came to that lonely bower, And threw her robes aside; She tore
+  her ling lang yellow hair, And knelt at Barthram’s side.
+  She bathed him in the Lady-Well, His wounds sae deep and sair; And
+  she plaited a garland for his breast, And a garland for his hair.
+  They rowed him in a lily sheet And bare him to his earth; And the
+  Grey Friars sung the dead man’s mass As they passed the Chapel garth.
+  They buried him at the mirk midnight, When the dew fell cold and
+  still, When the aspin grey forgot to play, And the mist clung to the
+  hill.
+  They dug his grave but a bare foot deep, By the edge of the
+  Nine-stane Burn, And they covered him o’er with the heather-flower,
+  The moss and the lady-fern.
+  A Grey Friar staid upon the grave, And sang till the morning tide;
+  And a friar shall sing for Barthram’s soul While the Headless Cross
+  shall bide.
+  THE FAIR FLOWER OF NORTHUMBERLAND
+  It was a knight in Scotland born, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) Was taken pris’ner and left forlorn, Even by the good Earl of
+  Northumberland.
+  Then was he cast in prison strong, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) Where he could not walk nor lie along, Even by the good Earl
+  of Northumberland.
+  And as in sorrow thus he lay, (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  The Earl’s sweet daughter passed that way, And she the fair flower of
+  Northumberland.
+  And passing by, like an angel bright, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) The prisoner had of her a sight, And she the fair flower of
+  Northumberland.
+  And aloud to her this knight did cry, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) The salt tears standing in her eye, And she the fair flower
+  of Northumberland.
+  “Fair lady,” he said, “take pity on me, (Follow, my love, come over
+  the strand) And let me not in prison dee, And you the fair flower of
+  Northumberland.”
+  “Fair sir, how should I take pity on thee, (Follow, my love, come
+  over the strand) Thou being a foe to our countrie, And I the fair
+  flower of Northumberland?”
+  “Fair lady, I am no foe,” he said, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) “Through thy sweet love here was I stayed, And thou the fair
+  flower of Northumberland.”
+  “Why shouldst thou come here for love of me, (Follow, my love, come
+  over the strand) Having wife and bairns in thy own countrie, And I
+  the fair flower of Northumberland?”
+  “I swear by the Blessed Trinity, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) That neither wife nor bairns have I, And thou the fair flower
+  of Northumberland.”
+  “If courteously thou wilt set me free, (Follow, my love, come over
+  the strand) I vow that I will marry thee, And thou the fair flower of
+  Northumberland.
+  “Thou shalt be lady of castles and towers, (Follow, my love, come
+  over the strand) And sit like a queen in princely bowers, Even thou
+  the fair flower of Northumberland.”
+  Then parted hence this lady gay, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) And got her father’s ring away, And she the fair flower of
+  Northumberland.
+  Likewise much gold got she by sleight, (Follow, my love, come over
+  the strand) And all to help this forlorn knight, And she the fair
+  flower of Northumberland.
+  Two gallant steeds both good and able, (Follow, my love, come over
+  the strand), She likewise took out of the stable, And she the fair
+  flower of Northumberland.
+  And to the goaler she sent the ring, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) Who the knight from prison forth did bring, To meet the fair
+  flower of Northumberland.
+  This token set the prisoner free, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) Who straight went to this fair ladye, And she the fair flower
+  of Northumberland.
+  A gallant steed he did bestride, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) And with the lady away did ride, And she the fair flower of
+  Northumberland.
+  They rode till they came to a water clear, (Follow, my love, come
+  over the strand) “Good sir, how shall I follow you here, And I the
+  fair flower of Northumberland?
+  “The water is rough and wonderful deep, (Follow, my love, come over
+  the strand) And on my saddle I shall not keep, And I the fair flower
+  of Northumberland?
+  “Fear not the ford, fair lady,” quoth he, (Follow, my love, come over
+  the strand) “For long I cannot stay for thee, Even thou the fair
+  flower of Northumberland.”
+  The lady prickt her gallant steed, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) And over the water swam with speed, Even she the fair flower
+  of Northumberland.
+  From top to toe all wet was she, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) “This have I done for love of thee, Even I the fair flower of
+  Northumberland.”
+  Thus rode she all one winter’s night. (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) Till Edenborough they saw in sight, The fairest town in all
+  Scotland.
+  “Now I have a wife and children five, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) In Edenborough they be alive, And thou the fair flower of
+  Northumberland.
+  “And if thou wilt not give thy hand, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) Then get thee home to fair England, And thou the fair flower
+  of Northumberland
+  “This favour thou shalt have, to boot, (Follow, my love, come over
+  the strand) I’ll have thy horse; go thou on foot, Even thou the fair
+  flower of Northumberland.”
+  “O false and faithless knight,” quoth she; (Follow, my love, come
+  over the strand) “And canst thou deal so bad with me, Even I the fair
+  flower of Northumberland?”
+  He took her from her stately steed, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) And left her there in extreme need, And she the fair flower
+  of Northumberland.
+  Then she sat down full heavily, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) At length two knights came riding by, And she the fair flower
+  of Northumberland.
+  Two gallant knights of fair England, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) And there they found her on the strand, Even she the fair
+  flower of Northumberland.
+  She fell down humbly on her knee, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) Crying, “Courteous knights, take pity on me, Even I the fair
+  flower of Northumberland.
+  “I have offended my father dear, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) For a false knight that brought me here, Even I the fair
+  flower of Northumberland.”
+  They took her up beside them then, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) And brought her to her father again, And she the fair flower
+  of Northumberland.
+  Now all you fair maids, be warned by me, (Follow, my love, come over
+  the strand) Scots never were true, nor ever will be, To lord, nor
+  lady, nor fair England.
+  WHITTINGHAM FAIR.
+  Are you going to Whittingham Fair (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and
+  thyme), Remember me to one that lives there, For once she was a true
+  lover of mine.
+  Tell her to make me a cambric shirt, (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and
+  thyme), Without any seam or needlework, Then she shall be a true
+  lover of mine.
+  Tell her to wash it in yonder well, (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and
+  thyme), Where never spring water or rain ever fell, And she shall be
+  a true lover of mine.
+  Tell her to dry it on yonder thorn, (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and
+  thyme), Which never bore blossom since Adam was born. Then she shall
+  be a true lover of mine.
+  Now he has asked me questions three, (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and
+  thyme), I hope he’ll answer as many for me, Before he shall be a true
+  lover of mine.
+  Tell him to buy me an acre of land, (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and
+  thyme), Betwixt the salt water and the sea sand, Then he shall be a
+  true lover of mine.
+  Tell him to plough it with a ram’s horn. (Parsley, sage, rosemary,
+  and thyme), And sow it all over with one pepper corn. And he shall be
+  a true lover of mine.
+  Tell him to shear’t with a sickle of leather, (Parsley, sage,
+  rosemary, and thyme), And bind it up with a peacock feather, And he
+  shall be a true lover of mine.
+  Tell him to thrash it on yonder wall, (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and
+  thyme), And never let one corn of it fall, Then he shall be a true
+  lover of mine.
+  When he has done and finished his work, (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and
+  thyme), O tell him to come and he’ll have his shirt, And he shall be
+  a true lover of mine.
+  O THE OAK AND THE ASH.
+  A North country mayde up to London had strayed, Although with her
+  nature it did not agree. Which made her repent, and often lament,
+  Still wishing again in the North for to be. “O the Oak and the Ash
+  and the bonny Ivy tree, They are all growing green in my North
+  Countrie!”
+  “O fain wad I be in the North Countrie Where the lads and the lasses
+  are all making hay; O there wad I see what is pleasant to me,— A
+  mischief ’light on them enticed me away! O the Oak and the Ash and
+  the bonny Ivy tree, They are all growing green in my North Countrie!”
+  “Then farewell my father, and farewell my mother, Until I do see you
+  I nothing but mourn; Remembering my brothers, my sisters, and others—
+  In less than a year I hope to return. O the Oak and the Ash and the
+  bonny Ivy tree. They are all growing green in my North Countrie!”
+  SAIR FEYL’D, HINNY!
+     “Sair feyl’d, hinny! Sair feyl’d now, Sair feyl’d, hinny, Sin’ aw
+     ken’d thou. Aw was young and lusty, Aw was fair and clear; Aw was
+     young and lusty Mony a lang year. Sair feyl’d, hinny! Sair feyl’d
+     now; Sair feyl’d, hinny, Sin’ aw ken’d thou.
+  “When aw was young and lusty Aw cud lowp u dyke; But now aw’m aud and
+  still. Aw can hardly stop a syke. Sair feyl’d, hinny! Sair feyl’d
+  now, Sair feyl’d hinny, Sin’ aw ken’d thou.
+  “When aw was five and twenty Aw was brave an bauld. Now at five an’
+  sixty Aw’m byeth stiff an’ cauld. Sair feyl’d, hinny! Sair feyl’d
+  now. Sair feyl’d, hinny, Sin’ aw ken’d thou”
+  Thus said the aud man To the oak tree; “Sair feyl’d is aw Sin’ aw
+  kenn’d thee! Sair feyl’d, hinny! Sair feyl’d now; Sair feyl’d, hinny,
+  Sin’ aw ken’d thou.”
+  AW WISH YOE MUTHER WAD CUM!
+  “Cum, Geordy, haud the bairn, Aw’s sure aw’ll not stop lang, Aw’d
+  tyek the jewl me-sel, But really aw’s not strang. Thor’s flooer and
+  coals te get, The hoose-torns thor not deun, So haud the bairn for
+  fairs, Ye’re often deun’d for fun!”
+  Then Geordy held the bairn, But sair agyen his will, The poor bit
+  thing wes gud, But Geordy had ne skill, He haddint its muther’s ways,
+  He sat both stiff an’ num,— Before five minutes wes past He wished
+  its muther wad cum!
+  His wife had scarcely gyen, The bairn begun te squall, Wi’ hikin’t up
+  an’ doon He’d let the poor thing fall, It waddent haud its tung, Tho’
+  sum aud teun he’d hum,— ‘Jack an’ Gill went up a hill’— “Aw wish yor
+  muther wad cum!”
+  “What weary toil,” says he, “This nursin bairns mun be, A bit on’t’s
+  weel eneuf, Ay, quite eneuf for me; Te keep a crying bairn, It may be
+  grand te sum, A day’s wark’s not as bad— Aw wish yor muther wad cum.
+  “Men seldom give a thowt Te what thor wives indure, Aw thowt she’d
+  nowt te de But clean the hoose, aw’s sure. Or myek me dinner an’ tea—
+  It’s startin’ te chow its thumb, The poor thing wants its tit, Aw
+  wish yor muther wad cum.”
+  What a selfish world this is, Thor’s nowt mair se than man; He laffs
+  at wummin’s toil, And winnet nurse his awn;— It’s startin’ te cry
+  agyen, Aw see tuts throo its gum, Maw little bit pet, dinnet fret,—
+  Aw wish yor muther wad cum.
+  “But kindness dis a vast. It’s ne use gettin’ vext. It winnet please
+  the bairn, Or ease a mind perplext. At last—its gyen te sleep, Me
+  wife’ll not say aw’s num, She’ll think aw’s a real gud norse, Aw wish
+  yor muther wud cum!”
+  _Joe Wilson_
+  THE AULD FISHER’S LAST WISH
+  The morn is grey, and green the brae, the wind is frae the wast
+  Before the gale the snaw-white clouds are drivin’ light and fast; The
+  airly sun is glintin’ forth, owre hill, and dell, and plain, And
+  Coquet’s streams are glitterin’, as they run frae muir to main.
+  At Dewshill wood the mavis sings beside her birken nest, At Halystane
+  the laverock springs upon his breezy quest; Wi’ eydent e’e, aboon the
+  craigs, the gled is high in air, Beneath brent Brinkburn’s shadowed
+  cliff the fox lies in his lair.
+  There’s joy at merry Thristlehaugh tie new-mown hay to win; The busy
+  bees at Todstead-shaw are bringing honey in; The trouts they loup in
+  ilka stream, the birds on ilka tree; Auld Coquet-side is Coquet
+  still—but there’s nae place for me!
+  My sun is set, my eyne are wet, cauld poortith now is mine; Nae mair
+  I’ll range by Coquet-side and thraw the gleesome line; Nae mair I’ll
+  see her bonnie stream in spring-bright raiment drest, Save in the
+  dream that stirs the heart when the weary e’e’s at rest.
+  Oh! were my limbs as ance they were, to jink across the green. And
+  were my heart as light again as sometime it has been, And could my
+  fortunes blink again as erst when youth was sweet, Then Coquet—hap
+  what might beside—we’d no be lang to meet’
+  Or had I but the cushat’s wing, where’er I list to flee, And wi’ a
+  wish, might wend my way owre hill, and dale, and lea. ’Tis there I’d
+  fauld that weary wing, there gaze my latest gaze. Content to see thee
+  ance again—then sleep beside thy braes!
+  —_Thomas Doublerday_.
+  A SONNET.
+  Go, take thine angle, and with practised line. Light as the gossamer,
+  the current sweep; And if thou failest in the calm, still deep, In
+  the rough eddy may a prize be thine. Say thou’rt unlucky where the
+  sunbeams shine; Beneath the shadow, where the waters creep Perchance
+  the monarch of the brook shall leap— For fate is ever better than
+  design.
+  Still persevere; the giddiest breeze that blows, For thee may blow
+  with fame and fortune rife. Be prosperous; and what reck if it arose
+  Out of some pebble with the stream at strife, Or that the light wind
+  dallied with the boughs? Thou art successful.—Such is human life!
+  —_Thomas Doubleday_.
+  A VISION OF JOYOUS-GARDE.
+  “And so sir Launcelot brought sir Tristan and La Beate Isoud unto
+  Joyous-gard, the which was his owne castle that hee had wonne with
+  his owne hands.”—_Malory_.
+  “Bamburgh ... the great rock-fortress that was known to the Celts as
+  Dinguardi, and was to figure in Arthurian romance as Joyous Garde ...
+  “—_C.J. Bates_ (History of Northumberland).
+    I wandered under winter stars The lone Northumbrian shore; And
+    night lay deep in silence on the sea. Save where, unceasingly,
+    Among the pillared scaurs Of perilous Farnes, wild waves for ever
+    more Breaking in foam, Sounded as some far strife through the
+    star-haunted gloam.
+    Before me, looming through the night, Darker than night’s sad
+    heart, King Ida’s castle on the sheer crag set Waked darker sorrow
+    yet Within me for the light, Beauty, and might of old loves rent
+    apart, Time-broken, spent, And strewn as old dead winds among the
+    salt-sea bent.
+    Till, dreaming of the glittering days, And eves with beauty
+    starred, Time fell from me as some night-cloud withdrawn, And in
+    enchanted dawn, All in a golden haze, I saw the gleaming towers of
+    Joyous Garde In splendour rise, Tall, pinnacled, and white to my
+    dream-laden eyes.
+    While thither, as in days of old, Launcelot homeward came,
+    War-wearied, and yet wearier of the strife Of love that tore his
+    life;
+    Burning, beneath the cold Armour of steel, a never-dying flame: The
+    fierce desire Consuming honour’s gold on the heart’s altar fire!
+    And thither in great love he brought The fugitives of love, Isoud
+    and Tristram fleeing from King Mark. One day ’twixt dark and dark
+    These lovers, by fate caught In love’s bright web, dreamed with
+    blue skies above Of love no tide Of wavering life may part, or
+    death’s swift sea divide.
+    But Launcelot, in their bliss forlorn, Fled from the laughter clear
+    Of happy lovers, and love’s silent noon; All night beneath the moon
+    He strode, his spirit torn For Guenevere! All night on Guenevere He
+    cried aloud Unto the moonlit foam and every windy cloud.
+
+    Then faded, quivering, from my sight The memory-woven dream. The
+    towers of Joyous Garde shall never more Lighten that desolate
+    shore; No longe’r through the night Wrestling with love, beneath
+    the pale moon gleam That anguished form!— But keen with snow and
+    wind, and loud with gathering storm.
+  _—Wilfrid W. Gibson_.
+  (In “The Northern Counties Magazine,” March, 1901).
+  MY NORTH COUNTRIE.
+  O though here fair blows the rose, and the woodbine waves on high,
+  And oak, and elm, and bracken fronds enrich the rolling lea, And
+  winds, as if in Arcady, breathe joy as they go by, Yet I yearn and I
+  pine for my North Countrie!
+  I leave the drowsing South, and in thought I northward fly, And walk
+  the stretching moors that fringe the ever-calling sea, And am
+  gladdened as the gales that are so bitter-sweet rush by. While grey
+  clouds sweetly darken o’er my North Countrie.
+  For there’s music in the storms, and there’s colour in the shades,
+  And joy e’en in the grief so widely brooding o’er the sea; And larger
+  thoughts have birth amid the moors and lonely glades And reedy mounds
+  and sands of my North Countrie!
+  —_Thomas Runciman_.
+
+[Illustration: Drawing]
+
+ANDREW REID & COMPANY. LIMITED, PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS,
+NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.
+
+[Illustration: SKETCH MAP OF NORTHUMBERLAND SKETCH MAP OF
+NORTHUMBERLAND]
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Northumberland Yesterday and To-day, by Jean F. Terry
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11124 ***
diff --git a/11124-h/11124-h.htm b/11124-h/11124-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1756d0a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11124-h/11124-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,8370 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" />
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
+<title>Northumberland Yesterday and To-day, by Jean F. Terry</title>
+<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" />
+<style type="text/css">
+
+body { margin-left: 20%;
+       margin-right: 20%;
+       text-align: justify; }
+
+h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight:
+normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;}
+
+h1 {font-size: 300%;
+    margin-top: 0.6em;
+    margin-bottom: 0.6em;
+    letter-spacing: 0.12em;
+    word-spacing: 0.2em;
+    text-indent: 0em;}
+h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;}
+h3 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em;}
+h4 {font-size: 120%;}
+h5 {font-size: 110%;}
+
+hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;}
+
+div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;}
+
+p {text-indent: 1em;
+   margin-top: 0.25em;
+   margin-bottom: 0.25em; }
+
+.p2 {margin-top: 2em;}
+
+p.poem {text-indent: 0%;
+        margin-left: 10%;
+        font-size: 90%;
+        margin-top: 1em;
+        margin-bottom: 1em; }
+
+p.letter {text-indent: 0%;
+          margin-left: 10%;
+          margin-right: 10%;
+          margin-top: 1em;
+          margin-bottom: 1em; }
+
+p.noindent {text-indent: 0% }
+
+p.center  {text-align: center;
+           text-indent: 0em;
+           margin-top: 1em;
+           margin-bottom: 1em; }
+
+p.right {text-align: right;
+         margin-right: 10%;
+         margin-top: 1em;
+         margin-bottom: 1em; }
+
+p.footnote {font-size: 90%;
+           text-indent: 0%;
+           margin-left: 10%;
+           margin-right: 10%;
+           margin-top: 1em;
+           margin-bottom: 1em; }
+
+sup { vertical-align: top; font-size: 0.6em; }
+
+p.asterism {text-align: center;
+           font-size: 150%;
+           margin-top: 1em;
+           margin-bottom: 1em; }
+
+div.fig { display:block;
+          margin:0 auto;
+          text-align:center;
+          margin-top: 1em;
+          margin-bottom: 1em;}
+
+a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none}
+a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none}
+a:hover {color:red}
+
+</style>
+
+</head>
+
+<body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11124 ***</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h1>Northumberland Yesterday and To-day</h1>
+
+<h2>by Jean F. Terry, L.L.A.</h2>
+
+<h3>(St. Andrews), 1913.</h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+<i>To Sir Francis Douglas Blake,<br/>
+this book is inscribed in admiration of<br/>
+an eminent Northumbrian.</i>
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+<table summary="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto">
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#pref01">INTRODUCTORY.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap00">NORTHUMBERLAND YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I. The Coast of Northumberland</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II. North and South Tyne</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III. Down the Tyne</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV. Newcastle-upon-Tyne</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V. Elswick and its Founder</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI. The Cheviots</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII. The Roman Wall</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII. Some Northumbrian Streams</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX. Drum and Trumpet</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X. Tales and Legends</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI. Ballads and Poems</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus01"></a>
+<a href="images/001.jpg">
+<img src="images/001.jpg" width="600" height="386" alt="Illustration:
+Bamburgh Castle." /></a>
+<p class="caption"><b>Bamburgh Castle.</b></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>List of Illustrations</h2>
+
+<table summary="" style="">
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus01">Bamburgh Castle.</a> <i>From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus02">The Priory, Tynemouth.</a> <i>From photograph by T.H. Dickinson, Sheriff Hill</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus03">Untitled</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus04">Hexham Abbey from North West.</a> <i>From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus05">The River Tyne at Newcastle (showing Swing Bridge Open).</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus06">Untitled</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus07">Newcastle-upon-Tyne.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus08">Untitled</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus09">North Gateway, Housesteads and Roman Wall.</a> <i>From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus10">Untitled</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus11">Alnwick Castle.</a> <i>From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus12">The Wreck of the &ldquo;Forfarshire&rdquo;.</a> <i>From illustration kindly lent by B. Rowland Hill, Newcastle</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus13">Drawing of boat</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus14">Sketch Map Of Northumberland.</a> <i>From a Drawing by C.H. Abbey</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="pref01"></a>INTRODUCTORY.</h2>
+
+<p>
+    The following book makes no pretensions to be a mine of deep historical
+    research or antiquarian lore; its object will have been achieved, and
+    its existence to some extent justified, if haply by its aid some of the
+    dwellers in this northern county of ours, with its past so full of
+    action, and its present so rich in the memorials of those actions, may
+    pass a pleasant hour in becoming acquainted through its pages with the
+    happenings which have taken place in their own particular fields, their
+    own streets, or by their own riverside.
+</p>
+<p>
+    I am aware that many learned volumes on this subject, representing an
+    enormous amount of patient labour and careful research in their
+    compilation, are already in existence. To such this little book can in
+    no sense be a rival; but there must be many people who have not a
+    superabundance of time, to enable them to dig out the information for
+    which they wish, from these various sources; nor can they always make
+    these volumes their own, to be consulted at leisure.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Northumbrians have always been interested in the records of their own
+    county, and are now-a-days not less so than when, some three-and-a-half
+    centuries ago, Roger North found them &ldquo;great antiquarians within their
+    own bounds.&rdquo; If to such as these this little book may perhaps bring in a
+    more convenient form the information they seek, and help them to become
+    better acquainted with the county which inspired Swinburne to write in
+    stirring phrases of &ldquo;Northumberland,&rdquo; and to address the home of his
+    people as
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Land beloved, where nought of legend&rsquo;s dream
+  Outshines the truth&rdquo;&mdash;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    I shall be more than satisfied. I would take this opportunity of
+    expressing my grateful thanks to the Rev. Canon Savage, of Hexham, for
+    information relating to the tomb of Alfwald the Just, in the Abbey,
+    given with courteous readiness; to the Rev. Canon Jeffery, of Bywell,
+    for similar kindness regarding Bywell St. Peter&rsquo;s; to R.O. Heslop, Esq.,
+    whose profound store of learning on the subject of &ldquo;Northumberland
+    words&rdquo; was in cases of uncertainty my final court of appeal; to E.T.
+    Nisbet, Esq., and J. Treble, Esq., to whom I am greatly indebted for
+    their goodness in reading my manuscript, and for their generous
+    encouragement following thereupon; to C.H. Abbey, Esq., for his kindness
+    in executing the map which accompanies these pages; and to Mr. G.P.
+    Dunn, of Corbridge, for much helpful criticism, and many suggestions
+    which only want of space has prevented my adopting in their entirety.
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+J.F.T.
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+    <i>31st May</i>, 1913.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap00"></a>NORTHUMBERLAND YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.<br/>THE COAST OF NORTHUMBERLAND.</h2>
+
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll see nae mair the sea banks fair,
+  And the sweet grey gleaming sky,
+  And the lordly strand of Northumberland,
+  And the goodly towers thereby.&rdquo;
+
+  &mdash;<i>A.C. Swinburne</i>.
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Wild and bleak it may be, hard and cruel at times it undoubtedly is,
+    but, nevertheless, this north-east coast of ours is at all times
+    inspiring, whether half-hidden by storm-clouds, its cliffs and hollows
+    lashed by the &ldquo;wild north-easter,&rdquo; or seen calmly brooding in the warm
+    haze of a summer&rsquo;s day, its grey-blue water smiling beneath the
+    grey-blue sky, and its stretches of sand and bents edging the sea with a
+    border of gold and silver.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In keeping with either mood of nature, the ancient Priory of Tynemouth,
+    standing on the sandstone cliffs on the northern bank of the Tyne,
+    rearing its grey and roofless walls above the harbour mouth, strikes a
+    note that is symbolic of the Northumbria of old and the Northumberland
+    of to-day&mdash;the note, that is, of the intimate commingling of the romance
+    of the warlike past and the romance of the industrial present. Here,
+    above the mouth of the river on which so many of the most noteworthy
+    advances in industrial science have been made, and out of which sail the
+    vessels which are often the last word of the moment in marine
+    engineering and construction, stand calmly looking down upon them all
+    the fragments of a building which was a century old when John signed
+    Magna Charta, and which stands upon the site of another that had already
+    braved the storms of nearly five hundred years.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Looking upon the Priory of St. Mary and St. Oswin we are carried back to
+    the days when Edwin, the first king of Northumbria to embrace
+    Christianity, built a little church here, in which his daughter took the
+    veil. King Oswald had the first wooden structure replaced by a stone
+    one; and here, in 651, the body of another good king&mdash;Oswyn&mdash;was brought
+    for burial from Gilling, near Richmond in Yorkshire, where, disbanding
+    his army, he sacrificed his cause and his life to Oswy of Bernicia, with
+    whom he had been about to fight.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus02"></a>
+<a href="images/010.jpg">
+<img src="images/010.jpg" width="315" height="500" alt="Illustration:
+The Priory, Tynemouth." /></a>
+<p class="caption"><b>The Priory, Tynemouth.</b></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+    When the pirate ships of the Danes swept down upon our coasts, the
+    Priory of St. Oswin, conspicuous on its bold headland, could not hope to
+    escape their ravages. It was destroyed by the fierce invaders; but King
+    Ecgfrith<a href="#fn-1" name="fnref-1" id="fnref-1"><sup>[1]</sup></a> of Northumbria restored the shattered shrine. Again, in the
+    year 865, it was sacked and burnt, and the poor nuns of St. Hilda, who
+    had already fled from Hartlepool to Tynemouth hoping to find safety,
+    were ruthlessly slain and earned the crown of martyrdom. It was again
+    restored; but, five years later, the destroying hands of the invaders
+    fell on the place once more, and for two hundred years the Priory stood
+    roofless and tenantless. After the Norman Conquest, Waltheof, Earl of
+    Northumberland bestowed it upon the monks of Jarrow. The rediscovery of
+    the tomb of St. Oswyn in 1065, had gladdened the hearts of the monks,
+    and forthwith the monastery was reared anew over the ashes of its former
+    self.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-1" id="fn-1"></a> <a href="#fnref-1">[1]</a>
+Pronounced &ldquo;Edge-frith.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+    Mowbray, the next Earl of Northumberland, re-endowed the building. He
+    had quarrelled with the Bishop of Durham, so in order to do him a
+    displeasure, he made Tynemouth Priory subordinate to St. Albans instead
+    of to Durham and brought monks from St. Albans to dwell there. The new
+    buildings were finished in 1110, and the bones of St. Oswyn enshrined
+    within them, the right of sanctuary being extended for a mile around his
+    resting-place. This right, however, was already in existence, and had
+    been appealed to in 1095 by Mowbray himself, who fled here pursued by
+    the followers of William Rufus, against whom he had rebelled. The King&rsquo;s
+    men disregarded the sanctuary right, captured Mowbray, and sent him
+    prisoner to Durham<a href="#fn-2" name="fnref-2" id="fnref-2"><sup>[2]</sup></a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-2" id="fn-2"></a> <a href="#fnref-2">[2]</a>
+See account of Bamburgh Castle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+    In later days the queens of Edward I. and Edward II. visited Tynemouth
+    Priory; and it was from Tynemouth that the foolish King Edward II. and
+    his worthless favourite Piers Gaveston fled from the angry barons to
+    Scarborough. In the reign of Edward III., after the battle of Neville&rsquo;s
+    Cross, David of Scotland was brought here by his captors on his way to
+    Bamburgh, from whence he was sent to the Tower.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. the Priory was
+    inhabited by eighteen monks with their Prior. They bowed to the King&rsquo;s
+    decree and left the monastery; but the church continued to be used as
+    the parish church until the days of Charles II., when Christ Church was
+    built.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Priory has many times formed the subject of pictures by famous
+    artists, the best known being that of no less a genius than J. M. W.
+    Turner; and its picturesque ruins are a well-known landmark to the
+    hundreds of voyagers who pass it on their journeys, outward or homeward
+    bound. Within the last few years the Priory has been in some measure
+    repaired and restored.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There is but little left of Tynemouth Castle, which was built as a
+    protection for the monastery against the attacks of the Danes. It stands
+    in a commanding position on a neighbouring cliff, and is now used as
+    barracks for garrison artillery corps. During the days when Scotland
+    harried the English borders, the Priors of Tynemouth maintained a
+    garrison here; and later, in Stuart days, Charles I. visited the North,
+    and the fortress was strengthened just before the outbreak of the Civil
+    War. It was captured, notwithstanding, by Leslie, Earl of Leven, after
+    he had left Newcastle. Colonel Lilburn, left in charge as governor,
+    shortly afterwards avowed himself on the side of King Charles; but he
+    speedily paid for his change of allegiance, for the Castle was re-taken
+    by a force from Newcastle under Sir Arthur Hazelrigg, and Lilburn lost
+    his life in the fight. The Castle has long been used as a dep &#244;t for the
+    storage of arms and ammunition. Behind the Spanish Battery which
+    commands the entrance to the Tyne stands a statue of the famous
+    North-countryman, Admiral Collingwood.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Connected with Tynemouth, by the fact that a small chantry belonging to
+    the Priory once stood there, is St. Mary&rsquo;s Island. One may walk
+    unhindered at low tide across the rocks to this favourite place, but
+    where the chantry stood there is now a lighthouse with a powerful
+    lantern, flashing its welcome light to the seafarers nearing the mouth
+    of the Tyne, and extending
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;To each and all our equal lamp, at peril of the sea,
+  The white wall-sided war-ships, or the whalers of Dundee.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Between Tynemouth and St. Mary&rsquo;s Island lie Cullercoats, Whitley Bay,
+    and Monkseaton, and together these places make practically one extended
+    seaside town, stretching for three or four miles along the sea-front,
+    and joined by a fine parade which leads to open links at Monkseaton. Of
+    these places Cullercoats is most noteworthy. This picturesque fishing
+    village, with quaint old houses perched in every conceivable position on
+    the curve of its rocky bay, is, needless to say, a favourite camping
+    ground for artists. The Cullercoats fishwife, with her cheerful
+    weather-bronzed face, her short jacket and ample skirts of blue flannel,
+    and her heavily laden &ldquo;crees&rdquo; of fish is not only appreciated by the
+    brotherhood of brush and pencil, but is one of the notable sights of the
+    district. At Cullercoats is struck a note of the most modern of modern
+    achievements&mdash;the Wireless Telegraphy Station (225 feet); and here, too,
+    is situated the Dove Marine Laboratory, looked after by scientists on
+    the staff of the Armstrong College at Newcastle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In fine weather the crowds which pass and repass along the top of the
+    bold cliffs which overlook the fine stretch of sands between Cullercoats
+    and Monkseaton show how many hundreds of Northumbria&rsquo;s busy workers
+    enjoy the fresh breezes from the sea on this pleasant and bracing coast.
+    Out at sea, opposite the Parade, vessels built in the busy shipyards on
+    the Tyne may be seen doing their speed trials over the measured mile.
+    The Peace of St. Oswyn may, in fact, be said to brood over Tynemouth,
+    even in these days, for it is an increasing custom for those who can do
+    so to remain in Newcastle and other busy centres of toil only during
+    business hours, and to leave workshop and office every evening for their
+    home by the sea: while the tide of noisy, happy, boisterous
+    excursionists has rolled on to Whitley Bay, leaving Tynemouth to its
+    old-time sleepy content. Northward to Hartley and Seaton Sluice the
+    cliffs are very fine. Hartley, with its bright-looking red-tiled houses,
+    once belonged to Adam of Gesemuth (Jesmond) who lived in the reign of
+    King John. Coming down to modern times, about thirty years ago a gallant
+    Hartley man, Thomas Langley, rescued two successive shipwrecked crews on
+    the same day, in one case allowing himself to be lowered over the cliffs
+    at a terrible risk in the furious storm.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Seaton Sluice belongs to the ancient family of the Delavals, whose
+    house, Delaval Hall, may be seen not far away, peeping from amongst the
+    trees which surround it. Seaton Sluice owes its name to the Delaval who
+    placed the large sluice gates upon the burn, in order to have a strong
+    current which, in rushing down to the sea, would be able to wash the
+    mouth of the stream clear from the silt and mud brought in by the
+    incoming tide. A later baronet, Sir John Hussey Delaval, made the
+    cutting through the solid rock which is so striking a feature of the
+    harbour. It was ready for the entrance of vessels in March, 1763.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Delaval Hall is now owned by Lord Hastings, the present representative
+    of the Delavals, which family became extinct in the male line early in
+    the nineteenth century. The last Delaval, a very learned man, was buried
+    in Westminster Abbey in 1814. The Hall was built for Admiral Delaval in
+    1707 to the design of Sir J. Vanbrugh, who also designed Blenheim
+    Palace, given by the nation to the great Duke of Marlborough about the
+    same time.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Hartley Colliery, about half a mile away, has a sad interest as being
+    the scene of the terrible accident in 1862, when a number of men and
+    boys were imprisoned in the workings owing to the blocking up of the
+    only shaft by a mass of d &#233;bris, caused by the fall of an iron beam
+    belonging to the pumping engine at the pit-head. Before the shaft could
+    be cleared and a way opened to the workings, all the poor fellows had
+    died, overcome by the deadly &ldquo;choke-damp.&rdquo; Joseph Skipsey, the pitman
+    poet, in a simple ballad, tells the pathetic story.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Oh, father! till the shaft is rid,
+  Close, close beside me keep;
+  My eyelids are together glued,
+  And I,&mdash;and I,&mdash;must sleep.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;Sleep, darling, sleep, and I will keep
+  Close by&mdash;heigh ho.&rdquo;&mdash;To keep
+  Himself awake the father strives.
+  But he&mdash;he, too&mdash;must sleep.
+
+  &ldquo;Oh mother dear! wert, wert thou near
+  Whilst&mdash;sleep!&rdquo; The orphan slept;
+  And all night long, by the black pit-heap
+  The mother a dumb watch kept.
+</pre>
+<p>
+    From here, northward, the coast is rather dull and uninteresting,
+    although the sands are fine, until we reach Blyth, at the mouth of the
+    little river of the same name. This town is growing rapidly in size and
+    importance; the export of coal has greatly increased since the harbour
+    was so much improved by Sir Matthew White Ridley, and now totals some
+    millions of tones a year. The river Wansbeck not far north of the mouth
+    of the Blyth, in the latter part of its course flows through a district
+    begrimed by all the necessary accompaniments of the traffic in &ldquo;black
+    diamonds,&rdquo; and reaches the sea between the colliery villages of Cambois
+    and North Seaton.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the point at the northern curve of Newbiggin Bay stands Newbiggin
+    Church, and ancient building, whose steeple, &ldquo;leaning all awry,&rdquo; is a
+    well-known landmark for sailors. The site of this church is in danger
+    of being undermined by the waves, and, indeed, part of the churchyard
+    crumbled away many years ago; but such defences as are possible have
+    been built up around it,&mdash;and the danger averted for a time. Newbiggin
+    itself is a large fishing village and an increasingly popular holiday
+    resort, for it possesses not only good sands but a wide moor near at
+    hand which provides one of the best of golf courses; and, also, a short
+    distance along the coast, are the attractive Fairy Rocks.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Newbiggin was a town of some importance in Plantagenet days, with a busy
+    harbour, and a pier; and in the reign of Edward II. it was required to
+    contribute a vessel towards the naval defence of the Kingdom.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Northward from Newbiggin Point is the magnificent sweep of Druridge Bay,
+    stretching in a fine curve of ten miles or more to Hauxley Haven. Here,
+    the sands of a warm golden colour, the wind-swept bents of silvery-grey,
+    and the vivid green of the grassy cliff tops edge the curve of the bay
+    with a line of bright and delicate colour, only thrown into greater
+    relief by the brown reefs and ridges which stretch out from the rocky
+    shores, and by the deep blue-green of the waves rolling inshore in long
+    majestic lines, to break into hissing foam on the sharp reefs, or slide
+    smoothly up the yellow sands in the centre of the bay. Above, beyond the
+    grassy tops of the cliffs, stretch deep woods, with the old pele-tower
+    of Cresswell looking out from amongst the trees, fields many-coloured
+    with their burden of varying crops, and wide lonely moors, where one may
+    walk for half a day without hearing any sound save the wild screaming of
+    sea-birds, or the whistle of the wind, with the low boom of the waves
+    below sounding a deep-toned accompaniment. The bay is not always so
+    peaceful, however, and many wild scenes and terrible shipwrecks have
+    taken place here, as everywhere along our wild north-east coast. The
+    Bondicar rocks, by Hauxley, and the cruel spikes of the reef at Snab
+    Point, near Cresswell, have betrayed many a gallant little vessel to her
+    doom. Not, however, without bringing on many an occasion proof of the
+    courage which is shown as a matter of course by the fisher folk on our
+    coasts. At Newbiggin, and Cresswell, for instance, deeds have been done,
+    which, in their simple unassuming heroism, may be taken as typical of
+    the hardy race which could count Grace Darling among its daughters.
+</p>
+<p>
+    About thirty years ago, a ship drove ashore off Cresswell one bitter
+    night in January, and the fisher folk crowded down to the shore,
+    watching with sorrowful eyes the hapless crew clinging to their
+    unfortunate vessel, which was slowly being broken up by the waves. There
+    was no lifeboat at Cresswell then, and all the men of the village,
+    except the old men who were past work, had gone northward, when the
+    oncoming storm prevented their return. The women and girls heard the
+    cries of the schooner&rsquo;s crew, and mourned to each other their inability
+    to help. But one gallant-hearted girl, named Peggy Brown, cried out, &ldquo;If
+    I thowt she could hing on a bit, I wad be away for the lifeboat.&rdquo; But
+    between them and Newbiggin, the nearest lifeboat station, the Lyne Burn
+    runs into the sea, and spreads widely out over the sands; and the older
+    people told Peggy she could never cross the burn in the dark. She set
+    off, however, the thought of the drowning men hastening her on. For four
+    miles she made her way in the storm and darkness, partly along the
+    shore, scrambling over rock&rsquo;s, and wading waist-deep through the Lyne
+    Burn and one or two other places where the waves had driven far up the
+    sands, and partly across Newbiggin Moor, where the icy wind tore at her
+    in her drenched clothing. She pressed on, however, and managed to reach
+    the coxswain&rsquo;s house and give her message. The lifeboat was immediately
+    run out, and the men reached the wreck in time to save all the crew
+    except one, who had been washed overboard.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On another occasion one of the fishermen, named Tom Brown, was preparing
+    to go out, with the help of his two sons, in his own fishing coble to
+    the aid of a ship in distress on the reef. A carter had come down to the
+    beach, the better to watch the progress of events, and, terrified by the
+    thundering waves, his horse took fright, and in its plunging drove the
+    cart against the little boat, making a hole clear through one side. &ldquo;Big
+    Tom,&rdquo; as he was generally called, merely took off his coat, rolled it
+    into a bundle and stuffed it against the hole. Then he beckoned to
+    another fisherman, saying to him &ldquo;Sit on that.&rdquo; The man clambered in,
+    and without the loss of another minute these four heroes set off to save
+    their fellow creatures&rsquo; lives, with a broken and leaking boat in a heavy
+    sea. And they did it, reaching the brig only just in time, for it went
+    to pieces a few minutes after the shivering crew had been safely landed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Incidents like these, which could be multiplied indefinitely, bring a
+    glow of pride to the heart, and a reassuring sense that the degeneration
+    of the race is not proceeding in such wholesale fashion&mdash;in the country
+    districts, at any rate&mdash;as the pessimists would have us believe.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At the northern extremity of Druridge Bay is the little fishing village
+    of Hauxley, with the chimneys and pit-head engines of Ratcliffe and
+    Broomhill Collieries darkening the sky to the south-west. Passing the
+    Bondicar rocks and rounding the point we enter the &ldquo;fairway&rdquo; for
+    Warkworth Harbour and Amble, where a brisk exportation of the coal of
+    the neighbourhood is carried on.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Lying out at sea, opposite Amble coastguard station, the white
+    lighthouse on Coquet Island keeps watch over the entrance to the
+    harbour. Some of the walls of the monastery, which stood on the island
+    in Saxon days, can now be seen forming part of the dwelling of the
+    lighthouse keeper. For many generations, too, hermit after hermit went
+    to dwell on this tiny islet, and St. Cuthbert himself is said to have
+    inhabited the little cell at one time. The island was captured by the
+    Scots in the Civil Wars of King Charles&rsquo;s reign, and held by them for a
+    time.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The situation of Amble, at the mouth of the Coquet, has been looked upon
+    as convenient from very early days, for there are signs which tell us of
+    a population here at an early period. Several cist-vaens, or ancient
+    stone coffins, have been found near the town, and a broken Roman altar
+    was unearthed in the neighbourhood. The monastery which stood here, like
+    that on Holy Island, was, in later times, inhabited by Benedictine
+    monks, who were under the authority of the Prior of Tynemouth. William
+    the Conqueror gave the then Prior the right to collect the tithes of the
+    little town.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A short distance from Amble, and practically encircled by the Coquet
+    which here makes a wide sweep, we come upon Warkworth, prettiest of
+    villages, combining the beauties of sea-shore and river scenery, and
+    rich in the possession of that romantic castle, the ruins of which carry
+    the mind back to Saxon times; for they stand on the site of an older
+    fortress erected by Ceolwulf, a Saxon King of Northumbria. He was the
+    patron of Bede, who dedicated his &ldquo;Ecclesiastical History&rdquo; to his royal
+    friend. Ceolwulf built both the fortress and the earliest church at
+    Warkworth, and a few stones of this latter building are still to be
+    seen. In 737, two years after the death of Bede, this royal Saxon laid
+    aside his kingly state and became a monk on Lindisfarne,
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;When he, for cowl and beads, laid down
+  The Saxon battle-axe and crown.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    It was when the castle was bestowed by Edward III. upon Lord Percy of
+    Alnwick that it became, for more than two hundred years, the chief
+    residence of that illustrious family; becoming in the next reign of
+    historical value as the home of that Hotspur whose valour and gallantry
+    made Henry IV. envy the Earl of Northumberland, in that he &ldquo;should be
+    the father of so blest a son.&rdquo; In Act II., Scene 3 of &ldquo;Henry IV.,&rdquo; Part
+    II., Shakespeare has laid the scene at Warkworth Castle, where Hotspur&rsquo;s
+    wife, troubled by her lord&rsquo;s moody abstraction, tries to win from him
+    the reason of his secret care. And after the battle of Shrewsbury,
+    Rumour, flying with the news of Hotspur&rsquo;s death, says:&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Thus have I rumoured through the peasant towns,
+  Between the royal field of Shrewsbury
+  And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,
+  Where Hotspur&rsquo;s father, old Northumberland,
+  Lies crafty-sick.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Two years after this, the castle was besieged by Henry IV. himself, and
+    surrendered to him after a brief bombardment by the newly invented
+    cannon. The keep was re-built by Hotspur&rsquo;s son, after the family
+    possessions had been restored to him by Henry V., and it is now the only
+    remaining part of the castle which is almost perfect. One of the
+    half-ruinous towers remaining is called the Lion Tower, from the
+    sculptured lion on its walls; while another rejoices in the curious name
+    of Cradyfargus. A strange story is told of a blue stone to be seen in
+    the courtyard of the castle. Many years ago, so runs the tale, one of
+    the custodians of Warkworth Castle dreamed three nights in succession
+    that a large treasure was concealed beneath a blue stone in a certain
+    part of the castle grounds. He told this dream to a neighbour, and after
+    allowing two or three days to pass, finding the dream constantly
+    recurring to his mind, he thought he would go to the place indicated,
+    and see what he could find. To his disappointment, however, he
+    discovered that some one had been there before him; a large hole had
+    been dug, and on the edge of it lay the blue stone.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Needless to say, the hole was empty, nor could the keeper discover
+    anything about the treasure in the neighbourhood. It is said that a
+    certain family in the village became suddenly rich; and, many years
+    afterwards, a large and ancient pot, supposed to have been that in which
+    the buried treasure had been contained, was found in the Coquet.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The main street of Warkworth leads straight up to the postern gate of
+    the castle, and many stirring sights have the successive inhabitants of
+    the little village looked upon, as the fortunes of the owners of the
+    castle waxed and waned throughout the many centuries in which the lords
+    of Warkworth played a notable part in the history of England. They saw
+    Henry Percy, entrusted with a share in the safe keeping of the country,
+    set out from Warkworth for Durham, to help in winning the victory of
+    Neville&rsquo;s Cross.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They saw Hotspur&rsquo;s force set out for the Cheviots to intercept Douglas
+    and his followers, which they did at Homildon Hill, near Wooler; and it
+    was the quarrel in connection with the prisoners taken on that day which
+    led Hotspur and his father openly to throw off their allegiance to
+    Henry IV., so that a few months later the peasants of Warkworth saw
+    their idolised young lord set out for what was to prove the fatal field
+    of Shrewsbury. They saw Hotspur&rsquo;s father, the first Henry Percy to
+    receive the title of Earl, (a title which had been given him at the
+    coronation of Richard II.) set out with a brave force after Hotspur&rsquo;s
+    departure; and they saw his return, almost alone, dejected and broken in
+    spirit, having learnt that the help so tardily given had come too late,
+    and the life of his gallant son was ended.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They saw the siege train of Henry Bolingbroke laid against the castle,
+    directed by Henry in person, provoked into these active measures by the
+    open rebellion of father and son, though Northumberland had tried to
+    make it appear that he was innocent of any treasonable act. After
+    capturing the castle, Bolingbroke bestowed it on his third son, John of
+    Lancaster, and the villagers saw the young prince riding in and out
+    among them daily so long as he made the castle his home.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Then, in the next reign, they welcomed the return of Hotspur&rsquo;s son,
+    Henry, to the home of his fathers, restored to him by Henry V.; and,
+    within a short time, saw him bring home his bride, Eleanor Neville,
+    daughter of his friend and neighbour, the Earl of Westmoreland.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the Wars of the Roses, Warkworth Castle saw many changes of fortune,
+    as the tide of victory flowed this way and that. The Percies were all
+    Lancastrians, though Sir Ralph Percy changed sides twice. The castle
+    fell into the hands of the Yorkists, and the great Earl of Warwick, the
+    &ldquo;King-maker&rdquo; himself, made it his headquarters for a time, while he
+    superintended the sieges of Alnwick, Dunstanborough, and Bamburgh, which
+    were all invested at the same time. Eventually, after the Wars of the
+    Roses concluded, Warkworth was restored, along with the other Percy
+    estates, to its original owners.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Finally, the inhabitants of the little village saw the church entered by
+    the Jacobites in 1715, when Mr. Buxton, chaplain of the little force,
+    prayed for James III. and Mary the Queen-mother; and General Forster,
+    dressed as a trumpeter, proclaimed King James III. at the village cross.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A few miles north from the mouth of the Coquet, the little Aln spreads
+    over the sandy flats near Alnmouth, and reaches the sea. It has changed
+    its course, for at one time it flowed to the south of Church Hill,
+    instead of to the north as at present. The town of Alnmouth, viewed from
+    the train just before entering Alnmouth Station, looks very picturesque,
+    especially if the rare sunshine of an English summer should be lighting
+    up the bay, bringing out the vivid red of the tiled roofs against the
+    grassy hills fringing the links which lie on their seaward side, and
+    lighting up, also, the yellow sands and long lines of sparkling wavelets
+    edged with white.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Alnmouth depends for its living on a fleet of fishing boats, and on the
+    numbers of visitors who seek its fresh breezes and inviting shores each
+    summer. Golfers, indeed, find it pleasant all the year round, as there
+    is only a scarcely appreciable interval in the winter months when their
+    favourite pastime cannot be followed on the breezy links. On Church
+    Hill, now crowned by a few old stones, once stood a Norman church,
+    dedicated to St. Valery, which, in its turn, occupied the site of an
+    older Saxon building, supposed to have been the church which Bede refers
+    to as being at Twyford, where a great synod of clergy was held in the
+    year 684, and Cuthbert appointed Bishop of Lindisfarne. It is a matter
+    of dispute whether this Twyford was Alnmouth or Whittingham, but the
+    two fords at Alnmouth seem to point to a decision in favour of that
+    place. The old Norman church, which fell into ruin at the beginning of
+    last century, was fired at by the famous pirate Paul Jones; the cannon
+    shot, weighing 68 pounds, missed the church, but struck a neighbouring
+    farm house, doing great damage.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The coast north of Alnmouth becomes rocky and wild, and very
+    picturesque, and the villages along the coast are being sought out by
+    holiday makers in increasing numbers, year by year. Boulmer, one of
+    these villages, was a famous place for smuggling in the old days, and
+    many an exciting scene and sharp encounter took place between the
+    smugglers and the King&rsquo;s men. Not far away is Howick Dene, a lovely
+    little glen leading down to the sea from Howick Hall, the home of Earl
+    Grey.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Cullernose Point, a striking crag, is formed by the outcrop of a portion
+    of the Great Whin Sill, which from here can be traced to the south-west,
+    and thence right across the county.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At Craster, another fishing village and a favourite holiday haunt, is
+    Craster Tower, which has been the home of the family of Craster since
+    before the Conquest. Not far to the north is the famous Rumble Churn in
+    the rocks below Dunstanborough Castle, where the waves roll in and out
+    of the caves and chasms with weird and hollow rumblings. There is
+    another Rumbling Churn in the cliffs near Howick.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The famous divine of the Middle Ages, John Duns Scotus, was born in this
+    parish&mdash;that of Embleton; the group of buildings known as Dunston Hall,
+    or Proctor&rsquo;s Steads, is supposed to have been his birthplace, and a
+    portrait of the learned doctor is to be seen there.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Dunstanborough Castle stands in lonely grandeur on great whinstone
+    crags, close to the very edge of the sea, and on the first sight of it,
+    Keats&rsquo; wonderful lines spring involuntarily to the lips:&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Magic casements, opening on the foam
+  Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Forlorn, indeed, though not in exactly the sense conveyed by the poem,
+    is this huge fortress now; it abides, says Freeman, &ldquo;as a castle should
+    abide, in all the majesty of a shattered ruin.&rdquo; The primitive cannon of
+    the days of the Wars of the Roses began to shatter those mighty walls,
+    and, unlike Bamborough, it has never been strengthened since. Simon de
+    Montford once owned this estate, and the next lord of Dunstanborough was
+    a son of Henry III., to whom Earl Simon&rsquo;s forfeited estate was given.
+    His eldest son, Thomas of Lancaster, took part with the barons in
+    bringing the unworthy favourite of Edward II., Piers Gaveston, to his
+    death. Under the King&rsquo;s anger, Lancaster went away to his Northumbrian
+    estate, and began to build this mighty fortress, though he already owned
+    the castles of Kenilworth and Pontefract. In the Wars of the Roses,
+    Dunstanborough Castle was taken and retaken no less than five times, and
+    Queen Margaret found refuge here, as well as at Bamburgh; but apart from
+    these occasions, Dunstanborough has not taken nearly so great a part in
+    either local or national history as the other Northumbrian castles of
+    Bamburgh, Warkworth, and Alnwick, though greater in extent than any of
+    them. In 1538 an official report describes &ldquo;Dunstunburht&rdquo; as &ldquo;a very
+    reuynous howse&rdquo;; and the process of dilapidation was soon aided by
+    enterprising dwellers in the neighbourhood using the stones of the
+    forsaken castle to build their own homesteads.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From the castle northward curves Embleton Bay, in which, after having
+    been buried in the sand for ages, a sandstone rock was uncovered by the
+    tide, having on its surface, chiselled in rough but distinct lettering,
+    the name &ldquo;Andra Barton.&rdquo; Sir Andrew Barton, daring Scottish sea-captain
+    and fearless freebooter, was slain in a sea-fight off this part of the
+    coast, in the days of Henry VIII., by the sons of Surrey, one of whom,
+    Sir Thomas Howard, was Lord Admiral at the time, and so, in a measure,
+    responsible for the defence of the English coast. The loss of his brave
+    sea-captain and his &ldquo;goodly ships&rdquo; was one of the grievances in the long
+    list which led King James IV. to declare war against England, and led to
+    the fatal field of Flodden, in which Admiral Sir Thomas Howard and his
+    brother took part under the command of their father, the Earl of Surrey.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The wide sweep of grassy common beyond the sands in Embleton Bay is, in
+    summer time, covered with a profusion of wild flowers, chief amongst
+    them being the wild geranium, or meadow cranes-bill, whose
+    reddish-purple blossoms grow in such abundance as to arrest the
+    attention of every visitor. A little way back from the sea-shore, in the
+    middle of this wide space, lies the village of Embleton, which possesses
+    an ancient and interesting church, and a vicarage, part of which is
+    formed by an old pele-tower. Embleton would seem to have a reputation to
+    keep up in the way of famous churchmen. Duns Scotus has been already
+    mentioned; and one of the vicars here was a cousin of Richard Steele,
+    the essayist and friend of Addison; and he described the country squires
+    of his day in a paper which he contributed to the &ldquo;Spectator&rdquo; of that
+    date, 1712.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Another Vicar of Embleton, who lived here from 1874 to 1884, was Dr.
+    Mandell Creighton, the learned historian, who became Bishop of London.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The well-known journalist, W.T. Stead, was born in the parish of
+    Embleton, though his childhood was passed in very different
+    surroundings, in the narrow streets and grimy atmosphere of
+    Howdon-on-Tyne. His recent death on the ill-fated <i>Titanic</i> will be
+    fresh in the minds of all.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Newton-by-the-Sea is reached by a pleasant walk along the sea-shore. (It
+    is to be understood that in this journey along the coast we are moving
+    northward always). There is here a cheery-looking white-washed
+    coastguard station standing on the bold headland of Newton Point.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Past this point is Beadnell Bay, with green and grassy Beadnell just
+    beyond Little Rock. The small fishing harbour at Beadnell has the unique
+    distinction of being the only harbour on the east coast whose mouth
+    faces west, and the short pier, running <i>inland</i> from rocks to shore,
+    acts as a breakwater against the heavy easterly or southeasterly seas
+    and makes the harbour a safe anchorage for fishing craft or small
+    yachts. The rocks around this bay are very interesting, showing the
+    various strata very plainly, and containing many fossils. The striking
+    cliff called Ebbe&rsquo;s Nook is supposed to have been named after the Saxon
+    princess Ebba, sister to King Oswald, and the ruins which were
+    discovered on the headland, to be all that is left of a chapel erected
+    to her memory.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At Seahouses is an extensive fish-curing establishment, a fact which
+    proclaims itself unmistakably as you near the village, especially if the
+    day chance to be at all warm. A little distance from the shore is
+    another fishing village, North Sunderland, and northward from Seahouses
+    is the inn called The Monkshouse, from the fact that it once belonged to
+    the community on Lindisfarne.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Bamburgh Castle, magnificently placed on a lofty crag rising
+    perpendicularly from the greensward on the west or landward side, and
+    almost as steeply from the sea which washes the north and east sides,
+    lies like a majestic lion on its mighty rock &ldquo;brooding on ancient
+    fame.&rdquo; The voices of children at play on the sands below sound faint and
+    far in the still air; the sea birds, with the summer sunshine flashing
+    on their outspread wings, sweep round and round; in the far distance a
+    trail of smoke low down on the horizon marks the track of a passing
+    steamer; and near at hand, southward a little way from the castle cliff,
+    the rocky islets of the Farne group lie drowsily asleep on the
+    gently-heaving swell of the grey-blue waters. Behind the castle lies the
+    pretty old-fashioned village with its quaint hostelries and grove of
+    trees; and from the higher parts of the new golf-links the player may
+    look round on a view which would be difficult to match, comprising as it
+    does, the Farne Islands and Dunstanborough to the south, and northward,
+    Holy Island, with its castle and abbey and the bluish haze of smoke
+    lying over Berwick; while, on the western skyline, on a clear day, may
+    be seen the rounded caps of the Cheviots.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The beginnings of Bamburgh take us back more than a thousand years, to
+    that long-ago summer of 547, when the <i>cyuls</i> (keels) of the marauding
+    Bernician chieftain Ida and his followers grounded on the shore of our
+    Northland, and the work of conquest began. Ida was not slow to grasp the
+    importance of such a commanding site as this isolated mass of basaltic
+    crag, and the rude stronghold which crowned it. It became in time a
+    formidable fortress, and remained for centuries the headquarters of the
+    kings of the North.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Here reigned Ida and his sons&mdash;six of them&mdash;for more or less short and
+    stormy periods, and Ethelric of Bernicia, who vanquished the
+    neighbouring prince of Deira, and thus reigned as the first king of
+    Northumbria as Northumbria. The Celtic name of the fortress was
+    Dinguardi, or Dinguvardy; and tradition has it that this was Sir
+    Lancelot&rsquo;s castle of Joyeuse Garde, where he had often feasted the
+    Knights of the Round Table, and where he, at last, came home to die. The
+    fact that Bamburgh is the only pre-Conquest castle in Northumberland
+    disposes of the claim of Alnwick.
+</p>
+<p>
+    &ldquo;My fair lords,&rdquo; said sir Launcelot, &ldquo;wit ye well, my careful body will
+    into the earth; I have warning more than I will now say; therefore, I
+    pray you, give me my rights.&rdquo; So when he was houseled and eneled, and
+    had all that a Christian man ought to have, he prayed the bishop that
+    his fellows might bear his body unto Joyous Gard.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Some men say Anwick, and some men say to Bamborow; &ldquo;how-beit,&rdquo; said sir
+    Launcelot, &ldquo;me repenteth sore; but I made mine avow aforetime, that in
+    Joyous Gard I would be buried; and because of breaking of mine vow, I
+    pray you all lead me thither.&rdquo; Then was there weeping and wringing of
+    hands among all his fellows.
+</p>
+<p>
+    And so, within fifteen days, they came to Joyous Gard, and there they
+    laid his corpse in the body of the quire, and read many psalters and
+    prayers over him and about him.... And right thus, as they were at their
+    service, there came sir Ector de Maris, that had sought seven years all
+    England, Scotland and Wales, seeking his brother sir Launcelot.... Then
+    went sir Bors unto sir Ector, and told him how there lay his brother sir
+    Launcelot dead.
+</p>
+<p>
+    And then sir Ector threw his shield, his sword, and his helm from him;
+    and when he beheld sir Launcelot&rsquo;s visage, he fell down in a swoon; and
+    when he awoke, it were hard for any tongue to tell the doleful
+    complaints that he made for his brother. &ldquo;Ah! sir Launcelot,&rdquo; said he,
+    &ldquo;thou wert head of all Christian knights!&rdquo; &ldquo;And now, I dare say,&rdquo; said
+    sir Bors, &ldquo;that sir Launcelot, there thou liest, thou wert never matched
+    of none earthly knight&rsquo;s hands; and thou wert the courtliest knight that
+    ever bare a shield; and thou wert the truest friend to thy lover that
+    ever bestrod horse; and thou wert the truest lover of a sinful man that
+    ever loved woman; and thou wert the kindest man that ever stroke with
+    sword; and thou wert the goodliest person that ever came among press of
+    knights; and thou wert the meekest man, and the gentlest, that ever eat
+    in hall among ladies; and thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal
+    foe, that ever put spear in the rest.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    Then there was weeping and dolor out of measure.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &mdash;<i>Malory&rsquo;s Morte d&rsquo;Arthur</i>.
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Ethelfrith, who succeeded Ethelric, gave the fort to his second wife,
+    Bebba, after whom it was named Bebbanburgh, which soon became Bamburgh.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the days of King Edwin, who succeeded Ethelfrith, Bamburgh was the
+    centre of a kingdom which extended from the Humber to the Forth, and as
+    Northumbria was at that time the most important division of England, the
+    royal city of Bernicia was practically the capital of the country. The
+    reign of King Oswald, though shorter than that of Edwin, was equally
+    noteworthy from the fact that in his days the gentle Aidan settled in
+    Northumbria, and king and monk worked together for the good of their
+    people, and Bamburgh became not only the seat of temporal power but the
+    safeguard and bulwark of the spiritual movement centred on the little
+    isle of Lindisfarne. On the accession of Edwin, Oswald, son of
+    Ethelfrith, had fled from Bernicia and taken refuge with the monks of
+    Iona, living with them till the time came for him to rule Northumbria in
+    his turn. As soon as possible after the inevitable fighting for his
+    political existence was over, he sent to Iona for a teacher to come and
+    instruct his people in the truths he had learned; and a monk named
+    Corman was sent. He, however, was unable to make any impression on the
+    wild and warlike Saxons of the northern kingdom, and he soon returned to
+    Iona with the report that it was useless to try to teach such obstinate
+    and barbarous people. One of the brethren, listening to his account,
+    ventured to ask him if he were sure that all the fault lay with the
+    people. &ldquo;Did you remember,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that we are commanded to give them
+    the milk first? Did you not rather try them with the strong meat?&rdquo; With
+    one accord the brethren declared that he who had spoken such wise words
+    was the man best fitted for the task, and the gentle Aidan was sent to
+    Oswald&rsquo;s help. In such a fashion came the Gospel to Northumbria, and
+    Aidan became the first of the long roll of saints whose deeds and lives
+    had such incalculable influence on Northumbrian history. From Aidan&rsquo;s
+    arrival in 635 until the death of Oswald the relations between the king
+    and the monk who had settled on Medcaud or Medcaut, soon to be known as
+    Lindisfarne, and later as Holy Island, were those of friend to friend
+    and fellow-worker, rather than those of king and subject.
+</p>
+<p>
+    After the death of Oswald, his conqueror Penda, the fierce King of the
+    Mercians, harried Northumbria, and appearing before the walls of
+    Bamburgh prepared to burn it down. Piles of logs and brushwood were laid
+    against the city and the fire was applied. Aidan, in his little cell on
+    Farne Island, to which he had retired, saw the clouds of flame and smoke
+    rolling over the home of his beloved patron. Raising his hands to
+    Heaven, he exclaimed, &ldquo;See, Lord, what ill Penda is doing!&rdquo; Scarcely had
+    he uttered the words, when the wind changed, and drove the flames away
+    from Bamburgh, blowing them against Penda&rsquo;s host, who thereupon ceased
+    all further attempts against the city.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Not long after this, Aidan was at Bamburgh, when he was seized with
+    sudden illness, and died with his head resting against one of the wooden
+    stays of the little church. Penda came again the next year, and this
+    time both village and church were burnt, all except, says tradition, the
+    beam of wood against which Aidan had rested in his last moments.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the Danish ships appeared off our shores, in the two centuries
+    following, Bamburgh was attacked and plundered several times. In the
+    days of William Rufus, as we have seen, Robert de Mowbray, Earl of
+    Northumberland, rebelled against the Red King, in company with his
+    uncle the Bishop of Coutances, Robert of Normandy, and William of St.
+    Carileph, Bishop of Durham. Rufus marched into Northumberland, but the
+    quarrel was adjusted for the time; though private strife between the two
+    Bishops led to Mowbray&rsquo;s driving the monks of Durham from the Priory at
+    Tynemouth and replacing them by monks from St. Albans.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Later, however, Mowbray disobeyed a summons from the Red King, who once
+    more marched into Northumberland. He reached Bamburgh, and invested it,
+    but failed to make any impression on that impregnable stronghold, within
+    whose walls were Mowbray and his young wife, the Countess Matilda, and
+    his nephew, who was Sheriff of Northumberland. Rufus, finding all
+    attempts to carry the fortress useless, began to build a wooden fort,
+    called a <i>Malvoisin</i>, or &ldquo;Bad neighbour&rdquo;; and so anxious was he to have
+    it speedily erected that he made knights and nobles as well as his
+    men-at-arms take part in the work.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Mowbray, from the battlements, called out to many of these by name,
+    openly taunting those who had secretly promised to join him, or had
+    expressed themselves as in sympathy with his disobedience. His words
+    gave great amusement to Rufus and the nobles who were truly loyal, and
+    much mortification and vexation to those whom he so ruthlessly exposed.
+    Rufus left the &ldquo;Bad neighbour&rdquo; to continue the siege and went southward.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Mowbray, led to believe that Newcastle would receive him, and take his
+    part, stole away from Bamburgh by sea, and reached Tynemouth. On
+    proceeding to Newcastle, however, he found he had been mistaken, and
+    hurriedly fled hack to Tynemouth, pursued by his enemies. He held out
+    against them for a day or two, but was then captured and taken to
+    Durham. Meanwhile the high-spirited Countess held Bamburgh against all
+    assailants; but Mowbray&rsquo;s capture gave Rufus an advantage he was not
+    slow to use. Returning to the North, he ordered Mowbray to be brought
+    before the walls of Bamburgh, and threatened to put his eyes out if the
+    Countess did not immediately surrender. Needless to say, she preferred
+    to give up the castle, and Mowbray&rsquo;s reign as Earl of Northumberland was
+    over.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thereafter Bamburgh was visited by various sovereigns in turn, when
+    their affairs brought them to the northerly parts of their kingdom. When
+    Balliol, tired of long years of conflict, surrendered most of his rights
+    to Edward III., it was at Bamburgh that the convention was concluded. In
+    this reign the castle was greatly strengthened.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the Wars of the Roses, Bamburgh was held for the queen by the
+    Lancastrian nobles of the north country&mdash;Percy and Ros&mdash;with the Earl of
+    Pembroke and Duke of Somerset; but was obliged on Christmas Eve, 1462,
+    to capitulate to a superior force. The next year the Scots and the
+    queen&rsquo;s French allies surprised it, and re-captured it for Henry VI. and
+    his courageous queen; but Warwick, &ldquo;the King-maker,&rdquo; came upon the
+    scene, and after a stout resistance the garrison surrendered.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the Union of the Crowns took place in 1603, Bamburgh was no longer
+    necessary as a defence against the Scots, and its defences were
+    neglected. The Forsters, into whose hands it passed in the days of James
+    I., were a spendthrift family, and gradually wasted their rich estate,
+    until in 1704 it had to be sold, and was bought by Lord Crewe. He was
+    Bishop of Durham at the time, having been promoted to that position by
+    Charles II., who liked his handsome figure and pleasing manners. When at
+    the age of fifty-eight, he wished to marry Dorothea Forster, daughter of
+    Sir William Forster, of Bamburgh, the lady, who was many years younger,
+    refused him at first; but some years later he renewed his suit, and this
+    time was accepted. When the Forster estates were sold and their debts
+    paid, there was scarcely anything left for the heirs&mdash;Lady Crewe and her
+    nephew, Thomas Forster, who afterwards became the General of the
+    ill-fated Jacobite rising in 1715, and whose escape after his capture
+    was contrived by his high-spirited sister, Dorothy Forster the second.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Lord Crewe, in his will, left a great part of his fortune to found the
+    Bamburgh Trust, for which his name will ever be remembered. The most
+    notable of the trustees, Archdeacon Sharp, administered the moneys in so
+    wise and beneficent a manner that to him most of the credit is due for
+    the real usefulness of the Crewe charities. These include a surgery and
+    dispensary; schools; the relief of persons in distress; the clothing and
+    educating of a certain number of girls; the maintenance of a lifeboat,
+    life-saving apparatus, and everything necessary for the relief of
+    ship-wrecked persons. A lifeboat, kept in the harbour at Holy Island, is
+    always ready to go out on a signal from Bamburgh Castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The castle was extensively restored and repaired by the late Lord
+    Armstrong; but, sad to say, since his death it has been stripped of many
+    of its treasures. The church, dedicated to St. Aidan, stands at the west
+    end of the village; but there is no vestige remaining of the one built
+    in Saxon times, the present building having been erected when Henry II.
+    was king. In the churchyard is the grave of Grace Darling, and many
+    hundreds come to look on the last resting place of the gentle girl who
+    was yet so heroic, when her compassionate heart nerved her girlish frame
+    to the gallant effort on behalf of her fellow-creatures in dire peril,
+    when she
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;.... rode the waves none else durst ride,
+                 None save her sire.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The beautiful monument over her grave is by Raymond Smith, and is an
+    exact duplicate of the original one, also by him, which was being
+    injured so much by the weather that it was removed to a position inside
+    the church. The duplicate was commissioned by Lord (then Sir William)
+    Armstrong.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The island on which yet stands the lighthouse which was Grace&rsquo;s home is
+    the Longstone, almost the farthest seaward of the rocky group of the
+    Farnes, lying almost opposite Bamburgh. The Longstone is only about four
+    feet above high-water mark, so that in stormy weather the lighthouse is
+    fiercely assailed by the heavy seas, and the keepers are often driven
+    for refuge to the upper chambers. To the Longstone might with truth be
+    attributed the opening lines of Kipling&rsquo;s poem, &ldquo;The Coastwise
+    Lights&rdquo;:&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Our brows are bound with spindrift, and the weed is on our knees,
+  Our loins are battered &rsquo;neath us by the swinging, smoking seas;
+  From reef, and rock, and skerry, over headland, ness, and voe,
+  The coastwise lights of England watch the ships of England go.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    There are about twenty of these little islets to be seen at low tide,
+    and very curious are some of their names&mdash;The Megstone, The Crumstone,
+    The Navestone, The Harcars, The Wedums, The Noxes (Knokys), and The
+    Wawmses. The largest, Farne Island, is the nearest to the coast, and is
+    the one to which St. Aidan retired, and on which St. Cuthbert made
+    himself a cell, and where he lived for some years, leaving Lindisfarne
+    (Holy Island) very often for months together, to dwell alone on this
+    almost bare rock and devote himself to holy meditation and prayer.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To this island came King Ecgfrith of Northumbria with Archbishop
+    Trumwine and other representatives of the Synod to beg the hermit to
+    accept the Bishopric of Hexham; and it was on this island that St.
+    Cuthbert died, the monks who had gone to look after him signalling the
+    news of his death to his brethren at Lindisfarne by means of torches.
+    The island is rocky and precipitous, with deep chasms between the high
+    cliffs; and when a north wind blows, the columns of foam and spray, from
+    the waters dashing into the chasms and over the tops of the cliffs, may
+    be seen from the mainland rising high into the air.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Before the first lighthouse was built on Farne Island, in 1766, a coal
+    fire was kindled every night on the top of the tower-like building used
+    as a fort. This method of warning passing vessels had been used
+    continuously since the days of Charles II. In great contrast to this is
+    the modern lighthouse, with its acetylene gas lights and its automatic
+    flash apparatus.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Close to Stapel Island are the three high basaltic pillars, of rock
+    called the Pinnacles. On all these islands sea-birds breed, but
+    especially on the Pinnacles, the Big and Little Harcar, and the islet
+    called the Brownsman.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thousands and thousands of them perch and chatter on the rocks and fly
+    screaming in the air, amongst them being guillemots, kittiwakes, gulls,
+    terns, cormorants, puffins, and eider-ducks, for which latter St.
+    Cuthbert is said to have had great affection; certainly they are the
+    gentlest of these wild sea-fowl.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Bidding farewell to the rocky Farnes, we sail past Budle Bay, into which
+    runs the Warenburn and the Elwick burn, and underneath whose sandy flats
+    is the buried town of Warnmouth, once a busy seaport, to which Henry
+    III. granted a charter. Approaching Lindisfarne, &ldquo;Our isle of Saints,
+    low-lying on the blue breast of the curling waters, is hushed and silent
+    in the lightly-purple mists of morning, like the wide aisles of a great
+    cathedral at daybreak, before the feet and tongues of sightseers disturb
+    the solemn stillness. The tideway is covered with water, and the
+    footprints of the pilgrims who came yesterday to the shrine of St.
+    Cuthbert have passed into oblivion like footmarks on the sands of time.&rdquo;
+    (<i>Galloway Kyle</i>.) The modern pilgrim to Holy Island generally takes
+    train to Beal station, and from there walks to the seashore, and crosses
+    the long stretch of sand between Holy Island and the mainland. The
+    governing factor in the possibility or otherwise of making the journey
+    is the state of the tide, for these sands are entirely covered by the
+    sea twice a day, so that Holy Island can only be said to be an island at
+    high tide.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;For with the flow and ebb, its style
+  Varies from continent to isle;
+  Dry-shod, o&rsquo;er sands, twice every day
+  The pilgrims to the shrine find way;
+  Twice every day the waves efface
+  Of staves and sandall&rsquo;d feet the trace.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    There are dangerous quicksands on the way, too, and a row of stakes
+    points out the proper course to be taken.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We have already seen that St. Aidan settled on Lindisfarne and have
+    treated of him in connection with Bamburgh. After his death another monk
+    of Iona, Finan, succeeded him and carried on his work; and after Finan
+    came Colman, who resigned after the Synod of Whitby had decided to keep
+    Easter according to southern instead of northern usage. St. Cuthbert was
+    Prior of Lindisfarne at this time. Later, the seat of the bishopric was
+    removed from Lindisfarne to York, when it was held by that restless and
+    able prelate, Wilfrid, for a time. Then the bishopric was divided and a
+    see of Hexham formed, as well as that of Lindisfarne, which included
+    Carlisle, out of the northern portion of the diocese of York.
+</p>
+<p>
+    St. Cuthbert was bishop of Lindisfarne for two years, having exchanged
+    sees with bishop Eata, who went to Hexham. The stone coffin in which St.
+    Cuthbert&rsquo;s body was pieced, after his death on Farne Island, was buried
+    on the right side of the altar in the Abbey of Lindisfarne, which by
+    this time had arisen on the little island. A later bishop, Edfrid,
+    executed a wonderful copy of the Gospels, which was illuminated by his
+    successor, Ethelwald. Another bishop enclosed it in a cover of gold and
+    silver, adorning it with jewels; and, later, a priest of Lindisfarne,
+    Aldred, wrote between the lines a translation into the vernacular, and
+    added marginal notes. This precious manuscript, a wonderful example of
+    the beautiful work done in monastic houses in the north so many
+    centuries ago, is now in the British Museum, where it is known as the
+    &ldquo;Durham Manuscript.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the pirate keels of the Danes appeared off our coasts about the end
+    of the eighth century, Lindisfarne Abbey was one of the first points of
+    attack; and in 793 it was plundered of most of its wealth, and many of
+    the monks were slain. For nearly a century afterwards it was left in
+    peace, but in 875 the Danish ships appeared again approaching from the
+    south, where they had just sacked Tynemouth Priory. The bishop,
+    Eardulph, last of the Lindisfarne prelates, and the brethren hastily
+    collected their most treasured possessions, and with the body of St.
+    Cuthbert, the bones of St. Aidan, and other precious relics, they fled
+    from their island home, and journeyed north, west, and south for many
+    years before they found a resting place at Chester-le-Street near
+    Durham. For seven years they carried with them the body of St. Cuthbert;
+    and it is said that the final choice of a resting place for the body of
+    their beloved saint was indicated to them by supernatural means as they
+    approached Durham.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1069 William the Conqueror marched northward to visit with sternest
+    punishment the hardy north-men, who were so long in submitting to his
+    authority; and the monks of Durham fled before the advance of the
+    relentless Norman, carrying with them, as before, the body of St.
+    Cuthbert. They reached Lindisfarne in safety to find the Abbey in the
+    ruinous state in which it had been left by the Danes two centuries
+    earlier. Thus, once again, the body of St. Cuthbert rested on the little
+    island where so many years of his life had been spent.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1070 the brethren returned to Durham and in 1093 the building was
+    begun, almost simultaneously, of the present glorious Cathedral of
+    Durham and a new Priory and Church on Lindisfarne, and a strong
+    resemblance may be traced between the two buildings The Abbey was
+    deserted on the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII., and
+    gradually fell into ruins.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Castle, which stands on a lofty whinstone rock at the south-east
+    corner of the island, is a conspicuous object for many miles, whether
+    viewed by land or sea. It is supposed to have been built in the reign of
+    Henry VIII., at a time when defences were commanded to be made to all
+    harbours. If the Castle has had any appreciable share of romantic
+    incidents in its history, the records thereof seem to be unknown; but
+    one which has come down to us is the account of its daring capture by an
+    ardent North-country Jacobite, Lancelot Errington, in 1715. The
+    garrison consisted of seven men, five of whom were absent. Errington,
+    who was master of a small vessel lying in the harbour, discovered this,
+    and immediately made his way to the Castle accompanied by his nephew,
+    and overpowered the two men who were left in charge, turning them out of
+    the Castle. He then signalled to the mainland for reinforcements, but
+    none were forthcoming. A company of King&rsquo;s men came instead and
+    re-occupied the place, Errington and his nephew escaping, to wander
+    about in the neighbourhood for several days, hiding from pursuit, before
+    they got clear away. The Castle was for many years the home of the
+    coastguardsmen, who must have found it a most advantageous position for
+    their purpose, as they had an uninterrupted view of miles of coast line.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Northward from Holy Island, but on the mainland, lies Goswick, from
+    whose red sandstone quarries came the material for building the Abbey of
+    Lindisfarne. Further north we come in sight of the coal pits and smoke
+    of Scremerston, while beyond it, Spittal and Tweedmouth bring us right
+    up to Berwick-on-Tweed itself, that grey old Border town which has seen
+    so many turns of fortune, and been harried again and again, only to draw
+    breath after each wild and cruel interlude, and go calmly on its quiet
+    way until it was once more called upon to fight for its very existence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Though definitely forming part of English soil since 1482, it is not
+    included in any English county, but, with about eight square miles
+    around it, forms a county by itself. Hence the addition, to any Royal
+    proclamation, of the well-known words &ldquo;And in our Town of
+    Berwick-upon-Tweed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    Sir Walter Scott&rsquo;s description of the Northumbrian coast, in his poem of
+    Marmion may well be recalled here. It will be remembered that the
+    Abbess of Whitby, with some of her nuns, was voyaging to Holy Island,
+    and we take up the description when
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;.... the vessel skirts the strand
+  Of mountainous Northumberland;
+  Towns, towers, and halls successive rise,
+  And catch the nuns&rsquo; delighted eyes.
+  Monkwearmouth soon behind them lay,
+  And Tynemouth&rsquo;s Priory and bay. They
+  marked, amid her trees, the hall Of lofty Seaton Delaval;
+  They saw the Blyth and Wansbeck floods
+  Rush to the sea through sounding woods;
+  They passed the tower of Widdrington,
+  Mother of many a valiant son;
+  At Coquet-isle their beads they tell
+  To the good saint who owned the cell.
+  Then did the Alne attention claim,
+  And Warkworth, proud of Percy&rsquo;s name;
+  And next they crossed themselves, to hear
+  The whitening breakers sound so near,
+  Where, boiling through the rocks, they roar
+  On Dunstanborough&rsquo;s caverned shore.
+  Thy tower, proud Bamburgh, marked they there,
+  King Ida&rsquo;s castle, huge and square,
+  From its tall rock look grimly down
+  And on the swelling ocean frown.
+  Then from the coast they bore away
+  And reached the Holy Island&rsquo;s bay.
+</pre>
+
+<hr />
+
+<pre>
+  As to the port the galley flew,
+  Higher and higher rose to view
+  The castle with its battled walls,
+  The ancient monastery&rsquo;s halls,
+  A solemn, huge, and dark-red pile
+  Placed on the margin of the isle.
+
+  In Saxon strength that abbey frowned,
+  With massive arches, broad and round.
+</pre>
+
+<hr/>
+
+<pre>
+  On the deep walls, the heathen Dane
+  Had poured his impious rage in vain;
+  And needful was such strength to these,
+  Exposed to the tempestuous seas,
+  Scourged by the winds&rsquo; eternal sway,
+  Open to rovers fierce as they.
+  Which could twelve hundred years withstand
+  Winds, waves, and northern pirates&rsquo; hand.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus03"></a>
+<img src="images/043.jpg" width="300" height="200" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.<br/>NORTH AND SOUTH TYNE.</h2>
+
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;On Kielder-side the wind blaws wide;
+  There sounds nae hunting horn
+  That rings sae sweet as the winds that beat
+  Round banks where Tyne is born.&rdquo;
+   &mdash;<i>A.C. Swinburne</i>.
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Between Peel Fell and Mid Fell, almost the farthest western heights of
+    the Cheviot Hills, a little mountain stream takes its rise, and flows to
+    the south and east. This little burn is the North Tyne, the beginnings
+    of that stream which, deep, dark, and swift at its mouth, bears the
+    mighty battleships there built to carry the war-flags of the nations
+    round the world. In the wild and lovely district where the North Tyne
+    takes its rise, is Kielder Castle, a shooting box belonging to the Duke
+    of Northumberland.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This neighbourhood is the scene of two romantic ballads; that of the
+    &ldquo;Cowt (colt) of Kielder&rdquo; and the Ettrick Shepherd&rsquo;s ballad of &ldquo;Sir David
+    Graeme.&rdquo; The deadly enemy of the young &ldquo;Cowt,&rdquo; so called from his great
+    strength, is Lord Soulis of Hermitage Castle, on the Scottish side of
+    the border. The Cowt, with his followers, was enticed into the Castle,
+    where Lord Soulis purposed his death; but the gigantic youth burst
+    through the circle of his foes and escaped. The evil Brownie of the
+    moorland, however, gave to Lord Soulis the secret which safeguarded the
+    young Cowt. His coat of mail was sword-proof by a spell of enchantment,
+    and he wore in his helmet rowan and holly leaves; but these would all be
+    of no avail against the power of running water. The Cowt was pursued
+    until, in crossing a burn, he stumbled and lost his helmet, and ere he
+    recovered, his enemies were upon him, and they held him under water
+    until he was drowned.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Not far from the mouth of the Bell Burn, which here runs into the Tyne,
+    a circle of stones outside an ancient burial ground is known as the
+    Cowt&rsquo;s Grave.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;This is the bonny brae, the green,
+  Yet sacred to the brave,
+  Where still, of ancient size, is seen
+  Gigantic Kieldar&rsquo;s grave.
+</pre>
+
+<hr />
+
+<pre>
+  Where weeps the birch with branches green
+  Without the holy ground,
+  Between two old grey stones is seen
+  The warrior&rsquo;s ridgey mound.
+
+  And the hunters bold of Kieldar&rsquo;s train,
+  Within yon castle&rsquo;s wall,
+  In a deadly sleep must aye remain
+  Till the ruined towers down fall.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    In the ballad of &ldquo;Sir David Graeme,&rdquo; by James Hogg, the lady of the
+    story watched out of her window in vain for the coming of her &ldquo;noble
+    Graeme,&rdquo; who had vowed that the hate of her father and brothers would
+    not keep him from coming to carry off his fair lady on St. Lambert&rsquo;s
+    night.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;The sun had drunk frae Kieldar Fell
+  His beverage o&rsquo; the morning dew;
+  The deer had crouched her in the dell,
+  The heather oped its bells o&rsquo; blue.
+</pre>
+
+<hr />
+
+<pre>
+  The lady to her window hied,
+  And it opened o&rsquo;er the banks o&rsquo; Tyne;
+  An&rsquo; &ldquo;O! alack,&rdquo; she said, and sighed,
+  &ldquo;Sure ilka breast is blythe but mine?&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Her forebodings prove only too true, for her lover&rsquo;s faithful hound
+    seeks her out, and with mournful looks induces her to follow him over
+    Deadwater Fell, and guides her to a lonely spot where the body of the
+    gallant Graeme, slain by her brothers, is lying.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the neighbourhood of these desolate Fells are to be found many traces
+    of ancient British Camps.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The little mountain streams which here help to swell the stream of the
+    North Tyne are, on the south side, the Lewis and Whickhope Burns, and on
+    the north, the Plashetts and Hawkhope Burns. On both sides of the Tyne,
+    near the Whickhope and the Hawkhope Burns are many remains of an ancient
+    pre-historic forest, the largest being near the Whickhope Burn where the
+    abnormally thick stems of trees may be seen.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The little village of Falstone is set amongst trees, in the midst of
+    pleasant meadows, a welcome relief from the bare fells and moorlands
+    around it; yet this wild scenery has a distinct fascination of its own,
+    and adds not a little to the charm of the varied landscape within the
+    bounds of our northern county. At Falstone a fragment of an ancient
+    cross was discovered, with an inscription carved upon it&mdash;in Roman
+    letters on one side and in the Runes of the Anglo-Saxons on the other.
+    The inscription states that a certain Eamer set up the cross in memory
+    of his uncle Hroethbert, and asks for prayers for his soul. The
+    existence of a similarly inscribed cross is not known, so that the
+    Society of Antiquaries, in whose keeping this cross rests, has in it
+    probably a unique treasure.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Tarset Burn, upon which stands the village of Thorneyburn, runs into
+    the Tyne not far from Falstone, and reminds us of the old Border-riding
+    days, when the rallying-cry of the men of the district in many a feud
+    with neighbouring clans was&mdash;&ldquo;Tarset and Tarret Burn, Hard and
+    heather-bred, yet-yet-yet.&rdquo; Near the spot where the Tarset Burn joins the
+    Tyne is a grassy hill on which once stood Tarset Castle, a stronghold of
+    that Red Comyn whom Bruce slew in the little chapel at Dumfries, and of
+    whose death Bruce&rsquo;s friend Kirkpatrick said he would &ldquo;mak&rsquo; siccar&rdquo;!
+</p>
+<p>
+    The village of Charlton, on the north bank of the Tyne, and the mansion
+    of Hesleyside on the other, carry the mind back to the old reiving
+    plundering days, for it was at Hesleyside that the incident of the
+    ancient spur of the Charlton&rsquo;s took place, doubtless many a time and
+    oft, when the good lady of Hesleyside served up the spur at dinner as a
+    gentle hint that the larder was empty, and it behoved her lord to mount
+    and away to replenish the same, preferably with stock from the Scottish
+    side of the border, or if not, a neighbour&rsquo;s cattle would serve equally
+    well.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Charltons, Robsons (possibly the lineal descendants of &ldquo;Hroethbert&rdquo;
+    of the ancient cross) and Armstrongs, held almost undisputed sway over
+    this region, and the district teems with reminders of their prowess and
+    traditions of their exploits. The men of Tynedale (the North Tyne) and
+    Redesdale were known as the fiercest and most lawless in all that wild
+    district. Redesdale is a district of monotonous, almost dreary,
+    moorlands, and wild, bare fells, where sheep graze on what scanty
+    provender the bleak hills afford, finding better fare, however, in the
+    valleys near the river banks, where the pasture is fresh and green.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Bellingham is to-day the most considerable village of the neighbourhood;
+    it stands conveniently at the foot of the hills where the little Belling
+    Burn, or Hareshaw Burn, joins the main stream. In Hareshaw woods is the
+    beautiful Hareshaw Linn, where the stream falls down through a break in
+    the sandstone cliffs, and forms a picturesque waterfall, fringed with
+    ferns and trees and cool mosses. It well repays one for the walk of a
+    mile or so through tangled underwoods by the side of the burn.
+    Bellingham gives its mime to the family of de Bellingham, whose chief
+    seat, however, is now in Ireland and no longer in the little
+    north-country town.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The massive church here, with its roof of stone, bears eloquent
+    testimony to the need for fireproof buildings in a village so near to
+    Scotland in the days of Border warfare. Outside the churchyard wall is
+    the well of St. Cuthbert, or &ldquo;Cuddy&rsquo;s Well,&rdquo; which was greatly venerated
+    in early days, and many stories are told of the miraculous power of its
+    waters. Inside the churchyard a grave is pointed out as the burial place
+    of the robber whose tragic end was told by James Hogg in his gruesome
+    story of &ldquo;The Long Pack.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    The village itself is plain and bare, as might be expected from a
+    settlement which would probably find that unattractiveness in either
+    wealth or appearance was a tolerable safeguard.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Below Bellingham the North Tyne is joined by its longest and most noted
+    tributary, the Rede Water, which also rises in the Cheviots. Rising in
+    the hills north of Carter Fell, it flows south-east, through a wild
+    region, passing, while still high up amongst the hills, the little
+    village of Byrness, and the new reservoir at Catcleugh, where a supply
+    of pure water is stored for the use of the dwellers in distant
+    Newcastle. On its way to the Tyne, it passes many an old pele-tower, and
+    the Roman stations of Bremenium (Rochester) and Habitancum, near
+    Woodburn. The ancient Roman road of Watling Street crosses the Rede at
+    Woodburn, leading from Habitancum to Bremenium.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Many mountain streams, clear and sparkling, or peaty and brown, join the
+    Rede Water on its way, amongst others the little Otter Burn, by whose
+    banks took place that stirring episode in the constant quarrels between
+    the Douglases and Percies known as &ldquo;Chevy Chase,&rdquo; from which the fierce
+    battle-cries ring down the five centuries that have passed since that
+    time, with sounds that echo still.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The pretty village of Redesmouth (or Reedsmouth) stands where the Rede
+    Water enters the North Tyne, and a few miles further on the rapid little
+    Houxty Burn pours its peaty waters into the main stream.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the right bank of the Tyne stands Wark, conveniently placed at one of
+    the most important fords of the Tyne in former days. Like other towns
+    and villages so placed on different streams throughout the country, the
+    advantages of its situation have evidently been appreciated by the
+    successive inhabitants of the land, for there are traces of its
+    occupation by Celt, Roman, and Saxon; and, later, the town was the most
+    considerable in Upper Tynedale. During the time that this part of
+    England was ceded to the Scottish Kings, David and Alexander, it was at
+    Wark that the Scottish law courts for Tynedale held their sittings. The
+    mound called the Mote Hill, near the river, marks the spot where, in all
+    probability, the ancient Celtic inhabitants met together to administer
+    the rude justice of prehistoric times, and to make the laws of their
+    little settlement, which grew to much greater proportions in later
+    years. In fact, it is supposed that the Kirkfield marks the site of a
+    church which stood in the midst of the once extensive town.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A little way up the Wark Burn, above the bridge, there may be seen some
+    upright stems of Sigillaria in the exposed face of the cliffs. On the
+    opposite side of the river from Wark is Chipchase Castle, one of the
+    finest mansions in Northumberland, standing in the midst of the
+    beautifully wooded and picturesque scenery which, from this point
+    onwards is characteristic of the North Tyne. Of the former village of
+    Chipchase scarcely a trace remains, though its name, if nothing else,
+    shows that here has been a village or small town, important enough to
+    have its well-known, market; for &ldquo;Chip,&rdquo; like the various &ldquo;Chippings&rdquo;
+    throughout England is derived from the Anglo-Saxon <i>ciepan</i>&mdash;to buy and
+    sell, to traffic. In the reign of Henry II., Chipchase was the property
+    of the Umfravilles of Prudhoe; but later it passed into the hands of the
+    well-known Northumbrian family of Heron.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Not far from Chipchase Castle are the famous Gunnerton Crags, formed by
+    an out-crop of the Great Whin Sill. These lofty cliffs have been the
+    site of a considerable settlement of the ancient British tribes who
+    dwelt in the district in such numbers, as is evident from the scores of
+    camps, which may be traced all over this part of Northumberland. The
+    naturally strong position on the Gunnerton Crags, would be certain to
+    commend itself to a people, the first requisite of whose dwelling places
+    was strength and consequent safety.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At Barrasford the making of the railway cutting led to the opening up of
+    a large barrow, or burial place, of the ancient Britons; and a single
+    &ldquo;menhir,&rdquo; supposed to be the solitary survivor of a large group of these
+    huge stones, stood near the village school some years ago.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Passing Chollerton and Humshaugh, embowered amongst spreading trees, we
+    arrive at Chollerford, the prettiest village of North Tyne, lying near
+    the river where it was crossed by the Roman Wall. From the bridge which
+    spans the Tyne at Chollerford one of the finest views of the river, both
+    up and down the stream, is to be seen; and to watch the swift brown
+    stream, after a flood or a freshet, foaming through the arches is an
+    exhilarating sight. The bridge itself is a modern one, for we know that
+    all the bridges on the Tyne, except that of Corbridge, were swept away
+    by the great flood of 1771.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1394, that prince of bridge-builders, Bishop Walter de Skirlaw of
+    Durham, granted thirteen days&rsquo; indulgence to all who should assist in
+    rebuilding the bridge at Chollerford; so that already there was one here
+    which had evidently fallen into disrepair. Yet, in the ballad of &ldquo;Jock
+    o&rsquo; the Side,&rdquo; the rescuers, with Jock in their midst, reach Chollerford,
+    and, after some anxious questioning of an old man as to whether the
+    &ldquo;water will ride,&rdquo; are compelled to swim the Tyne in flood, which their
+    pursuers, coming up, will not attempt to do. Now Bishop Skirlaw&rsquo;s
+    bridges did not usually disappear; those of Yarm, Shincliffe, and
+    Auckland have stood until to-day, with occasional repairs. Are we then
+    reluctantly to question the truth of &ldquo;Jock o&rsquo; the Side&rdquo;? Surely, if the
+    choice remain of the accuracy of the ballad or the fact of the bridge,
+    it is the duty of all leal North-country people to swear by the ballad.
+    Perhaps the good Bishop did not personally oversee the rebuilding of
+    Chollerford Bridge: more probably the Wear and Tees do not come down
+    with the angry impetuosity of the Tyne in flood!
+</p>
+<p>
+    The remains of the great Roman camp of Cilurnum (The Chesters) may be
+    seen here within Mrs. Clayton&rsquo;s park. This was the largest military
+    station in Northumberland, Corstopitum, which is very much larger, being
+    more of a civil settlement. At some little distance below the present
+    bridge some of the piers of the old Roman bridge are still to be seen
+    when the river is low.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Eastward from Chollerford is the little church of St. Oswald, standing
+    where the battle of Heavenfield took place. When Penda of Mercia, and
+    the British Prince Cadwallon, were warring against Northumbria, the
+    greatest Northumbrian King, Edwin, was defeated and slain by them; and
+    on their return to the attack, Ethelfrith&rsquo;s eldest son, called back from
+    exile to take the vacant throne, and rule in his father&rsquo;s seat of
+    Bamburgh, also fell before their fierce onslaught. His brother Oswald
+    now took command of the Bernicians and prepared to lead them against the
+    foe. Oswald posted his men in a strong position on the north side of the
+    great Wall; and, setting up a huge cross of wood, called upon all his
+    followers to bow before the God of whom he had learnt during his exile
+    in Iona, and to pray to Him for victory. His army obeyed, and, in the
+    battle which followed, Oswald&rsquo;s forces were completely victorious. The
+    Mercians, and their allies, the western Britons, were routed, and driven
+    out of Bernicia, and Cadwallon was pursued as far as the Denise Burn,
+    and there slain. The Denise Burn is supposed to have been the Rowley
+    Burn, which flows into the Devil&rsquo;s Water, on whose banks stands Dilsten
+    Castle. Some time later, on the spot where Oswald&rsquo;s Cross had stood, a
+    church was erected and dedicated to the royal Saint. It was served from
+    Hexham Abbey.
+</p>
+<p>
+    After passing Wall, which, however, is not quite so near the Roman Wall
+    as Chollerford is, we come to the pretty village of Warden, nestling
+    beneath the woods of Warden Hill; and here, just above Hexham, the North
+    Tyne unites with its sister river in the rich meadow lands which lie
+    near the old town.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The South Tyne has journeyed from Cross Fell, where it takes its rise,
+    northward through a corner of Cumberland, past Garrygill and Alston,
+    until it enters Northumberland where the Ayle Burn on the one hand, and
+    the Gilderdale Burn on the other, flow into it. Here is Whitley Castle,
+    where was a small Roman station called Alio, and Kirkhaugh Church,
+    charmingly placed on the bank of the river, which continues its course
+    northward past Slaggyford, Knaresdale, Eals, and Lambley, till it flows
+    past the fine Castle of Featherstone, and the ruins of Bellister, where
+    it turns eastward to Haltwhistle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The little streams which enter the South Tyne up to this point flow
+    through wild and romantic glens, two of them owning the Celtic names of
+    <i>Glen Cune</i> and <i>Glen Dhu</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The family of Featherstonehaugh is one of the oldest in the North; and
+    it was concerning the death of one of this family&mdash;Sir Albany
+    Featherstonehaugh, who was High Sheriff of Northumberland in the days of
+    Henry VIII.&mdash;that Mr. Surtees, the antiquary, wrote the well-known
+    ballad, which, when Surtees gave it him, deceived even Sir Walter Scott
+    into thinking it genuinely ancient. The first verse of the ballad shows
+    with what a verve and swing the lines go.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Hoot awa&rsquo;, lads, hoot awa&rsquo;
+  Ha&rsquo; ye heard how the Ridleys, an&rsquo; Thirlwalls, an&rsquo; a&rsquo;
+  Ha&rsquo; set upon Albany Featherstonehaugh;
+  And taken his life at the Deadmanshaw?
+  There was Willimoteswick,
+  And Hard-riding Dick,
+  An&rsquo; Hughie o&rsquo; Hawdon, an&rsquo; Will o&rsquo; the Wa&rsquo;
+  I canno&rsquo; tell a&rsquo;, I canno&rsquo; tell a&rsquo;
+  And mony a mair that the de&rsquo;il may knaw.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The ruins of Bellister Castle stand against a sombre background of
+    woods, only a little way from Haltwhistle. The Castle once belonged to
+    the Blenkinsopp family, who also owned Blenkinsopp Castle, about two
+    miles away. The name was formerly spelt Blencan&rsquo;s-hope&mdash;the hope being
+    valley or hollow&mdash;and the Castle, like many other places, has its
+    legendary &ldquo;White Lady.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    Haltwhistle is a little straggling town lying on both sides of the main
+    road above the South Tyne, where it is joined by the Haltwhistle Burn.
+    By going up the valley of this pretty little stream we shall arrive near
+    the Roman station of AEsica, on the Wall. The town of Haltwhistle is
+    peaceful enough now, but it had a stirring existence in the days when
+    Ridleys, Armstrongs, and Charltons, to say nothing of the men of
+    Liddesdale and Teviotdale, had so strong a partiality for a neighbour&rsquo;s
+    live-stock and so ready a hand with arrow and spear. In the old ballad
+    of &ldquo;The Fray of Hautwessel,&rdquo; we are told that
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;The limmer thieves o&rsquo; Liddesdale
+  Wadna leave a kye in the haill countrie,
+  But an<a href="#fn-3" name="fnref-3" id="fnref-3"><sup>[3]</sup></a> we gi&rsquo;e them the cauld steel,
+  Our gear they&rsquo;ll reive it a&rsquo; awaye,
+  Sae pert they stealis, I you saye.
+  O&rsquo; late they came to Hautwessel,
+  And thowt they there wad drive a fray.
+  But Alec Ridley shot too well.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-3" id="fn-3"></a> <a href="#fnref-3">[3]</a>
+But an = unless.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+    The most notable feature of present-day Haltwhistle is the finely placed
+    parish church, of which the chancel is the oldest part, having been
+    built in the twelfth century, so that it was already an old church when
+    Edward I. rested here for a night in 1306, on his way to Scotland for
+    the last time. When William the Lion of Scotland returned from his
+    captivity, after being taken prisoner at Alnwick in 1174, he founded the
+    monastery of Arbroath in thanksgiving for his freedom, and bestowed on
+    the monks the church of Haltwhistle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    All that remains of the old Castle, or &ldquo;Haut-wysill Tower,&rdquo; is the
+    building standing near the Castle Hill, which latter has been fortified
+    by earthworks. The Red Lion Hotel is a modernised pele-tower. The
+    general aspect of the place is singularly bare and bleak; but from
+    several points in the town, notably from the churchyard terrace, fine
+    views of the river valley may be obtained.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Henshaw (Hethinga&rsquo;s-haugh) is a little village which King David of
+    Scotland, when he was Lord of Tynedale, gave to Richard Cumin and his
+    wife, who afterwards bestowed it on the Cathedral of Durham. It lies by
+    the side of the main road to Bardon Mill, which is the most convenient
+    station for travellers to alight at who wish to visit the Roman Wall and
+    the Roman city of Borcovicus, and the Northumberland lakes. Some little
+    distance up the hill from Bardon Mill station is a very pretty little
+    village whose name speaks eloquently of other invaders than the
+    Romans&mdash;the village of Thorngrafton (the &ldquo;ton&rdquo; or settlement on Thor&rsquo;s
+    &ldquo;graf&rdquo; or dyke). Near at hand there are quarries from which the Romans
+    obtained much building material for the Wall; and in one of these old
+    quarries some workmen discovered a bronze vessel full of Roman coins, a
+    few of gold, but most of silver. This was known as the &ldquo;Thorngrafton
+    Find,&rdquo; and the interesting story of it is told by Dr. Bruce.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the opposite side of the South Tyne from Henshaw, Willimoteswick
+    Castle stands on the level plains which are as characteristic of the
+    south bank of the river as are the steep slopes of the north bank. One
+    of the towers of this old Castle yet remains, and forms part of the more
+    modern farm-house which stands there. Willimoteswick was long in the
+    possession of the Ridleys, and it is generally accepted as having been
+    the birthplace of Bishop Ridley, though Unthank Hall, nearer to
+    Haltwhistle, and also a home of that family, disputes the honour. The
+    Bishop, who suffered death at the stake in the troublous times of Queen
+    Mary, in touching letters bids farewell to his Cousin at Willimoteswick
+    and his sister and her children at Unthank.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the same side of the Tyne is Beltingham Church, with some wonderful
+    old trees in the churchyard, and Ridley Hall, which takes its name from
+    that family, although not now occupied by them. Here the Allen flows
+    into the South Tyne, and nowhere in the whole of the county is there a
+    more beautiful and romantic scene. By the side of the stream the Ridley
+    woods stretch for a mile or two, and the delightful mingling of graceful
+    ferns, overhanging trees, tall, rugged cliffs, flowering plants, and
+    sparkling waters forms a succession of lovely scenes throughout their
+    length, which, with the play of lights and shadows on the dimpled
+    surface of the stream, and frequent glimpses of grassy glades and cool
+    green alleys, make a walk through these enchanting woods an
+    unforgettable delight.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Allen Burn, which gives its name to the beautiful district of
+    Allendale, is, like the Tyne, formed by the junction of two streams, the
+    East and West Allen, which rise near each other in hills on the border
+    of Northumberland and Durham, down the opposite slopes of which run the
+    little streams which feed the Wear. After flowing apart for some miles,
+    the East and West Allen unite not far from Staward railway station. Both
+    rivers flow, for the first part of their course, through a wild and
+    hilly region, rich, however, in minerals. On the East Allen are the
+    towns of Allenheads, formerly a busy centre of the lead-mining industry,
+    and Allendale Town, which lies about 1,400 feet above the sea-level.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As the lead-mining industry has decreased, Allendale has turned its
+    attention to other methods of living, and now caters for the army of
+    visitors who, each summer, climb its hills and wander through its woods
+    and lanes, and by its riverside, as did the Allendale maid whose memory
+    is perpetuated in the simple lines of the little poem, &ldquo;Lucy Gray of
+    Allendale.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Say, have you seen the blushing rose,
+  The blooming pink, or lily pale?
+  Fairer than any flower that blows
+  Was Lucy Gray of Allendale.
+
+  Pensive at eve, down by the burn,
+  Where oft the maid they used to hail,
+  The shepherds now are heard to mourn
+  For Lucy Gray of Allendale.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Not far from the village of Catton, the name of &ldquo;Rebel Hils&rdquo; reminds us
+    that it was a vicar of Allendale, Mr. Patten, who joined young
+    Derwentwater in the rising of &ldquo;The Fifteen,&rdquo; and was appointed chaplain
+    of the little army. He met some half-dozen men of the neighbourhood at
+    this hill, when they set off together to join the rest of the forces at
+    Wooler.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the West Allen is the lonely little hamlet of Ninebanks, with
+    Ninebanks Tower, concerning which little is known with certainty; and on
+    this stream also are two of the most strikingly beautiful places in
+    Northumberland&mdash;the delightfully picturesque village of Whitfield, and
+    the well-known Staward-le-Peel.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The ruins of the &ldquo;Pele&rdquo; tower stand on a high grassy platform,
+    safeguarded on three sides by tall cliffs and tumbled boulders; the
+    remains of a ditch may also be traced. From this point a splendid view
+    of the river valley, with its steep precipices, overhanging pinewoods
+    intermingled with trees of less sombre hue, and the bright course of the
+    river, may be obtained. At a point a little higher up the valley, where
+    the waters of the stream are held back by some huge rocks, they form a
+    deep pool, and then flow onwards through a narrow gorge called Cyper&rsquo;s
+    Linn. Following the stream now until it has merged its waters in those
+    of the South Tyne, we turn eastward with the main stream and come to
+    Haydon Bridge.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This considerable village, gradually growing to the proportions of a
+    small town, lies on both sides of the river, which is here crossed by
+    the substantial bridge from which the village takes its name; for the
+    original village of Haydon stood at some distance up the hill on the
+    north side of the stream. On the hillside may still be seen the ruins of
+    the old church, in which services are occasionally held in the summer
+    time. The chancel, apparently dating from the twelfth century, and a
+    later little chapel to the south of it, are all that are left of the
+    building. Some very quaint inscriptions are to be seen in the
+    churchyard, and there are many sculptured grave-covers within the
+    church. Many of the stones used in the building have evidently been
+    brought from the great Wall, or probably from the Roman station of
+    Borcovicus, some six or seven miles to the north; and what a rush of
+    bewildering fancies crowds upon one&rsquo;s mind on first discovering that the
+    font was originally a Roman altar!
+</p>
+<p>
+    The old church must have looked down on many a wild and curious scene in
+    the days when Scot and Englishman sought only opportunities to do each
+    other an injury, and the river-valleys were the natural passes through
+    which the tide of invasion, raid, and reprisal flowed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the beginning of the reign of Edward III., about 24,000 Scots, under
+    Douglas and Murray, crossed the Tyne near Haydon Bridge, and rode on to
+    plunder the richer lands that lay to the south and west. They reached
+    Stanhope and encamped there for a time. The young king set out
+    northwards with a great army to punish these marauders, and he was told
+    by his scouts that they had hastily left Stanhope on his approach. He
+    and his army pushed on quickly until they reached Bardon Mill; and,
+    crossing the Tyne, marched down to Haydon Bridge, expecting the Scots to
+    return by the way they went. It was miserable weather, and the feeding
+    of so many thousands of men was no little problem. They scoured all the
+    country round for provisions, getting the most from the Hexham Abbey
+    lands. Meanwhile it rained and rained, and no Scots appeared. After a
+    week of waiting, Edward, in great disappointment, went to Haltwhistle,
+    while his followers reconnoitered in all directions. Finally, he had the
+    mortification of learning that the Scots were still at Stanhope, but
+    before anything more could be done, they betook themselves back to
+    Scotland by a different route, and there was nothing left for Edward but
+    to give up the expedition in despair.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The bridge at Haydon appears to have been the only one for some distance
+    up and down the river in the sixteenth century, for we read of its being
+    barred and chained, on various occasions of marauding troubles in
+    Tynedale, to prevent the free-booters re-crossing the river.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the days of Charles I. Colonel Lilburn marched to Haydon Bridge in
+    command of some troops of the Roundheads, on his way to join their
+    comrades at Hexham as a counter-move to the operations of the Royalist
+    troops in the North. Little more than thirty years after this, when the
+    days of Cromwell&rsquo;s power had come and gone, and Charles II. ruled at
+    Whitehall, the old Grammar School was founded at Haydon Bridge in 1685
+    by a clergyman, the Rev. John Shafto. Various changes have taken place
+    in the school from time to time, necessitated by the gradual changes and
+    educational needs of the passing years; and now, like the Grammar School
+    of Queen Elizabeth at Hexham, it has been entirely re-constituted to
+    meet modern requirements. John Martin, the famous painter of &ldquo;The Plains
+    of Heaven,&rdquo; received the beginnings of his education at this school. He
+    was born at East Land Ends farm in 1789. In after years the authorities
+    of Haydon Bridge Reading Room, wishing no doubt to afford a perfect
+    example to future generations of the truth of the proverb concerning a
+    prophet and his own country, refused some of Martin&rsquo;s pictures, which
+    the gifted painter himself offered to them&mdash;an act which their
+    successors have doubtless regretted.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At a little distance along the Langley Road, which leads past the
+    school, a memorial cross is standing. It was erected in 1883 by the late
+    Mr. C.J. Bates, the historian of Northumberland, to the memory of the
+    last of the Derwentwater family, whose castle of Langley he purchased.
+    The inscription on the cross reads:&mdash;&ldquo;To the memory of James and
+    Charles, Viscounts Langley, Earls of Derwentwater, beheaded on Tower
+    Hill, London, 24th February, 1716, and 8th December, 1746, for loyalty
+    to their lawful sovereign.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    A striking testimony, this, to the fact that freedom in England is a
+    reality, and not merely a name. In what other land would an inscription
+    such as this have been allowed to remain for more than twenty-four
+    hours?
+</p>
+<p>
+    A couple of miles or more down the South Tyne is Fourstones, so called
+    because of four stones, said to have been Roman altars, having been used
+    to mark its boundaries. A romantic use was made of one of these stones
+    in the early days of &ldquo;The Fifteen.&rdquo; Every evening, as dusk fell, a
+    little figure, clad in green, stole up to the ancient altar, which had
+    been slightly hollowed out, and, taking out a packet, laid another in
+    its place. The mysterious packets, placed there so secretly, were
+    letters from the Jacobites of the neighbourhood to each other; and the
+    little figure in green was a boy who acted as messenger for them. No
+    wonder that the people of the district gave this altar the name of the
+    &ldquo;Fairy Stone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    Between Haydon Bridge and Fourstones are both freestone and limestone
+    quarries, which latter have supplied many fossils to visitors of
+    geological tastes. Halfway between Fourstones and Hexham, the two
+    streams of North and South Tyne unite, and flow together down to the old
+    town of Hexham, with its quaintly irregular buildings clustering in
+    picturesque confusion round its ancient Abbey, which dominates the
+    landscape from whatever point we approach.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Warden Village, already mentioned, lies in the angle formed by the
+    meeting of the two streams, and has an ancient church which, however,
+    has been largely rebuilt. From High Warden, near at hand, a delightful
+    view may be obtained for a long distance up the valleys of North and
+    South Tyne. On the summit of this hill there are the remains of a
+    considerable British camp, showing that they had seized upon this point
+    of vantage, and though the ancient British name has not come down to us,
+    it is evident from the Saxon name of Warden (<i>weardian</i>) that Saxons as
+    well as Britons were fully alive to the merits of the situation,
+    &ldquo;guarding&rdquo; the valley at such a commanding point.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.<br/>DOWN THE TYNE.</h2>
+
+<p>
+    The town of Hexham, standing on hilly ground overlooking the Tyne,
+    immediately below the point at which the North and South Tyne unite, and
+    spreading from thence down to the levels all round, is one of the most
+    ancient in the kingdom. To write of Hexham with any measure of fulness
+    would require much more space than can be given to it within the limits
+    of a small book; only a mere summary can be offered here. Britons,
+    Romans, and Saxons, in turn, have dwelt on and around the hill which, in
+    Saxon days, was to be crowned with Wilfrid&rsquo;s beautiful Abbey, which, we
+    read, surpassed all others in England at that time for beauty and
+    excellence of design and workmanship; nor was there another to equal it
+    anywhere on this side of the Alps.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The name of Hexham is generally understood to be derived from the names
+    of two little streams, the Hextol and the Halgut, now the Cowgarth and
+    the Cockshaw Burns, which here flow into the Tyne; or, as Mr. Bates
+    suggests, it may have been the &ldquo;ham&rdquo; of &ldquo;some forgotten Hagustald,&rdquo;
+    which the name perpetuates. In any case its name was Hagustaldesham when
+    King Ecgfrith (or Egfrid) of Northumbria gave it to his queen,
+    Etheldreda, who wished to take the veil. Queen Etheldreda, however,
+    preferred to go to East Anglia, which was her home; she retired to a
+    convent at Ely, and bestowed the land at Hagustaldesham on Wilfrid, a
+    monk of Lindisfarne, clever, ambitious and hardworking, who had become
+    Bishop of York, which meant Bishop of all Northumbria.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Wilfrid had been to Rome, and seen the churches of that city and of the
+    lands through which he travelled; and, on his appointment to power, he
+    set himself to make the churches of his diocese worthy to compare with
+    those of older civilizations. He did much to the cathedral of York, and
+    built that of Ripon; but the Abbey of Hexham was his masterpiece. He
+    built a monastery and church, dedicating the latter to St. Andrew, for
+    it was in the church of St. Andrew at Rome that, kneeling, he felt
+    himself fired with enthusiasm for his work, in the same church from
+    which Augustine had set out on his journey to Britain some fifty years
+    before. The year 674 is generally accepted as the date on which this
+    noble Abbey was founded.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Wilfrid lived in great splendour at York, and ruled his immense diocese
+    with a firm hand; in fact, he was the first of that line of great
+    ecclesiastics who have moved with such proud, and oft-times turbulent,
+    progress through the pages of English history. King Ecgfrith&rsquo;s second
+    wife, Ermenburga, was jealous of the great power and magnificence of the
+    Northumbrian prelate, and through her influence, Archbishop Theodore was
+    induced to divide the huge diocese of Northumbria into four
+    portions&mdash;York, Hexham, Ripon and Withern in Galloway. Wilfrid,
+    naturally indignant, found all his protests disregarded, and immediately
+    set out for Rome, to obtain a decree of restitution from the Pope. It
+    was given to him, but little cared the Northumbrians for that. Wilfrid
+    was imprisoned for nine months, and then banished from Northumbria.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He went southwards and dwelt in Sussex, where his genius for hard work
+    found scope in a mission to the Saxons of the south lands, and where he
+    built and founded more churches and monasteries. Readers of &ldquo;Rewards
+    and Fairies&rdquo; will have made acquaintance with Wilfrid in his Sussex
+    wanderings and hardships. On his recall to the North by King Aldfrith,
+    he returned to Hexham. On the death of Aldfrith, the new King, Edwulf,
+    banished Wilfrid once more, ordering him to leave the kingdom within six
+    days; but the friends of Aldfrith&rsquo;s young son, whom Edwulf had
+    dispossessed, obtained the ascendancy, and Wilfrid was re-instated in
+    his Abbeys of Hexham and Ripon.
+</p>
+<p>
+    While on his way back from Rome, on his last visit, Wilfrid had a severe
+    illness, but was granted a vision in which he was told that he had four
+    years more to live, and that he must build a church to the honour of the
+    Blessed Virgin. The little church of St. Mary, which stood close to the
+    walls of the great Abbey of Hexham, was erected in fulfilment of this
+    command.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the Abbey church itself, all that was known for centuries of the
+    original work of Wilfrid was the famous crypt, which is almost unique,
+    that of Ripon, also the work of Wilfrid, being the only one like it; but
+    recent excavations have brought much more of the ancient cathedral to
+    light, and laid bare, not only its original plan, but some of the walls,
+    and part of the very pavement trodden by the feet of Wilfrid and his
+    fellows so many centuries ago. The tomb of Wilfrid, however, is not at
+    Hexham, but at his other foundation of Ripon.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The ancient Abbey suffered much at the hands of the Danes, and in later
+    years from the ravages of the Scots, having been burnt several times,
+    notably in 1296, when 40,000 Scots ravaged the North of England,
+    plundering, burning, and laying waste wherever they went, exactly as the
+    Danes had done four hundred years before. Some of the stones of the old
+    Abbey yet bear traces of the fires by which the ancient building was so
+    often nearly destroyed, and in these frequent conflagrations all
+    records, charters, etc., of the Abbey, from which might have been
+    compiled a complete history, not only of the Abbey but of much of the
+    provincial and national history of the times, were lost.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Abbey was restored and rebuilt again and again, but for varying
+    reasons was without a nave for some hundreds of years. Within the last
+    ten years, however, a complete restoration has been carried out, under
+    the loving, and, what is more to the point, the capable superintendence
+    of Canon Savage and his colleagues, in the spirit and manner, as nearly
+    as possible, of the beautiful portions already standing; and several
+    disfiguring so-called &ldquo;restorations&rdquo; of nineteenth century work, which
+    could only detract from the beauty and dignity of the noble building,
+    have been removed entirely. This work was completed in 1908, and all who
+    have the honour of our famous county at heart must rejoice that its
+    noblest church is at last more worthy of its own high rank and glorious
+    past.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Among the many deeply interesting objects to be seen in the Abbey is the
+    stone Sanctuary seat&mdash;the Frid Stool, or seat of peace&mdash;at which
+    fugitives, fleeing from their enemies, might find refuge. It is believed
+    that this was the &ldquo;Cathedra&rdquo; of St. Wilfrid himself. The arms and back
+    of the chair are ornamented with a twisted knot-work pattern. The right
+    of Sanctuary extended for a mile round the Abbey, the boundaries being
+    marked by crosses, one at each point of the compass at that distance.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus04"></a>
+<a href="images/066.jpg">
+<img src="images/066.jpg" width="600" height="352" alt="Illustration:
+Hexham Abbey from North West" /></a>
+<p class="caption"><b>Hexham Abbey from North West</b></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+    Other treasures of the Abbey are the beautiful Old Rood Screen, dating
+    from the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century;
+    some wonderful old paintings, especially the portraits of the early
+    Bishops of Hexham, Alcmund, Wilfrid, Acca, Eata, Frithbert, Cuthbert,
+    and John, which date from the fifteenth century; the mediaeval carved
+    and painted pulpit, and the tomb of good King Alfwald of Northumbria.
+    Many of the stones used by Wilfrid&rsquo;s builders were of Roman workmanship,
+    and seem to have come from the Roman city of Corstopitum, at Corbridge.
+    An inscription on one of these old stones in the crypt takes us back
+    some centuries before even Wilfrid&rsquo;s time, for it commemorates the
+    Emperor Severus and his two sons, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Caracalla)
+    and Publius Septimius Geta, and has the name of the latter erased, as
+    was done on all similar inscriptions throughout the Empire, by order of
+    the inhuman Caracalla, after his murder of his brother.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A very interesting feature of the building is the stone stairway in the
+    South transept, by which the monks ascended to their dormitories above.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Quite near to the Abbey, at the other side of the Market Place, the
+    ancient Moot Hall claims attention. The modern visitor to the old town
+    walks beneath the gloomy archway, with its time-worn stones, which forms
+    the basement over which the Moot Hall stands. Another building, grim and
+    dark, near at hand, is the Old Manor House, in which the business
+    connected with the ancient Manor of Hexham was transacted.
+</p>
+<p>
+    An old foundation in the town was the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School,
+    which, after having fallen into desuetude for many years, has been
+    revived in a form appropriate to modern needs, and housed in a worthy
+    building, formally opened by Sir Francis Blake on November 2nd, 1910.
+    The site on which the new Grammar School of Queen Elizabeth stands is
+    one of the finest in the county, commanding, as it does, an
+    uninterrupted view of the river valley for some distance, and of the
+    rising ground beyond.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At the beginning of last century, Hexham was famed for its
+    glove-making: but that industry has forsaken the town for many years.
+    Now, Hexham is surrounded by acres of market-gardens, from which the
+    produce of Tynedale is carried far and wide.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The spacious stretch of level meadow-land below Hexham, rising gradually
+    up to the swelling ridges beyond, is said to have been the scene which
+    John Martin had in mind when he painted the &ldquo;Plains of Heaven&rdquo;; though
+    the level reaches above Newburn, unencumbered with buildings in John
+    Martin&rsquo;s time, and then a scene of quiet pastoral beauty, also claim
+    that honour.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Flowing now between well ordered gardens, green meadows, and ferny
+    banks, brawling musically over shingly shallows, or crooning gently
+    between fringing woods, the Tyne rolls onward to Corbridge, receiving on
+    its way the Devil&rsquo;s Water, a sparkling stream which flows through scenes
+    of enchanting beauty, whether between rugged cliffs and heather clad
+    hills as in its upper course, through the graceful overhanging trees and
+    cool green recesses of Dipton woods or between rich meadows and green
+    pasture-land where it loses itself in the bosom of the Tyne.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There is no more delightful experience than to wander through the woods
+    of Deepdene (Dipton) on a summer&rsquo;s day, when it requires no stretch of
+    the imagination to believe oneself in an enchanted forest, or, on
+    hearing a crackle of twigs, or faint sounds of the outside world
+    filtering through the green solitudes, to turn round expecting to see a
+    maiden on a &ldquo;milk-white steed,&rdquo; or one of the Knights of the Round Table
+    come riding by, in bravery of glistening armour and gay surtout, and to
+    find oneself murmuring, &ldquo;Now, Sir Gawain rode apace, and came unto a
+    right fair wood, and findeth the stream of a spring that ran with a
+    great rushing, and nigh thereunto was a way that was much haunted. He
+    abandoneth his high-way, and goeth all along the stream from the spring
+    that lasteth a long league plenary, until that he espieth a right fair
+    house and right fair chapel enclosed within a hedge of wood.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the green meadows of Hexham Levels and near Dilston Castle&mdash;two spots
+    of more than ordinary historical interest&mdash;the Lancastrian cause
+    received, in 1464, a blow from which it never rallied, though the
+    courageous Queen fought gallantly till the final disasters at Barnet and
+    Tewkesbury. The general of her forces, the Duke of Somerset, was
+    beheaded in Hexham market-place, and, together with several others of
+    rank and station, buried at Hexham. The well-known incident of Queen
+    Margaret&rsquo;s escape into Dipton, or Deepdene woods, where she and young
+    Prince Edward met with robbers, and afterwards escaped by the aid of
+    another member of that fraternity, took place a year before this, after
+    the first battle of Hexham in 1463. The year had been one of constant
+    warfare between York and Lancaster in the north, the Castles of Alnwick
+    and Bamburgh having fallen into the hands of Queen Margaret&rsquo;s friends
+    once more, after having been raptured by Edward of York the year before;
+    the Scots with Margaret and King Henry VI., had besieged Norham, but
+    were put to flight by the Earl of Warwick and hid brother, Lord
+    Montague; the royal fugitives sought safety at Bamburgh, whence the
+    Queen, with Prince Edward, sailed for Flanders, leaving King Henry in
+    the Castle where he was in no immediate danger; Warwick, with his
+    forces, retired southward again, and the gentle King remained in his
+    rocky stronghold, and enjoyed there nine months of unwonted peace.
+    Shortly after this, the Duke of Somerset deserted the cause of York for
+    that of Lancaster, and became the leader of the Queen&rsquo;s forces. In
+    April, 1464, he and Sir Ralph Percy opposed, at Hedgeley Moor, the
+    troops of Lord Montague journeying northward to escort the Scottish
+    delegates who were coming to York to make terms with Edward of York. Sir
+    Ralph Percy was slain, exclaiming as he fell &ldquo;I have saved the bird in
+    my bosom&rdquo;&mdash;that enigmatic sentence which has given rise to so much
+    conjecture, but which is generally held to mean that he had saved his
+    honour, by dying at last, after so many changes of front, in the service
+    of that King and Queen to whom he originally owed allegiance. &ldquo;Percy&rsquo;s
+    Cross,&rdquo; marking the site of his death, may be seen by the side of the
+    railway near Hedgeley Station, on the Alnwick and Wooler line.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The rest of the force dispersed, and made their way to Hexham; and Lord
+    Montague marching upon them from Newcastle, a sharp engagement took
+    place on the Levels, near the Linnels Bridge, with the result, as we
+    have seen, of the defeat and death of Somerset, and the overthrow of
+    Queen Margaret&rsquo;s hopes in the north, where she had had a strong
+    following.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The historical interest centred on Dilston Castle brings us to much
+    later times, and enshrines a story which possesses a pathetic interest
+    beyond that of any other place in Northumberland. Originally the home of
+    the family of D&rsquo;Eivill, later Dyvelstone (which explains the name
+    &ldquo;Devil&rsquo;s Water&rdquo;) Dilston Castle came into the possession of the
+    Radcliffes by marriage, and in the days of the Commonwealth the
+    Radcliffe of the day forfeited his estates on account of his loyalty to
+    the house of Stuart. Charles II. restored them, and the close attachment
+    between the houses of Stuart and Radcliffe continued until the fortunes
+    of both were quenched in disaster and gloom. The figure of the young
+    and gallant James Radcliffe, last Earl of Derwentwater, holds the
+    imagination no less than the heart as it moves across the page of
+    history for a brief space to its tragic end. Though born in London, in
+    June 1689, young Radcliffe passed his childhood and youth in France in
+    the closest companionship with James Stuart, son of the exiled James II.
+    At the age of twenty-one he returned to his home in Northumbria, and
+    took up his residence there, his charming manners, kind heart, and
+    openhanded hospitality speedily endearing him to all classes. His
+    servants and tenants, in particular, were passionately devoted to him.
+    In the words of the old ballad of &ldquo;Derwentwater&rdquo;&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;O, Derwentwater&rsquo;s a bonnie lord,
+  And golden is his hair,
+  And glintin&rsquo; is his hawkin&rsquo; e&rsquo;e
+  Wi&rsquo; kind love dwelling there.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    On his marriage in 1712, the young bride and bridegroom remained for two
+    years at the home of the bride&rsquo;s father, and preparations were made for
+    restoring the glories of Dilston on an extensive scale. On
+    Derwentwater&rsquo;s return to his beautiful Northumbrian seat in 1714, the
+    death of Queen Anne had excited the hopes of all the friends of the
+    house of Stuart, and plots and secret meetings were being planned
+    throughout Scotland and the north of England, the objective being the
+    restoration of the exiled Stuarts to the throne. Derwentwater took
+    little part in these attempts to organise rebellion for some time, but
+    at length was drawn into the dangerous game, as he was too valuable an
+    asset to be passed over by the Jacobite party.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At last rumours of the projected rising reached London, and a warrant
+    was issued for the arrest of Derwentwater, even before it was known
+    whether he had actually joined the plotters, his well-known friendship
+    with the exiled Prince making it almost certain that he would be an
+    important figure in any movement on their behalf. For the next few weeks
+    the young Earl found himself obliged to remain in hiding, finding safety
+    in the cottages of his tenants, and in the houses of friends and
+    neighbours. Finally, though his good sense warned him that he was
+    embarking on an almost hopeless enterprise, he decided to throw in his
+    lot with the Jacobites.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Tradition has it that his decision was brought about by the taunts of
+    his Countess, who, like the rest of the Jacobite ladies, was more
+    enthusiastic than the men. Throwing down her fan, she scornfully offered
+    that to her husband as a weapon, and demanded his sword in exchange. The
+    immediate result was seen on that October morning when Derwentwater and
+    his little band of followers rode over the bridge at Corbridge with
+    drawn swords, on their way to Beaufront, which was their first
+    rendezvous; and from there proceeded to Greenrigg, near the great Wall,
+    which had been appointed as a general meeting-place.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There they were joined by Mr. Forster, of Bamburgh, with his contingent,
+    and a few from the surrounding district. Rothbury next saw the little
+    army, which was joined on Felton Bridge by seventy Scots; and thereafter
+    Warkworth, Alnwick, and Morpeth heard James Stuart proclaimed King under
+    the title of James III.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Newcastle was to have been their next objective, but, hearing that the
+    city had closed its gates, and intended to hold out for King George, the
+    Jacobite force, after some indecision, returned northward to Rothbury,
+    where they were joined by a large company of Scottish Jacobites under
+    Lord Kenmure. Northward again they marched to Kelso, where more than a
+    thousand Scots joined forces with them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The little army numbered now almost 2,000, and a council was held to
+    determine what their next step should be. On its being resolved to enter
+    England, some hundreds of the Highlanders returned home, leaving an army
+    of about 1,500 to march southwards to Lancashire. On their way they put
+    to flight at Penrith a motley force which was raised to oppose them;
+    and, elated with a first success, moved forward to Preston, grievously
+    disappointed on the way at the failure of the people of Lancashire to
+    rise with them, for they had been given to understand that thousands in
+    that county were only awaiting an opportunity to declare for &ldquo;King
+    James.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    At Preston they barricaded the principal streets, and repulsed General
+    Willis; but the arrival of General Carpenter from Newcastle changed the
+    face of affairs. Young Derwentwater had fought valiantly and worked
+    arduously at the barricades, but Forster&mdash;whose appointment as General
+    had been made in the hope of attracting other Protestant gentry to the
+    Jacobite cause&mdash;offered to submit to General Carpenter under certain
+    conditions. Carpenter&rsquo;s reply was a demand for unconditional surrender,
+    and the hopeless little tragi-comedy was played out. The last scene took
+    place on Tower Hill three months later, when the gallant young Earl,
+    then only twenty-six years old, laid down the life which, after all, had
+    been spent in the service of others, with no selfish purpose in view,
+    and which was offered him, together with wealth and freedom, if he would
+    forsake his faith and throw aside his allegiance to the house of Stuart.
+    Refusing to purchase life at such a price, he was condemned, and
+    executed on Tower Hill on February 24th, 1716.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His brother Charles, who had been by his side throughout the rising,
+    had the good fortune to escape from Newgate Prison, and passed most of
+    his life abroad. Thirty years later, on his return to take up arms on
+    behalf of James&rsquo; son Charles&mdash;&ldquo;bonnie Prince Charlie&rdquo;&mdash;when he also drew
+    the sword in an attempt to regain the throne of his fathers, Radcliffe
+    was captured and beheaded. (For account of a monument to the memory of
+    these two brothers see in previous chapter paragraph relating to Haydon
+    Bridge.)
+</p>
+<p>
+    The story of General Forster&rsquo;s escape from Newgate is told by Sir Walter
+    Besant, as all readers of his novel, &ldquo;Dorothy Forster&rdquo; know, though the
+    author has taken those minor liberties with unimportant facts which are
+    by common consent allowable in fiction.
+</p>
+<p>
+    James Radcliffe&rsquo;s friends were allowed to have his body, though they
+    were forbidden to carry it home for burial; for such were the love and
+    esteem borne for the young Earl in the hearts of all his North-country
+    friends and dependents, that the authorities feared a disturbance of the
+    peace should his body be brought amongst them while their rage and grief
+    were still at their height. Notwithstanding the prohibition, however,
+    the body was brought secretly to Dilston, and buried in the vault of the
+    chapel, which, with the ruined tower, are all that remain of the home of
+    the Radcliffes. Standing amidst luxuriant foliage, and overlooking a
+    romantic dell, the ruins of tower and chapel remain as they fell into
+    decay on the death of their luckless owners. The confiscated estates
+    were bestowed on Greenwich Hospital, whose agents administer them still,
+    with the exception of certain portions purchased from time to time by
+    various landowners. No other family took the place of the Radcliffes in
+    the deserted halls; but tradition holds that the unfortunate Earl and
+    his sorrowful lady still revisit their ancient home. The Earl&rsquo;s body is
+    now at Thorndon, in Essex. Below is Surtees&rsquo; beautiful ballad, &ldquo;Lord
+    Derwentwater&rsquo;s Farewell.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  LORD DERWENTWATER&rsquo;S FAREWELL
+
+  &ldquo;Farewell to pleasant Dilston Hall,
+  My father&rsquo;s ancient seat;
+  A stranger now must call thee his,
+  Which gars my heart to greet.
+  Farewell each kindly well-known face
+  My heart has held so dear;
+  My tenants now must leave their lord
+  Or hold their lives in fear.
+
+  No more along the banks of Tyne
+  I&rsquo;ll rove in autumn grey;
+  No more I&rsquo;ll hear, at early dawn,
+  The lav&rsquo;rocks wake the day;
+  Then fare thee well, brave Witherington,
+  And Forster ever true;
+  Dear Shaftsbury and Errington,
+  Receive my last adieu.
+
+  And fare thee well, George Collingwood,
+  Since fate has put us down;
+  If thou and I have lost our lives,
+  Our king has lost his crown.
+  Farewell, farewell, my lady dear,
+  Ill, ill thou counsell&rsquo;dst me;
+  I never more may see the babe
+  That smiles upon thy knee.
+
+  And fare thee well, my bonny gray steed,
+  That carried me aye so free;
+  I wish I had been asleep in my bed
+  The last time I mounted thee;
+  The warning bell now bids me cease,
+  My trouble&rsquo;s nearly o&rsquo;er;
+  Yon sun that rises from the sea
+  Shall rise on me no more.
+
+  Albeit that here in London Town
+  It is my fate to die;
+  O carry me to Northumberland,
+  In my father&rsquo;s grave to lie.
+  There chant my solemn requiem
+  In Hexham&rsquo;s holy towers;
+  And let six maids of fair Tynedale
+  Scatter my grave with flowers.
+
+  And when the head that wears the crown
+  Shall be laid low like mine;
+  Some honest hearts may then lament
+  For Radcliffe&rsquo;s fallen line.
+  Farewell to pleasant Dilston Hall,
+  My father&rsquo;s ancient seat;
+  A stranger now must call thee his,
+  Which gars my heart to greet.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Near to Corbridge the waters of the Tyne lave the ancient piers of the
+    old Roman bridge which led to Corstopitum, the most considerable of the
+    Roman stations in this region. The recent careful excavations have laid
+    bare the evidence of what must have been a most imposing city, and many
+    treasures of pottery, coins and ancient jewellery and ornaments,
+    together with large quantities of the bones of animals, some of them
+    identical with the wild cattle of Chillingham, have been brought to
+    light. The famous silver dish known as the Corbridge Lanx, which was
+    found at the riverside by a little girl in 1734, had evidently been
+    washed down from Corstopitum. It is now preserved at Alnwick Castle.
+    The antiquity of Corbridge is thus superior to that of Hexham, as far as
+    may be known; but on the other hand, while Hexham in Saxon times grew to
+    power, Corbridge declined. Yet, in its time, it was more than the home
+    of a famous Abbey; it was a royal city, albeit the date of its elevation
+    to royal rank coincided with the decline of the kingdom of which it was
+    the final capital. When the fierce and ruthless internal quarrels, which
+    rent Northumbria after Edbert&rsquo;s glorious reign, had weakened it so that
+    it fell a prey to the gradual encroachments of its northern neighbours,
+    the once royal city of Bamburgh was left in the hands of a noble Saxon
+    family, and the court was removed to Corbridge, which remained the abode
+    of the kings of Northumbria until Northumbria possessed royal rank no
+    longer. The tale of the two hundred years during which Corbridge was the
+    capital city is a tale of red slaughter and ruin, murder and bitter
+    feud, not against outside foes, but between one family and another,
+    noble against king, king against relatives of other noble houses,
+    amongst which might possibly be found the thegn to succeed him, or to
+    murder him in order to bring about his own more speedy elevation to a
+    precarious throne.
+</p>
+<p>
+    So much was this the case, that Charles the Great, at whose court the
+    learned Northumbrian, Alcuin, was secretary, said that the Northumbrians
+    were worse than the invading heathen Danes, who, by this time, had begun
+    their ravages in the land. Amongst the rulers of Northumbria in those
+    days, the name of Alfwald the Just, who was called &ldquo;the Friend of God,&rdquo;
+    shines out with enduring light across the stormy darkness of that
+    terrible period; yet even his just and merciful rule and noble life
+    could not save him from the hand of the assassin. He was buried with
+    much mourning and great pomp in the Abbey at Hexham; and during the
+    recent excavations the fact of a Saxon interment was verified as having
+    taken place beneath the beautiful tomb which tradition has always held
+    to be that of King Alfwald the Just. This fact also helped to
+    demonstrate the extent of the original Abbey.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There was a monastery at Corbridge in the year 771, which is supposed to
+    have been founded by St. Wilfrid. Of the four churches which were
+    erected in later times, only one survives&mdash;the parish church of St.
+    Andrew, which occupies the site of the early monastery. In this ancient
+    church may be seen part of the original Saxon work, and many stones of
+    Roman workmanship are built up in the structure.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Like most other old churches in the north, it suffered severely at the
+    hands of the Scots, and, as at Hexham Abbey, traces of fire may be seen
+    on some of the stones.
+</p>
+<p>
+    King David of Scotland, on his invasion of England in 1138, which was to
+    end at the &ldquo;Battle of the Standard,&rdquo; at Northallerton, encamped at
+    Corbridge for a time, and terrible cruelties were committed in the
+    district by his followers. In the next century, King John turned the
+    little town upside down in his efforts to find treasure which he was
+    convinced must be concealed somewhere in the houses; but his search was
+    fruitless. In the days of the three Edwards, during the long wars with
+    Scotland, Corbridge suffered terribly, being fired again and again; on
+    one occasion, in 1296, the destruction included the burning of the
+    school with some two hundred hapless boys within its walls.<a href="#fn-4"
+    name="fnref-4" id="fnref-4"><sup>[4]</sup></a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-4" id="fn-4"></a> <a href="#fnref-4">[4]</a>
+<i>See</i> Bates, p. 149.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+    Those heroes of our childhood&rsquo;s days, William Wallace and Robert Bruce,
+    were far from guiltless in these cruelties, though in justice to them
+    personally, the wild and lawless character of the men who formed their
+    undisciplined hosts must be remembered; and we know that Wallace tried
+    to save the holy vessels in Hexham Abbey, but, as soon as his back was
+    turned, they were swept away in the very presence of the officiating
+    priest.
+</p>
+<p>
+    During these terrible years most of Northumberland was a desolate waste;
+    and divine service had almost ceased to be performed between Newcastle
+    and Carlisle, even Hexham being deserted for a time. After the battle of
+    Bannockburn, matters were worse, if possible, and all the north lay in
+    fear of the Scots, but from time to time spasmodic efforts at
+    retaliation were made by the boldest of the Northumbrian landowners. In
+    the reign of Edward III., however, many of these great landowners
+    thwarted the King&rsquo;s designs by making a traitorous peace with their
+    turbulent neighbours.
+</p>
+<p>
+    David II. of Scotland encamped at Corbridge for a time during his second
+    attempt to invade England but this expedition ended in his defeat and
+    capture at Neville&rsquo;s Cross. Thereafter the north had rest for some
+    years, and Corbridge seems to have been left in peace. The Wars of the
+    Roses passed it by; and the Civil Wars in Stuart days also, except for
+    an unimportant skirmish; and the only part Corbridge saw of the Jacobite
+    rising of &ldquo;The Fifteen&rdquo; was the little cavalcade from Dilston which
+    clattered over the old bridge on its way to Beaufront. That bridge is
+    the same which we cross to-day; the date of its erection, 1674, may be
+    seen on one of its stones, and it was the only one on the Tyne which
+    withstood the great flood of 1771, when even the old Tyne Bridge at
+    Newcastle was swept away.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Quite close to the church there is an old pele-tower, which is in an
+    excellent state of preservation, little of it having disappeared except
+    the various floors. The vicars of Corbridge must have been often
+    thankful for such a refuge at hand, where they could bid defiance to
+    marauding bands, whether of Scottish or English nationality. In the
+    Register of the parish church may be seen a most interesting entry,
+    showing the Earl of Derwentwater&rsquo;s signature as churchwarden.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At a little distance from Corbridge, to the northward, is the fortified
+    manor-house of Aydon Castle, standing embowered in trees where the Cor
+    burn runs through a little rocky ravine, down whose steep sides Sir
+    Robert Clavering threw most of a marauding band of Scotsmen who had
+    attacked the grange; the place known as &ldquo;Jock&rsquo;s Leap&rdquo; obtained its name
+    from one of the Scots who escaped the fate of his comrades by his leap
+    for life across the ravine. The Castle, or hall, as it is variously
+    called, has not suffered such destruction as might have been expected,
+    seeing that it dates from the thirteenth century; but the thickness of
+    its walls, and the arrow-slits and narrow windows are obvious proof of
+    the necessity for defence which existed when it was first erected in the
+    days of Edward I. Many features of great interest, notably the ancient
+    fireplaces, remain in the interior of the building.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Returning down the Cor burn to the Tyne, our way lies eastward by the
+    side of the river, which here, after splashing and sparkling over the
+    shallows below Corbridge, narrows again to a deeper stream of swifter
+    current, and flows between green meadows and leafy woods, fern-clad
+    steeps and level haughs, all the way down to Ryton, where the
+    picturesque aspect of the river ceases, and it becomes an industrial
+    waterway. On this reach of the river are several places of considerable
+    interest.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Riding Mill, a pretty village in a well-wooded hollow, enclosed by steep
+    hills which rise ever higher and higher to the moors by Minsteracres and
+    Blanchland, stands where Watling Street, or Dere Street, leading down
+    the long slope of the country from Whittonstall, on reaching the Tyne
+    turned westward to Corstopitum. Further down the stream is Stocksfield,
+    where the aged King Edward I. halted on his last journey into Scotland,
+    on that expedition which was to have executed a summary vengeance upon
+    the Scots; he journeyed forward by slow stages, but was taken ill at
+    Newbrough, where he stayed for some time, before continuing his journey
+    by Blenkinsopp, Thirlwall, and Lanercost to Carlisle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the opposite side of the stream from Stocksfield is the lovely
+    village of Bywell, a &ldquo;haunt of ancient peace,&rdquo; &ldquo;sleeping soft on the
+    banks of the murmuring Tyne.&rdquo; This little peaceful spot was at one time
+    a very busy centre of life and industry on a small scale; in the Middle
+    Ages the inhabitants drove a thriving trade in all the necessities for a
+    people who spent a great part of their lives upon horseback, especially
+    in the making of the ironwork required&mdash;&ldquo;bits, stirrups, buckles, and
+    the like, wherein they are very expert and cunning.&rdquo; The Nevilles, lords
+    of Raby and earls of Westmoreland, held Bywell at this time; before that
+    it was in the hands of the Balliols, of Scottish fame, who, like the
+    Bruces, were Norman knights high in favour with their kings, Norman and
+    Plantagenet, though they afterwards became their most determined foes.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Long before the advent of the Normans, a church was built here by St.
+    Wilfrid, and in it&mdash;St. Andrew&rsquo;s or the &ldquo;White&rdquo; Church&mdash;Egbert, twelfth
+    bishop of Lindisfarne, was consecrated by Archbishop Eanbald in the year
+    803. More than a thousand years afterwards, in 1896, an Ordination
+    service was again held at Bywell, in St. Peter&rsquo;s church, when five
+    deacons were ordained by Bishop Jacob. And in times yet more remote
+    than Wilfrid&rsquo;s age, Roman legionaries crossed the Tyne at this point
+    over a bridge of their own construction, of which the piers might be
+    seen until our own day. Bywell, too, had its &ldquo;find&rdquo; of Roman silver; in
+    1760 a silver cup was found in the Tyne, bearing the inscription
+    &ldquo;Desidere vivas&rdquo; around the neck of the vessel.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the Nevilles were lords of the manor of Bywell, they began to build
+    a castle here, which, however, was left unfinished; the ancient tower
+    still standing, with its picturesque draping of ivy, was the gate-house
+    of the intended fortress. On the rebellion of the northern earls in
+    1569, Westmoreland&rsquo;s forfeited lands passed to the crown, so that Bywell
+    was held by Queen Elizabeth for a year or two, until she sold the estate
+    to a branch of the Fenwick family.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Bywell is unique in Northumberland in possessing two churches side by
+    side yet in different parishes. The town of Bywell, we are told by the
+    same authority before quoted, lay in a long line by the north bank of
+    the Tyne, and was &ldquo;divided into two separate parishes&rdquo; even then, so
+    that there ought to be traces of former buildings westward from the
+    present village. In connection with the two churches which adjoin each
+    other so closely, tradition tells the well-known story of the two
+    quarrelsome sisters who could not agree on the building of a church and
+    therefore each built one. One might have imagined, with some show of
+    reason, that there being two parishes, the two churches were placed
+    there in sheltering proximity to the castle, were it not for the fact
+    that the churches were in existence long before the stronghold of the
+    Nevilles was contemplated.
+</p>
+<p>
+    St. Andrew&rsquo;s, called the &ldquo;White&rdquo; church from the fact of its being
+    served in later days by the White friars, is the more ancient of the
+    two. As we have seen, a church erected by St. Wilfrid stood on this
+    site, and a goodly portion of the Saxon work remains in the tower. The
+    hagioscope, or &ldquo;squint&rdquo; in this church, and the &ldquo;leper&rdquo; window in St.
+    Peter&rsquo;s are interesting relics of the Middle Ages.
+</p>
+<p>
+    St. Peter&rsquo;s, or the &ldquo;Black&rdquo; church which once belonged to the
+    Benedictines or Black friars, is of much later date than its neighbour,
+    though still an ancient building, being supposed to date from the
+    eleventh century. Its most interesting possessions are two very old
+    bells, bearing Latin inscriptions, one announcing &ldquo;I proclaim the hour
+    for people rising, and call to those still lying down,&rdquo; and the other
+    reading &ldquo;Thou art Peter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    Bywell suffered greatly in the flood of 1771, when the bridge was swept
+    away, many houses destroyed, several people drowned, and both churches
+    greatly damaged.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is not surprising that this tranquil little village&mdash;&ldquo;the retreat of
+    the old doomed divinities of wood and fountain, banished from their
+    native haunts,&rdquo; to quote Mr. Tomlinson&rsquo;s happy phrase&mdash;has always been
+    beloved of artists, many of whom have transferred to their canvasses the
+    beauties of its mingled scenery of graceful woods and sparkling waters,
+    ancient fortress, peaceful meadows, and gray old towers. Many noteworthy
+    and fine old trees are to be found in and around this artists&rsquo; haunt.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the opposite side of the river, Bywell&rsquo;s younger sister, Stocksfield,
+    grows apace, reaching out towards the lulls and along the eastward
+    lanes, though not as yet in such measure as to cover the hillsides with
+    any semblance of a town, being still almost hidden amongst the profusion
+    of trees that clothe most of the district in their leafy greenery. On
+    the north bank of the stream the village of Ovingham now rises into
+    view, its name telling us plainly that there was a settlement here in
+    Saxon times &ldquo;the home of the sons of Offa&rdquo;; and the slope above the
+    river is fittingly crowned by the ancient church of St. Mary, whose
+    tower, with its curiously irregular windows, is the work of the Saxon
+    builders of the original church. The rest of the building, except some
+    Saxon work at the west end of the nave, dates from early Norman days.
+    Here is the burial place of the famous brothers John and Thomas Bewick,
+    who were born at Cherryburn House, just across the river. In this
+    delightful spot the boy Thomas Bewick grew up, absorbing unconsciously
+    the natural beauties that are to be found here by the Tyne and in the
+    little ravine through which the Cherry Burn flows, which beauties he so
+    lovingly reproduced on his engraving blocks later in life.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At the fords of Ovingham, Eltringham, and Bywell, the Scots under
+    General Leslie crossed the Tyne in 1644, and made their way into Durham,
+    leaving six regiments to watch Newcastle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The picturesque ruins of Prudhoe Castle, whose lofty towers dominate the
+    valley for some distance up and down the stream, stand on a commanding
+    rocky ridge above the Tyne. The lands of Prudhoe were given, soon after
+    the Norman Conquest, to one of Duke William&rsquo;s immediate followers,
+    Robert de Umfraville; and it was Odinel de Umfraville who built the
+    present castle in the twelfth century. Its strength was soon put to the
+    test, for a few years after it was built William the Lion of Scotland
+    found that the place baffled all his attempts to capture it. In his
+    anger he determined to reduce the fortress of Odinel, who had spent much
+    time at the Scottish court in his youth, the Kings of Scotland being at
+    that time lords of Tynedale. The attempt ended in total failure, the
+    greatest harm the Scots did on that occasion being to destroy the
+    cornfields and strip the bark from the apple trees near the Castle;
+    while, a day or two afterwards, Odinel de Umfraville, with Glanvile and
+    Balliol, captured the Scottish monarch himself at Alnwick.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Another Umfraville, Richard, quarrelled with his neighbour of Nafferton,
+    on the opposite side of the river, for having begun to erect a fortress
+    much too near Umfraville&rsquo;s own. He sent a petition to the King on the
+    subject and King John commanded Philip de Ulecote&rsquo;s building operations
+    to cease. The unfinished castle, known as Nafferton Tower, remains to
+    this day as Philip&rsquo;s masons left it so many centuries ago.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Sir Ingram de Umfraville was by the side of Edward II. at Bannockburn,
+    when, before the battle, Bruce ordered his men to kneel in prayer.
+    Edward looked on the kneeling host, and turning to Umfraville, exclaimed
+    &ldquo;See! Yon men kneel to ask mercy.&rdquo; &ldquo;You say truth, sire,&rdquo; answered the
+    knight of Prudhoe; &ldquo;they ask mercy&mdash;but not of you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    The last Umfraville, who died in 1381, left a widow, the Countess Maud,
+    who married a Percy of Alnwick, and so the castle passed into the hands
+    of that family, in whose possession it still remains.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When Odinel de Umfraville was building the keep of his castle, every one
+    in the neighbourhood was pressed into the service, and all lent their
+    aid except the men of Wylam. Wylam had been given to the church of St.
+    Oswyn at Tynemouth, and, as was customary, was freed by charter from the
+    duty of castle building, or any other feudal service excepting such as
+    were rendered to the Prior of Tynemouth as occasion arose. So, in spite
+    of the angry surprise of the lord of Prudhoe, the Wylam men quietly held
+    to their charter, and not all Odinel&rsquo;s threats or persuasions moved them
+    one whit.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Stanley Burn, which enters the Tyne close to Wylam railway station,
+    divides this part of the county of Durham from Northumberland, so that
+    from Wylam to the sea the south side of the Tyne is in the county of
+    Durham. The most noteworthy object at Wylam, or, to be precise, a little
+    way along the old post-road, leading to Newcastle from Hexham, is the
+    red-tiled cottage in which George Stephenson was born in 1781. It stands
+    on the north bank of the Tyne, where it can be distinctly seen from
+    passing trains. Its neighbour cottage has been repaired and re-roofed,
+    but Stephenson&rsquo;s cottage remains unaltered.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Mr. Blackett, who owned Wylam Colliery at the beginning of the
+    nineteenth century, took the keenest interest in the question of
+    locomotives, and had tried more than one on his estate before George
+    Stephenson brought them to the point of practical use. At Newburn, just
+    four miles down the Tyne, George Stephenson passed many years of his
+    youth; here he learned to read and write, when he was old enough to earn
+    a man&rsquo;s wage and could afford the few pence necessary; and here, in the
+    parish church, may be seen, with an interval of twenty years between
+    them, the entries of his two marriages.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Newburn is important nowadays for its steel works, within whose
+    workshops is incorporated an old building formerly known as Newburn
+    Hall; but in days long past its importance arose from its being on the
+    ford of the Tyne nearest to Newcastle. This ford was frequently made use
+    of, notably by the Scots in the reign of Charles I. Their chief camping
+    ground is pointed out to us by the name of Scotswood, which also
+    describes what Scotswood was like in those days&mdash;a great contrast to its
+    present appearance, when the lines of brick and mortar stretching out
+    uninterruptedly from Newcastle make it practically one with that town.
+    In 1640, the Scottish army, under General Leslie, faced the Royalist
+    troops, under Lord Conway, on the south side of the river. The Scots
+    mounted their rude cannon on Newburn Church tower, and the English
+    raised earthworks along the bank of the river, which was here fordable
+    in two places. The two armies calmly watered their horses on opposite
+    banks of the stream all the next morning, but a shot at a Scottish
+    officer from the English ranks precipitated the battle; and the Scottish
+    army, having made a breach in both earthworks with their artillery,
+    waded across the fords and drove the Royalist troops up the bank, after
+    one spasmodic rally, which, however, failed to check the Scottish
+    advance. The way was now open for the Scottish army to continue down the
+    south bank of the Tyne and attack Newcastle from Gateshead. It had been
+    Lord Conway&rsquo;s task to prevent this, but owing to his incapacity or want
+    of whole-hearted enthusiasm for his cause, he failed entirely.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Not until 1644, however, was a Scottish attack on Newcastle actually
+    made, for on this occasion Leslie, as we have already seen, led his men
+    across the fords higher up the river and marched southwards. The
+    earthworks thrown up by Conway&rsquo;s troops may still be seen on Stella
+    Haughs.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is supposed that the Romans had a fort here, commanding the passage
+    of the river; indeed it would have been strange had this not been the
+    case, for the Romans were not the people to disregard any point of
+    strategical importance, especially one so near their stations of Pons
+    AElii and Condercum. Many stones of Roman workmanship have been used in
+    the building of the Newburn church.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From this point to its mouth, nearly fifteen miles away, both banks of
+    the Tyne present an unbroken scene of industry. Between the steel works
+    of Newburn and the iron and chemical works, the brick and tile works of
+    Blaydon and past the famous yards of Elswick, down to the wharves and
+    shipyards of North and South Shields, the Tyne rolls its swift dark
+    waters through a scene of stirring activity; the air is dusky with soot
+    and smoke, and reverberant with the clang of hammers and the pulsing
+    beat of machinery. Some old and world-famed works have been closed or
+    removed, like Hawks&rsquo; and Stephenson&rsquo;s, but others, many others, have
+    opened; and the map of the positions of Tyne industries, published under
+    the auspices of the Newcastle and Gateshead Chamber of Commerce, is a
+    record of resolute toil and brilliant achievement in the many aspects of
+    industrial life represented on the river.
+</p>
+<p>
+    And, apart from the mere prosperity and commercial supremacy of the
+    district, there is another cause for pride in the many notable
+    inventions which hail from Tyneside; from the locomotive and the
+    &ldquo;Geordie&rdquo; lamp of Stephenson, the hydraulic machinery and the big guns
+    of Armstrong, to the wonderful turbine engines of Parsons; the invention
+    of water-ballast, too, belongs to the Tyne, for it was the idea of a
+    Gateshead man, and first used at Jarrow.
+</p>
+<p>
+    And, in connection with ships and seafarers, though not in any
+    commercial sense, we may proudly recall the fact that the first Lifeboat
+    was launched on the Tyne and named after the river; and the first
+    Volunteer Life Brigade was formed at Tynemouth. The Worth Eastern
+    Railway is carried across the Tyne by the Scotswood Bridge; and it was
+    on this part of the river that the boat-races, for which the Tyne was
+    once famous, were rowed. At Newcastle, the river is bridged by four huge
+    structures&mdash;The Redheugh Bridge, the new King Edward VII. bridge, the
+    High Level, and Swing Bridges,&mdash;all connecting Newcastle with the sister
+    town of Gateshead. An interesting sight it is to see the Swing Bridge
+    gradually turning on its central pivot, until it lies in a straight line
+    up and down the stream, allowing some huge liner to pass, or some new
+    battleship, fresh from Elswick, to sail down the river, on its way to
+    make its trial trip over the &ldquo;measured mile&rdquo; in the open sea at the
+    mouth of the river, and thereafter to take its place among the armaments
+    of the nations.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The High Level Bridge allows ships of any height to pass under its lofty
+    and graceful arches, which look so light, but are yet so strong. This
+    splendid bridge is an enduring monument of Robert Stephenson, whose work
+    it was; and the story of its erection, at the cost of nearly half a
+    million of money, makes most interesting reading. It took nearly two and
+    a half years to build, and was opened for traffic in 1849&mdash;little more
+    than three years after the first pile was driven in. A few months later,
+    in 1850, the newly built Central Station, with its imposing portico, was
+    opened by Queen Victoria.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Passing down the Tyne from Newcastle, which requires separate notice,
+    and Walker, with its reminiscences of &ldquo;Walker Pit&rsquo;s deun weel for me,&rdquo;
+    we arrive at Wallsend, which in twenty-five years has grown from a
+    colliery village with a population of 4,000 to a town of 23,000
+    inhabitants. Here are great shipbuilding and repairing yards, chemical
+    works and cement works; here, too, are Parsons&rsquo; Steam Turbine Works,
+    where was designed and built the little &ldquo;Turbinia,&rdquo; on which tiny vessel
+    the early experiments were made with the new engines; and here are the
+    famous mines which have made &ldquo;Best Wallsend&rdquo; a synonym for best
+    household coal all over the land. These mines, after having been closed
+    for many years, were reopened at the beginning of the century, and now
+    turn out upwards of one thousand tons of coal per day.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The church of St. Peter, at Wallsend, is little more than a hundred
+    years old; the old Church of Holy Cross, now long disused, was built
+    towards the end of the twelfth century. But Wallsend itself, as all the
+    world knows, is of much greater antiquity, for was it not, as its name
+    proclaims, situated at the end of the Great Wall? Its name then,
+    however, was not Wallsend but Segedunum.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Willington Quay, further down the river, was, for a time, the home of
+    George Stephenson, and here his son, Robert, was born. At Howdon, which
+    used to be known as Howdon Pans, from the salt-pans there, the painter
+    John Martin and his brothers once worked when boys, being employed in
+    some rope-works. Here, too, the Henzells, a family of refugees who
+    settled in the district in the days of Elizabeth, founded some glass
+    works, for which industry the Tyne has been famous from that day to
+    this.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus05"></a>
+<a href="images/092.jpg">
+<img src="images/092.jpg" width="600" height="389" alt="Illustration:
+The River Tyne at Newcastle (showing Swing Bridge Open)." /></a>
+<p class="caption"><b>The River Tyne at Newcastle (showing Swing Bridge Open).</b></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+    Before the railway on the south side of the river was laid down,
+    passengers who wished to reach Jarrow had to alight at Howdon and cross
+    the river; and a racy dialect song&mdash;&ldquo;Howdon for Jarrow&rdquo; with its refrain
+    of &ldquo;Howdon for Jarra&mdash;ma hinnies, loup oot&rdquo;&mdash;commemorates the fact.
+    Willington Quay and Howdon carry on the line of shipbuilding yards to
+    Northumberland Dock and the staithes of the Tyne Commissioners, where
+    the waggon ways from various collieries bring the coal to the water&rsquo;s
+    edge. Tyne Dock, just opposite, and the Albert Edward Dock near North.
+    Shields, provide abundance of shipping accommodation, besides what is
+    afforded by the river itself; and now the river flows between the steep
+    banks of North and South Shields. As the names declare, these two
+    growing and prosperous towns once consisted of a few fishermen&rsquo;s huts,
+    or &ldquo;shielings&rdquo;; but that was long ago, when the north shore of the Tyne
+    was owned by the Prior of Tynemouth, and the southern shore by the
+    Bishop of Durham, and the citizens of Newcastle complained to King
+    Edward I. that these two ecclesiastics had raised towns, &ldquo;where no town
+    ought to be,&rdquo; and that &ldquo;fishermen sold fish there which ought to be sold
+    at Newcastle, to the great injury of the whole borough, and in detriment
+    to the tolls of our Lord the King.&rdquo; These quarrels between Newcastle and
+    the other settlements on the Tyne continued with varying results, until
+    in the days of Cromwell, Ralph Gardiner of Chirton, a little village
+    close to North Shields, took up the cudgels for the growing towns; and
+    by dint of great perseverance, and in spite of much persecution and
+    ill-will, succeeded in getting most of the unjust privileges of their
+    stronger neighbour abolished.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There were salt-pans, too, on both sides of the mouth of the Tyne, which
+    were worked in connection with the monasteries from very early days; and
+    Daniel Defoe, when he visited the north in 1726, declared that he could
+    see from the top of the Cheviot &ldquo;the smoke of the salt-pans at Sheals,
+    at the mouth of the Tyne, which was about forty miles south of this.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    North Shields clings haphazard to the steep bank of the Tyne, and
+    spreads away up and beyond it, reaching out towards Wallsend on the
+    river shore and Tynemouth along by the sea, the older parts by the
+    river looking black and grimy to the last degree; but there is a silver
+    lining to this very black cloud&mdash;not visible, it is true, but distinctly
+    audible&mdash;in the great shipbuilding and repairing works known as Smith&rsquo;s
+    Dock, one of the largest concerns of the kind in Great Britain, where so
+    many hundreds of men earn their daily bread; and in the fishing
+    industry, which was the foundation of the town&rsquo;s prosperity, and bids
+    fair to be so for many years to come, as it is increasing year by year.
+    The Fish Quay at North Shields is a sight worth seeing; and, in the
+    herring season, it is increasingly frequented by Continental buyers.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The fortunes of South Shields and Jarrow, though these towns are not in
+    Northumberland, are yet so bound up with the story of the Tyne that no
+    one would ever think of that river without them. Especially is this the
+    case with Jarrow, which &ldquo;Palmer&rsquo;s&rdquo; has raised from a small colliery
+    village to a large and flourishing town. In those famous yards,
+    everything that is necessary for the building of the largest ironclad,
+    from the first smelting of the ore until the last rivet is in place, can
+    be done. All Northumbria&mdash;Northumbria in the ancient and widest sense
+    of the word&mdash;owes a debt of gratitude to Jarrow, for was it not the home
+    of Bede? The monk of Jarrow, who spent all his long life in the same
+    monastery by the Don, coming to it when he was a child of ten, made that
+    spot of Northumbrian ground famed to the farthest limits of the
+    civilized Europe of his day; and scholars from all over the Continent
+    came to learn at the feet of the Northumbrian teacher. Beloved and
+    revered by all, and in harness to the last hour of his busy life, he
+    died in the year 735, just one hundred years after the coming of Aidan
+    to Lindisfarne. &ldquo;First among English scholars, first among English
+    theologians, first among English historians, it is in the monk of
+    Jarrow that English literature strikes its roots.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>J.R. Green</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Jarrow of to-day, and all its neighbours of industrial Tyneside,
+    possess no beauty of aspect such as the towns that are more fortunately
+    situated on the upper reaches of the river; they are muffled in clouds
+    of smoke and soot, and darkened by the necessities of their toil in
+    grimy ores and the ever-present coal. But no one who has ever looked on
+    these smoky reaches of the Tyne with a seeing eye, or steamed down the
+    river on a day either of gloom or sunshine, can refuse to acknowledge
+    that it has a certain grandeur, a stern beauty of its own, that can stir
+    the heart and the imagination more deeply than any mere prettiness.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From the numberless hives of activity on both sides of the river clouds
+    of smoke roll heavily upward, and jets of steam from panting machinery
+    leap up in momentary whiteness on the dark background; the white wings
+    of flocks of wheeling gulls flash in the occasional sunshine which
+    lights up the scene, and between the clouds there are glimpses of blue
+    sky. Towards sunset, the evening mists drape the darkening banks and
+    crowded shipping in a soft robe of gray, which, together with the
+    glowing sky behind, produces most wonderful Turneresque effects; and the
+    fall of night on the river only changes the aspect without diminishing
+    the interest of the scene. The blaze from a myriad workshops and forges
+    glows against the darkness, the lamps twinkle overhead on the steep
+    banks, and the lights from wharf and steamer are reflected in a thousand
+    shimmering lines on the dark water, which flows on soundlessly, like the
+    river of a dream.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On a day of wind and sun all these beauties are intensified a
+    thousandfold; the smoke is blown hither and thither in flying clouds,
+    the current seems to rush more swiftly, and a sense of vigorous life
+    permeates the whole scene, giving to the beholder a feeling of keen
+    exhilaration, as of new life rushing through his veins. Especially is
+    this the case on reaching the mouth of the river and meeting the dancing
+    waters of the open harbour, where the twin piers of South Shields and
+    Tynemouth reach out sheltering arms. Within the wide bay they enclose,
+    the storm-driven vessel may always find comparatively smooth water, how
+    wildly soever the waves may rage and roar outside.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is difficult to believe that so lately as the years 1858-60, the
+    &ldquo;bar&rdquo; at the mouth of the Tyne was an insuperable obstacle to all but
+    vessels of very moderate draught; and that ships might lie for days, and
+    sometimes weeks, after being loaded, before there came a tide high
+    enough to carry them out to sea. The river was full of sand-banks, and
+    little islands stood here and there&mdash;one in mid-stream, where the
+    ironclads are now launched at Elswick. Three or four vessels might be
+    seen at once bumping and grounding on the &ldquo;bar&rdquo; unable to make their way
+    over. Well might the old song say&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;The ships are all at the bar,
+  They canna get up to Newcastle!&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    An old map of the Tyne shows a number of sand-banks down the lower
+    reaches of the river, with ships aground on each, of them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But the River Tyne Commissioners have changed all that, and their
+    implement of warfare has been the hideous but necessary dredger. No
+    longer need vessels of heavy tonnage desert the Tyne for the Wear, as
+    they were perforce driven to do during the first half of the nineteenth
+    century, for the Wearsiders had set about deepening and widening their
+    river long before the Tynesiders did the same by theirs. Considerable
+    and continuous pressure had to be brought to bear on the civic
+    authorities at Newcastle before they finally took action; but having
+    once done so, the future of the Tyne was assured. Now it ranks second
+    only to the Thames in the actual number of vessels entering and leaving,
+    and owns only the Mersey its superior in the matter of tonnage.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus06"></a>
+<img src="images/098.jpg" width="300" height="186" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br/>NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.</h2>
+
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Her dusky hair in many a tangle clings
+  About her, and her looks, though stern and cold,
+  Grow tender with the dreams of by-gone days.&rdquo;
+
+  &mdash;<i>W.W. Tomlinson</i>.
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The outward signs of &ldquo;by-gone days,&rdquo; in the Newcastle of to-day, with
+    the one notable exception of the Castle, must be diligently sought out
+    amongst the overwhelming mass of what is often called &ldquo;rampant
+    modernity,&rdquo; of which the town to-day chiefly consists. The modernity,
+    however, is not all bad, as this favourite phrase would imply; much of
+    it is doubtless regrettable and a very little of it perhaps inevitable;
+    but no one will deny either the modernity or the beauty of Grey Street,
+    one of the finest streets in any English town; or the fine appearance of
+    Grainger Street, Blackett Street, Eldon Square, or any other of the
+    stately thoroughfares with which Grainger and Dobson enriched the town
+    within the last eighty years&mdash;no one, that is, who has learned to &ldquo;lift
+    his eyes to the sky-line in passing along a thoroughfare&rdquo; instead of
+    keeping them firmly fixed at the level of shop windows.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The grim old building which, when it was new, gave its name to the town,
+    is one for which no search needs to be made; its blackened and time worn
+    walls are seen from the train windows by every traveller who enters the
+    city from the south. So near is it to the railway, that in the
+    ultra-utilitarian days of sixty or seventy years ago, it narrowly
+    escaped the ignoble fate of being used as a signal-cabin. It was
+    rescued, however, by the Society of Antiquaries, and carefully preserved
+    by them&mdash;more fortunate in this respect than the castle of Berwick, for
+    the platform of Berwick railway station actually stands on the spot once
+    occupied by the Great Hall of the Castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The site of the New Castle, on a part of the river bank which slopes
+    steeply down to the Tyne, had been occupied centuries before by a Roman
+    fort, constructed by order of the Emperor Hadrian, who visited Britain
+    A.D. 120. He also constructed a bridge over the Tyne at this spot, fort
+    and bridge receiving the name of Pons AElii, after the Emperor (Publius
+    AElius Hadrianus). This became the second station on the Great Wall
+    erected by Hadrian&rsquo;s orders along the line of forts which Agricola had
+    raised forty years before. This station shared the fate of others on the
+    abandonment of Britain by its powerful conquerors, who had now for more
+    than two hundred years been its no less powerful friends and protectors.
+    Pons AElii fell into ruins; but so advantageous a site could not long be
+    overlooked, and we read of a Saxon settlement there, apparently that of
+    a religious community, from which fact it was known as Monkchester. All
+    the records of this period seem to have perished, for we hear nothing of
+    the settlement during the Danish invasions; but a Saxon town of some
+    kind was evidently in existence at the time of the Conquest, though in
+    1073 three monks from the south who came to York, and, obtaining a guide
+    to &ldquo;Muneche-cester,&rdquo; sought for some religious house in that settlement,
+    could find none, and were prevailed upon by the first Norman Bishop of
+    Durham, Walcher, to stay at Jarrow. The years from 1069 to 1080 were
+    evil years for Northumberland, for at the first-named date the Conqueror
+    devastated the North, and left neither village nor farm unscathed; and,
+    as the desolated land was beginning to recover again, Odo of Bayeux and
+    Robert of Normandy relentlessly laid it waste once more, partly in
+    revenge for the murder of Bishop Walcher at Gateshead, and partly to
+    punish Malcolm of Scotland for his invasion of Norman territory.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was on his return from this expedition, which had penetrated as far
+    north as Falkirk, that Robert, by his father&rsquo;s orders, raised a
+    stronghold on the Tyne on the site of the old Roman fort, in the year
+    1080. His brother, William Rufus, erected a much stronger and better
+    one, the Keep of which, re-built by Henry II., stands to-day dark and
+    grim, looking out over river and town, as it has stood since the Red
+    King ruled the land, and, like his father, the Conqueror, found it
+    desirable to have a stronghold at this northern point of his turbulent
+    realm, around which a town might grow up in safety.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The roof and battlements of the Keep are modern, but the rest of it&mdash;the
+    walls, 12 to 18 feet thick; the dismal dungeon, or guard chamber, with
+    iron rings and fetters still fastened to the walls and central pillar;
+    the beautiful little chapel, with its finely-ornamented arches; the
+    little chambers in the thickness of the walls; the well, 94 feet deep,
+    sunk through the solid masonry into the rock beneath; the arrow slits in
+    the walls; the stones in the roof scored with frequent bolts from the
+    besiegers&rsquo; crossbows, one of which bolts is firmly embedded in the wall
+    opposite one of the narrow windows; the ancient weapons and armour&mdash;all
+    these breathe of the days when the Red King&rsquo;s castle took its part in
+    the doings of our hardy ancestors in those stormy times in which they
+    lived and fought.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The last time the old Keep was called upon to act as fortress and refuge
+    in time of war was in Stuart days, after the ten weeks siege of
+    Newcastle by the Scottish General Leslie, Earl of Leven, in 1644, when
+    brave &ldquo;Governor Marley&rdquo; and his friends held out in the castle for a few
+    days longer, after the town was taken. In memory of this stout defence
+    and long resistance King Charles gave to the town its motto&mdash;<i>Fortiter
+    defendit triumphans</i>, which Bates gives as having originally been
+    <i>Fortiter defendendo triumphat</i>&mdash;&ldquo;She glories in her brave defence.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    Two of the original fireplaces still remain in the Castle, and there are
+    besides many objects of great interest which have been bestowed there
+    from time to time for safe keeping; and many more are to be seen at the
+    Black Gate, formerly the chief entrance to the Castle Hall and its
+    surroundings. The Great Hall of the Castle, in which John Baliol did
+    homage to Edward I. for the crown of Scotland, stood on the spot now
+    covered by the Moot Hall. The Black Gate, the lower part of which is the
+    oldest part of the building, which has many times been altered and
+    repaired, is now used as a museum. There were nearly a dozen rooms in
+    it, and not so many years ago the Corporation of Newcastle let these out
+    in tenements, until this building also was rescued from degradation by
+    the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries, who took down most of the dividing
+    walls, and converted it into a museum. Here may be seen stored many
+    sculptured stones, altars, and statues, which have been brought from the
+    various Roman stations in the north.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Around the walls of one room are to be seen facsimiles of the famous
+    Bayeux tapestry; there is also a model of the Castle as originally
+    built, and there are many more exhibits and loans of the very greatest
+    interest.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of the walls of Newcastle only fragments remain, the most considerable
+    portion being found between Westgate Road and St. Andrew&rsquo;s Churchyard;
+    here are also remains of several of the watch-towers that stood at
+    intervals around the walls&mdash;the Heber Tower, the Mordaunt or Morden
+    Tower, and the Ever Tower. Between the two first named towers may be
+    seen a little doorway, walled up, once used by the Friars, who obtained
+    from Edward II. permission to make the doorway in order that they might
+    the more easily reach their gardens and orchards outside; but they had
+    to be ready to build it up at a moment&rsquo;s notice on the approach of an
+    enemy. One of the towers&mdash;the Carliol or Weaver&rsquo;s Tower&mdash;was pulled down
+    to make room for the Central Free Library, opened in 1881. Many little
+    fragments of the Castle wall are to be seen near the High Level Bridge,
+    incorporated in other walls, as far as the South Postern of the Castle,
+    which is said to be the only remaining Norman postern in England and is
+    the oldest remaining part of the Castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The old streets of Newcastle are fast disappearing to make room for the
+    ever-increasing needs of commerce; at the moment of writing it is being
+    proposed to pull down more of the historic street called the Side, to
+    make room for new printing offices. At the head of this curious old
+    street, which curves downward from the Cathedral to the river, stood the
+    birthplace of Cuthbert Collingwood, who was to become Admiral Lord
+    Collingwood, and second in fame only to Nelson himself. Both this house
+    and the one where Thomas Bewick had his workshop, near the Cathedral,
+    have gone to make room for new buildings.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At the foot of this street, where it curves to the river front, is the
+    Sandhill, facing the Swing Bridge. Here are several old houses
+    remaining, with many-windowed fronts, looking out on the river. One of
+    these was the house of Aubone Surtees, the banker, whose daughter
+    Bessie, in 1772, stole out of one of those little windows, and gave
+    herself into the keeping of young Jack Scott, who was waiting for her
+    below. The adventurous youth became Lord Chancellor of England, and is
+    best known as Lord Eldon; his brother William became Lord Stowell, and
+    was for many years Judge of the High Court of Admiralty.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Opposite the old houses of the Sandhill, close to the river bank, is the
+    old Guildhall, greatly altered in appearance from the time when John
+    Wesley preached from its steps to the keelmen and fishermen of the town.
+    It was here that a sturdy fishwife put her arms round him, when some
+    boisterous spirits in the crowd threatened him with ill-usage, and,
+    shaking her fist in their faces, swore to &ldquo;floor them&rdquo; if they touched
+    her &ldquo;canny man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    This spot, where the Swing Bridge unites the lower banks of the stream,
+    seems always to have been the most convenient point for crossing the
+    river, for the present bridge is the fifth that has spanned the Tyne at
+    this point: Hadrian&rsquo;s bridge, Pons Aelii; a mediaeval bridge destroyed
+    by fire in 1248; the Old Tyne Bridge, swept away in the flood of 1771;
+    the successor of this, which was found too low to allow of the passage
+    of such large vessels as were able to sail up the Tyne after the
+    deepening of the river bed; and the present Swing Bridge, which is
+    worked by hydraulic machinery, the invention of Lord Armstrong. We do
+    not know how long Hadrian&rsquo;s bridge lasted, but William the Conqueror,
+    when returning from his expedition into Scotland in 1071, was obliged to
+    camp for a time at &ldquo;Monec-cestre,&rdquo; as the Tyne was in flood, and there
+    was no bridge.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Some ancient houses are to be found in Low Friar Street, one of which,
+    with winged heads and dolphins carved on it, is said to be the oldest
+    house in Newcastle. Turning up an opening on the west side of this
+    street, all that is left of the ancient Blackfriars&rsquo; Monastery may be
+    seen; some of its rooms are used as the meeting places of various Trade
+    Guilds, and the rest form low tenement houses, in the walls of which are
+    many Gothic archways and ancient window-openings built up. Over the door
+    of the Smith&rsquo;s Hall is a carving of three hammers, and the
+    inscription:&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;By hammer and hand
+  All artes do stand.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    This Hall was formerly the Great Hall of the monastery; and here Edward
+    Baliol did homage to Edward III. for his crown of Scotland. Nun Street,
+    leading out of Grainger Street, reminds us of the days when the Nunnery
+    of St. Bartholomew stood in this part of the town, and the Nun&rsquo;s Moor
+    was part of the grounds belonging to the establishment. In High Friar
+    Street, which was not then the dilapidated lane it now appears, Richard
+    Grainger was born.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Another part of the town which has fallen from its former high estate is
+    the Close, which lies along the river front, westward from the Sandhill.
+    Here, at one time, lived many of the principal inhabitants of
+    Newcastle&mdash;Sir John Marley, Sir William Blackett, Sir Ralph Millbank,
+    and others equally important; and here, too, was the former Mansion
+    House of the city, where the Mayors resided, and where they could
+    receive distinguished visitors to the town. Amongst those who have been
+    entertained there were the Duke of Wellington and the first King of the
+    Belgians. But in 1836 the Corporation of Newcastle sold the house, with
+    the furniture, books, pictures, plate, and everything else it contained.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Eastward from the Sandhill is Sandgate, immortalised in the &ldquo;Newcastle
+    Anthem&rdquo;&mdash;The Keel Row. Its present appearance is very different from the
+    green slope and sandy shore of former days; the keelmen, too, have
+    vanished, and their place in the commercial economy of the Tyne is taken
+    by waggon-ways and coal-shoots. The old narrow alleys of the town,
+    called &ldquo;chares,&rdquo; are fast disappearing; the best known is Pudding Chare,
+    leading from Bigg Market to Westgate Road. Many and various are the
+    explanations that have been offered to account for its curious name, but
+    the true one does not seem yet to have appeared.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Pilgrim Street owes its name to the fact that it was the route of the
+    pilgrims who came in great numbers to visit the little chapel or shrine
+    of Our Lady of Jesmond, and St. Mary&rsquo;s Well. In Pilgrim Street was the
+    gateway of a stately mansion, surrounded by beautiful gardens, called
+    Anderson Place, from a Mr. Anderson who bought it from Sir Thomas
+    Blackett in 1783. It had been built by another Mr. Anderson in the reign
+    of Queen Elizabeth, on the site where once stood the monastery of the
+    Grey Friars; he, however, had named his mansion &ldquo;The Newe House.&rdquo; In
+    this house Charles I. lived when a prisoner in Newcastle. Anderson Place
+    no longer exists, but the Newcastle of to-day has a constant reminder of
+    its last owners, for Major George Anderson, son of the Mr. Anderson who
+    purchased it in 1783, gave to the Cathedral of St. Nicholas the great
+    bell&mdash;known on that account as &ldquo;The Major&rdquo;&mdash;whose deep reverberant
+    &ldquo;boom&rdquo; can be heard for a distance of ten miles. The bell was re-cast in
+    1891, and in 1892 a new peal of bells was consecrated by Canon Gough.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Westgate Road is another interesting street; the old West Gate stood
+    near the site of the present Tyne Theatre, and from this point onward
+    the street follows, almost exactly, the line of the Roman Wall.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Some noteworthy houses in Newcastle are&mdash;No. 17, Eldon Place, where
+    George and Robert Stephenson lived in the years 1824-25; No. 4, St.
+    Thomas&rsquo; Crescent, where the celebrated artist, Wm. Bell Scott lived when
+    he was headmaster of the School of Art, and to whom Swinburne wrote a
+    fine memorial poem; the Academy of Arts, in Blackett Street, built for
+    the exhibition of pictures by those well-known painters T.M. Richardson
+    and H.T. Parker, and for a short period the home of the Pen and Palette
+    Club, which, both here and in its new home at Higham Place, has
+    entertained many people distinguished in letters, art, and travel who
+    have visited the town of late years; and No. 9, Pleasant Row, the
+    birthplace of Lord Armstrong, which has only recently been destroyed to
+    make way for the N.E.R. Company&rsquo;s new ferro-concrete Goods Station in
+    New Bridge Street.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The list of important buildings in Newcastle, exclusive of the churches,
+    is a long one; one of the most prominent is the Library of the Literary
+    and Philosophical Society, familiarly known as the &ldquo;Lit. and Phil.,&rdquo;
+    which stands at the lower end of Westgate Road, a little way back from
+    the roadway. It is built on the site of the town house of the Earls of
+    Westmoreland; and its fine Lecture Theatre was a gift to the Society
+    from Lord Armstrong. It is the centre of the intellectual life of the
+    city as a whole, apart from the work of the justly famed Armstrong
+    College, a teaching institute of University rank. This was formerly
+    known as the Durham College of Science, and, with the Durham College of
+    Medicine, forms part of the University of Durham.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Other seats of learning in the town are the Rutherford College, in Bath
+    Lane, and the Royal Grammar School, which dates from the reign of Henry
+    VIII. It was reconstituted by Queen Elizabeth, and has had many changes
+    of abode. At one time it occupied the buildings of the Convent of St.
+    Mary, which covered the space where Stephenson&rsquo;s monument now stands.
+    While the Grammar School was located there, the boys Cuthbert
+    Collingwood, William Scott, and John Scott, who afterwards became so
+    famous, attended it; and other distinguished scholars were John Horsley,
+    author of <i>Britannia Romana</i>, and John Brand and Henry Bourne, the
+    historians of Newcastle. The school is now situated in Eskdale Terrace
+    and its splendid playing fields stretch across to the North Road.
+</p>
+<p>
+    One of the most interesting buildings in Newcastle is the Hancock Museum
+    of Natural History, at Barras Bridge. It contains a matchless collection
+    of birds, and some unique specimens of extinct species; also the
+    original drawings of Bewick&rsquo;s <i>British Birds</i>, and other works of his.
+    The famous Newcastle naturalist, John Hancock, presented his wonderful
+    collection, prepared by himself, to the museum. Here, too, is a complete
+    set of fossils from the coal measures, including some fine specimens of
+    Sigillaria. These are only a few of the treasures contained in the
+    museum, which was built chiefly through the generosity of the late Lord
+    and Lady Armstrong, Colonel John Joicey of Newton Hall, Stocksfield, and
+    Mr. Edward Joicey of Whinney House.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The new Victoria Infirmary, on the Leazes, is a magnificent building,
+    and was opened by King Edward VII. in 1906. It was erected by public
+    subscription, and when &#163;100,000 had been subscribed, the late Mr. John
+    Hall generously offered a like sum on condition that the building should
+    be erected either on the Leazes or the Town Moor. Arrangements were made
+    to do so, and another &#163;100,000 given by the present Lord and Lady
+    Armstrong.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But fine as all these buildings are, the pride of Newcastle is one much
+    older than any of them&mdash;the Cathedral church of St. Nicholas, with its
+    exquisitely beautiful lantern steeple. This wonderful lantern was the
+    work of Robert de Rhodes, who lived in the fifteenth century. The arms
+    of this early benefactor of the church may yet be seen on the ancient
+    font. The present church was finished in the year 1350, says Dr. Bruce;
+    but there was a former one on this site to which the crypt is supposed
+    to belong. It has undergone many alterations at different times, and has
+    sheltered within its walls many and various great personages.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus07"></a>
+<a href="images/110.jpg">
+<img src="images/110.jpg" width="600" height="366" alt="Illustration:
+Newcastle-upon-Tyne." /></a>
+<p class="caption"><b>Newcastle-upon-Tyne.</b></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+    In 1451, a treaty between England and Scotland was ratified in the
+    vestry. In the reign of Henry VII., his daughter, Princess Margaret,
+    attended mass here, with all her retinue, when she stayed in the town on
+    her way to Scotland to be married to the gallant young king James IV.
+    She was entertained at the house of the Austin Friars, which stood where
+    now stands the Holy Jesus Hospital at the Manors, near to the Sallyport
+    Tower. When James I. became king of England, he attended service here,
+    as he passed through Newcastle on his way to his southern capital. In
+    the reign of his ill-fated son, Charles I., Newcastle was occupied by
+    the Scots, under General Leslie, for a year after the battle of Newburn in
+    1640; and again in 1644 was besieged by them for ten weeks. On this
+    occasion the town nearly lost its chief ornament and pride&mdash;the lantern
+    of the church; for &ldquo;There is a traditional story,&rdquo; says Bourne, &ldquo;of this
+    building I am now treating of, which may not be improper to be here
+    taken notice of. In the time of the Civil Wars, when the Scots had
+    besieged the town for several weeks, and were still as far as at first
+    from taking it, the General sent a messenger to the Mayor of the town,
+    and demanded the keys and the delivery up of the town, or he would
+    immediately demolish the steeple of St. Nicholas.
+</p>
+<p>
+    &ldquo;The Mayor and Aldermen, upon hearing this, immediately ordered a
+    certain number of the chiefest Scottish prisoners to be carried up to
+    the top of the old tower, the place below the lantern, and there
+    confined. After this, they returned the General an answer to this
+    purpose, that they would upon no terms deliver up the town, but would to
+    the last moment defend it; that the steeple of St. Nicholas was indeed a
+    beautiful and magnificent piece of architecture, and one of the great
+    ornaments of the town, but yet should be blown to atoms before ransomed
+    at such a rate; that, however, if it was to fall it should not fall
+    alone; that at the same moment he destroyed the beautiful structure he
+    should bathe his hands in the blood of his countrymen, who were placed
+    there on purpose, either to preserve it from ruin or to die along with
+    it. This message had the desired effect. The men were kept prisoners
+    during the whole time of the siege, and not so much as one gun was fired
+    against it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1646, when Charles I. was a prisoner in Newcastle for nearly a year
+    (from May, 1646, to February 3rd, 1647), this was the church he
+    attended; and we may picture him listening perforce to the
+    &ldquo;admonishing&rdquo; of the stern Covenanters. In this connection occurs the
+    oft-told story of his ready wit, when one of the preachers wound up his
+    discourse by giving out the metrical version of the fifty-second Psalm,
+    with an obvious allusion to his royal hearer:&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Why dost thou, tyrant, boast abroad,
+  Thy wicked works to praise?&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Charles quickly stood up and asked for the fifty-sixth Psalm instead:&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Have mercy, Lord, on me, I pray,
+  For man would me devour.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The good folk of Newcastle with willing voice rendered the latter Psalm,
+    doubtless to the discomfiture of the preacher.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Gray, who published his <i>Chorographia</i>, or Survey of
+    Newcastle-upon-Tyne, just three years after this, describes St.
+    Nicholas&rsquo; as having &ldquo;a stately, high, stone steeple, with many pinakles,
+    a stately stone lantherne, standing upon foure stone arches, builded by
+    Robert de Rhodes.... It lifteth up a head of Majesty, as high above the
+    rest as the Cypresse Tree above the low Shrubs.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    The church underwent a terrible despoliation at the hands of the Scots
+    in 1644; but more terrible still were the injuries it received, a little
+    more than a century later, from those who ought to have been its
+    friends. In the years 1784-7 there were many alterations made in the
+    building, during which almost all the old memorials and monuments
+    perished, or were removed; those which were not claimed by the living
+    representatives of the persons commemorated being ruthlessly sold, or
+    destroyed; and the brasses were disposed of as old metal. The modern
+    alterations and restorations have been more happy in their effect, and
+    one of the notable additions to the church is the beautiful carved oak
+    screen in the chancel, the work of Mr. Ralph Hedley.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There are many beautiful memorial windows in the church, and many
+    memorials in other forms to the various eminent North-country folk who
+    have been connected with Newcastle and its chief place of worship. The
+    Collingwood cenotaph is the most interesting of all; the brave Admiral&rsquo;s
+    body, as is well known, lies beside that of his friend and commander,
+    Nelson, in St. Paul&rsquo;s Cathedral, but this memorial of him is fittingly
+    placed in the Cathedral of his native town, within whose walls he
+    worshipped as a boy. There are two monuments by Flaxman&mdash;one of the Rev.
+    Hugh Moises, the famous master of the Grammar School when Collingwood
+    was a boy; and the other of Sir Matthew White Ridley, who died in 1813.
+    Of the newer monuments, those of Dr. Bruce, of Roman Wall fame, and of
+    the beloved and lamented Bishop Lloyd, are particularly fine.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Near the east end of the church, which was raised to the rank of a
+    Cathedral in 1881, is hung a large painting by Tintoretto, &ldquo;Christ
+    washing the feet of the Disciples&rdquo;; this was presented to the church by
+    Sir Matthew White Ridley in 1818. There are many more things of interest
+    in the Cathedral, but mention must be made of a wonderful MS. Bible,
+    incomplete, it is true, but beautifully written and illuminated by the
+    monks of Hexham, and other manuscript treasures carefully kept in the
+    care of the authorities.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The oldest church in the town is St. Andrew&rsquo;s, supposed to have been
+    built by King David of Scotland at the time when that monarch was Lord
+    of Tynedale, in the reign of King Stephen. It suffered greatly in the
+    struggle with the Scots, whose cannon, planted on the Leazes, did it
+    great damage, and some of the fiercest fighting, at the final capture
+    of the town, took place close by, where a breach was made in the walls.
+    In such a battered condition was it left that the parish Registers tell
+    us that no baptism nor &ldquo;sarmon&rdquo; took place within its walls for a year
+    (1645). But a marriage took place, the persons wedded being Scots, who,
+    we learn from the same authority, &ldquo;would pay nothing to the Church.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the church is buried Sir Adam de Athol, Lord of Jesmond, and Mary,
+    his wife. It is supposed that this Sir Adam gave the Town Moor to the
+    people of Newcastle, though this has been disputed. A fine picture of
+    the &ldquo;Last Supper,&rdquo; by Giordano, presented by Major Anderson in 1804,
+    hangs in the church.
+</p>
+<p>
+    St. John&rsquo;s Church ranks next to St. Andrew&rsquo;s in point of age; there are
+    fragments of Norman work in the building, and it is known to have been
+    standing in 1297. To-day the venerable pile, with its age worn stones,
+    stands out in sharper contrast to its environment than does any other
+    building in the town, surrounded as it is by modern shops and offices.
+    The memories it evokes, and the past for which it stands, are such as
+    the citizens of Newcastle will not willingly let die; and when, a few
+    years ago, a proposal was made for its removal, the proposition aroused
+    such a storm of popular feeling against it that it was incontinently
+    abandoned.
+</p>
+<p>
+    All Saints&rsquo; Church was built in 1789, on the site of an older building
+    which was in existence in 1296, and which became very unsafe. Here is
+    kept one of the most interesting monuments in the city&mdash;the monumental
+    brass which once covered the tomb of Roger Thornton, a wealthy merchant
+    of Newcastle, and a great benefactor to all the churches. He died in
+    1429. He gave to St. Nicholas&rsquo; Church its great east window; but, on its
+    needing repair in 1860, it was removed entirely, and the present one,
+    in memory of Dr. Ions, inserted; and the only fragment left of
+    Thornton&rsquo;s window is a small circular piece inset in a plain glass
+    window in the Cathedral. He gave much money to Hexham Abbey also.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Besides the famous men already mentioned in connection with the town,
+    Newcastle possesses other well-known names not a few. In the Middle
+    Ages, Duns Scotus, the man whose skill in argument earned for him the
+    title of &ldquo;Doctor Subtilis,&rdquo; owned Northumberland as his home, and
+    received his education in the monastery of the Grey Friars, which stood
+    near the head of the present Grey Street. He returned to this monastery
+    after some years of study at Oxford; in 1304 he was teaching divinity in
+    Paris.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London in the reign of Edward VI., whose
+    Northumbrian birthplace at Willimoteswick has already been noted,
+    received his early education at the Grammar School in Newcastle, and on
+    going to Cambridge was a student at Pembroke. We are told he was the
+    ablest man among the Reformers for piety, learning and judgment. As is
+    well known, he died at the stake in 1555.
+</p>
+<p>
+    William and Elizabeth Elstob, who lived in Newcastle at the end of the
+    seventeenth century, were learned Saxon scholars, but were so greatly in
+    advance of the education of their times that they met with little
+    encouragement or sympathy in their labours.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Charles Avison, the musician and composer, was organist of St. John&rsquo;s in
+    1736, and afterwards of St. Nicholas&rsquo;.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was he to whom Browning referred in the lines&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+                               &ldquo;On the list
+  Of worthies, who by help of pipe or wire,
+  Expressed in sound rough rage or soft desire,
+  Thou, whilom of Newcastle, organist.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    These lines have been carved on his tombstone in St. Andrew&rsquo;s
+    churchyard. He is best known as the composer of the anthem &ldquo;Sound the
+    loud timbrel.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    Mark Akenside, the poet, was born in Butcher Bank, now called after him
+    Akenside Hill. His chief work &ldquo;The Pleasures of Imagination,&rdquo; is not
+    often read now, but it enjoyed a considerable reputation in an age when
+    a stilted and formal style was looked upon as a true excellence in
+    poetry.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Charles Hutton, the mathematician, was born in Newcastle in 1737. He
+    began life as a pitman; but, receiving an injury to his arm, he turned
+    his attention to books, and taught in his native town for some years,
+    becoming later Professor of Mathematics in the Royal Military Academy at
+    Woolwich.
+</p>
+<p>
+    John Brand, the antiquary and historian of Newcastle, was born at
+    Washington, County Durham, but came to Newcastle as a child. After
+    attending the Grammar School, he went to Oxford, by the aid of his
+    master, the Rev. Hugh Moises. He was afterwards curate at the church of
+    St. Andrew.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Robert Morrison, the celebrated Chinese scholar, was born near Morpeth,
+    but his parents came to Newcastle when the boy was three years of age.
+    He died in China in 1834.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thomas Miles Richardson, the well-known artist, was born in Newcastle in
+    1784, and was at first a cabinetmaker, then master of St. Andrew&rsquo;s Free
+    School, but finally gave up all other work to devote himself to his art.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Robert Stephenson went to school at Percy Street Academy, which for long
+    has ceased to exist. There he was taught by Mr. Bruce, and had for one
+    of his fellow-pupils the master&rsquo;s son, John Collingwood Bruce, who
+    afterwards became so famous a teacher and antiquary.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Newcastle is not, as most southerners imagine, a dark and gloomy town of
+    unrelieved bricks and mortar, for, besides possessing many wide and
+    handsome streets, it has also several pretty parks, the most noteworthy
+    being the beautiful Jesmond Dene, one of the late Lord Armstrong&rsquo;s
+    magnificent gifts to his native town. The Dene, together with the
+    Armstrong Park near it, lies on the course of the Ouseburn, which is
+    here a bright and sparkling stream, very different from the appearance
+    it presents by the time it empties its murky waters into the Tyne.
+    Besides these there are Heaton Park, the Leazes Park, with its lakes and
+    boats, Brandling Park, and others smaller than these; and last, but most
+    important of all, the Town Moor, a fine breezy space to the north of the
+    town, of more than 900 acres in extent.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of statues and monuments Newcastle possesses some half-dozen, the finest
+    being &ldquo;Grey&rsquo;s Monument&rdquo;&mdash;a household word in the town and familiarly
+    known as &ldquo;The Monument.&rdquo; It was erected at the junction of Grey Street
+    and Grainger Street in memory of Earl Grey of Howick, who was Prime
+    Minister at the passing of the Reform Bill. The figure of the Earl, by
+    Bailey, stands at the top of a lofty column, the height being 135 feet
+    to the top of the figure. There is a stairway within the column, by
+    which it can be ascended, and a magnificent view enjoyed from the top.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In an open space near the Central Station, between the <i>Chronicle</i>
+    Office and the Lit. and Phil., there is a fine statue of George
+    Stephenson, by the Northumbrian sculptor, Lough. It is a full length
+    representation of the great engineer, in bronze, with the figures of
+    four workmen, representing the chief industries of Tyneside, around the
+    pedestal&mdash;a miner, a smith, a navvy, and an engineer. At the head of
+    Northumberland Street, on the open space of the Haymarket, stands a
+    beautiful winged Victory on a tall column, crowning &ldquo;Northumbria&rdquo;
+    typified as a female figure at the foot of the column. This graceful and
+    striking memorial is the work of T. Eyre Macklin, and is in memory of
+    the officers and men of the North who fell in the Boer War of 1899-1902.
+    Two other noteworthy statues in the town are those of Lord Armstrong,
+    near the entrance to the Natural History Museum at Barras Bridge, and of
+    Joseph Cowen, in Westgate Road.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+THE KEEL ROW
+</p>
+
+<pre>
+  As I came thro&rsquo; Sandgate,
+  Thro&rsquo; Sandgate, thro&rsquo; Sandgate,
+  As I came thro&rsquo; Sandgate,
+  I heard a lassie sing
+      &ldquo;O weel may the keel row,
+      The keel row, the keel row,
+      Weel may the keel row
+      That my laddie&rsquo;s in
+
+  &ldquo;O who is like my Johnnie,
+  Sae leish,<a href="#fn-5" name="fnref-5" id="fnref-5"><sup>[5]</sup></a> sae blithe, sae bonnie;
+  He&rsquo;s foremost &rsquo;mang the mony
+  Keel lads o&rsquo; coaly Tyne
+      He&rsquo;ll set and row sae tightly,
+      And in the dance sae sprightly
+      He&rsquo;ll cut and shuffle lightly,
+      &rsquo;Tis true, were he not mine!
+
+  &ldquo;He has nae mair o&rsquo; learnin&rsquo;
+  Than tells his weekly earnin&rsquo;,
+  Yet, right frae wrang discernin&rsquo;,
+  Tho&rsquo; brave, nae bruiser he!
+      Tho&rsquo; he no worth a plack<a href="#fn-6" name="fnref-6" id="fnref-6"><sup>[6]</sup></a> is,
+      His ain coat on his back is;
+      And nane can say that black is
+      The white o&rsquo; Johnnie&rsquo;s e&rsquo;e
+
+  He wears a blue bonnet,
+  Blue bonnet, blue bonnet,
+  He wears a blue bonnet,
+  And a dimple in his chin
+         O weel may the keel row,
+         The keel row, the keel row,
+         Weel may the keel row
+         That my laddie&rsquo;s in.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-5" id="fn-5"></a> <a href="#fnref-5">[5]</a>
+Leish = lithe, nimble.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-6" id="fn-6"></a> <a href="#fnref-6">[6]</a>
+Plack = a small copper coin, worth about one-third of a penny.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus08"></a>
+<img src="images/120.jpg" width="300" height="207" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.<br/>ELSWICK AND ITS FOUNDER.</h2>
+
+<pre>
+  Sailed from the North of old
+  The strong sons of Odin;
+  Sailed in the Serpent ships,
+  &ldquo;By hammer and hand&rdquo;
+              Skilfully builded.
+
+</pre>
+
+<hr />
+
+<pre>
+  Still in the North-country
+  Men keep their sea-cunning;
+  Still true the legend,
+  &ldquo;By hammer and hand&rdquo;
+              Elswick builds war-ships.
+
+  &mdash;(<i>Northumbriensis</i>).
+</pre>
+<p>
+    For a mile and a quarter, along the north bank of the Tyne, stretch the
+    world-famed Elswick Works, which have grown to their present gigantic
+    proportions from the small beginnings of five and a half acres in 1847.
+    In that year two fields were purchased as a site for the new works about
+    to be started to make the hydraulic machinery which had been invented by
+    Mr. Armstrong.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this undertaking he was backed by the wealth of several prominent
+    Newcastle citizens, who believed in the future of the new
+    inventions&mdash;Messrs. Addison Potter, George Cruddas, Armourer Donkin, and
+    Richard Lambert. At that time Elswick was a pretty country village some
+    distance outside of Newcastle, and the walk along the riverside between
+    the two places was a favourite one with the people of the town. In
+    midstream there was an island, where stood a little inn called the
+    &ldquo;Countess of Coventry&rdquo;; and on the island various sports were often
+    held, including horse-racing.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The price of the land for the new shops, which were soon built on the
+    green slopes above the Tyne, was paid to Mr. Hodgson Hind and Mr.
+    Richard Grainger; the latter of whom had intended, could he have carried
+    out his plans for the rebuilding of Newcastle, not to stop until he made
+    Elswick Hall the centre of the town.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Until the new shops were ready to begin work, some of Mr. Armstrong&rsquo;s
+    hydraulic cranes were made by Mr. Watson at his works in the High
+    Bridge.
+</p>
+<p>
+    All the summer of 1847, the building went briskly on; and in the autumn
+    work was started. At first Mr. Armstrong had an office in Hood Street,
+    as he was superintending his machinery construction in High Bridge, as
+    well as the building operations at Elswick. On some of the early
+    notepaper of the firm there is, as the heading, a picture of Elswick as
+    it was then, showing the first shops, the little square building in
+    which were the offices, the green banks sloping down to the waterside,
+    and the island in the middle of the shallow stream, while the chimneys
+    and smoke of Newcastle are indicated in the remote background. Along the
+    riverside was the public footpath.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The first work done in the new shops was the making of Crane No. 6; and
+    amongst other early orders was one from the <i>Newcastle Chronicle</i>, for
+    hydraulic machinery to drive the printing press. The new machinery
+    rapidly grew in favour; and orders from mines, docks and railways poured
+    in to the Elswick firm, which soon extended its works.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1854, when the Crimean War broke out, Mr. Armstrong was requested to
+    devise some submarine mines which would clear the harbour of Sebastopol
+    of the Russian war-ships which had been sent there. He did so, but the
+    machinery was never used.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At the same time, in his leisure moments, he turned his attention to the
+    question of artillery. The guns in use at that time were very little
+    better than those which had been used during the Napoleonic wars; and
+    Mr. Armstrong devised a new one, which was made at his workshops. It was
+    a 3-pounder, complete with gun-carriage and mountings, and is still to
+    be seen at Elswick.
+</p>
+<p>
+    With the usual reluctance of Government departments to consider anything
+    new, the War Office of the day was slow to believe in the superiority of
+    the new field-piece; but when every fresh trial proved that superiority
+    to be beyond doubt, the gun was adopted. And then Mr. Armstrong showed
+    the large-minded generosity which was so marked a feature of his
+    character. Holding in his hand&mdash;as every man must, who possesses the
+    secret of a new and superior engine of destruction&mdash;the fate of nations,
+    to be decided at his will, and with the knowledge that other powers were
+    willing and eager to buy with any sum the skill of such an inventor, Mr.
+    Armstrong presented to the British Government, as a free gift, the
+    patents of his artillery; and he entered the Government service for a
+    time, as Engineer to the War Department, in order to give them the
+    benefit of his skill and special knowledge.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A knighthood was bestowed upon him, and he took up his new duties as Sir
+    William Armstrong. An Ordnance department was opened at Elswick, and the
+    Government promised a continuance of orders above those that the Arsenal
+    at Woolwich was able to fulfil. All went well for a time, but after some
+    years the connection between the Government and Elswick ceased; the
+    Ordnance and Engineering works were then amalgamated into one concern,
+    and Mr. George Rendel and Captain Noble&mdash;now Sir Andrew Noble, and one
+    of the greatest living authorities on explosives&mdash;were placed in charge
+    of the former.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Released from the agreement to make no guns except for the British
+    Government, Elswick was open to receive other orders, which now began to
+    roll in from all the world. Elswick prospered greatly, until suddenly
+    there came a check, in the shape of a strike for a nine hours day, in
+    1871. After the strike had lasted for four and a half months, work was
+    resumed; but the old genial relationship between masters and men had
+    received a rude strain, and was never the same as before.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Shipbuilding had been taken up a year or two before this, but the
+    earliest vessels were built to their order in Mr. Mitchell&rsquo;s yard at
+    Walker. The first one was a small gunboat, the &ldquo;Staunch,&rdquo; built for the
+    Admiralty. In later years the Walker ship-yard was united to the Elswick
+    enterprises, and a ship-yard at the latter place was also opened.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Meantime, Captain Noble had been experimenting further in artillery, and
+    in 1877 another and better type of gun was produced. It was adopted by
+    the Government, and all guns since then have been modifications, more or
+    less, of this type. In 1876 the famous hundred-ton gun for Italy was
+    made, and was taken on board the &ldquo;Europa&rdquo; to be carried to her
+    destination; this vessel being the first to pass the newly-finished
+    Swing Bridge, another outcome of the inventive genius of the head of the
+    Elswick firm. The gun, which was the largest in the world at that time,
+    was lowered into the &ldquo;Europa&rdquo; by the largest pair of &ldquo;sheer-legs&rdquo; in
+    existence, and was lifted out again at Spezzia by the largest hydraulic
+    crane of that day, and all these were the work of the Elswick firm.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Soon after this the firm became Sir W.G. Armstrong, Mitchell, and Co.;
+    and in consequence of the continued increase of business, it became
+    necessary to open Steel Works also. This is one of the most notable
+    features of the Elswick works; the wonders of ancient magicians pale
+    into insignificance before the marvels of this department, and no
+    Eastern Genius could accomplish such seemingly impossible feats with
+    greater ease than do the workmen of Elswick.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The works continued to grow still further, and soon Elswick was building
+    cruisers for China, for Italy (where works at Pozzuoli&mdash;the ancient
+    Puteoli&mdash;were opened), for Russia, Chili, and Japan. Tynesiders took a
+    special interest in the progress of the Japanese wars, for so many of
+    that country&rsquo;s battleships had their birth on the banks of the river at
+    Elswick, and Japanese sailors became a familiar sight in Newcastle
+    streets. Groups of strange faces from alien lands are periodically seen
+    in our midst, and met with again and again for some time; then one day
+    there is a launch at Elswick, and shortly afterwards all the strange
+    faces disappear. They have gathered together from their various quarters
+    in the town, and manning their new cruiser, have sailed away to their
+    own land, and Newcastle streets know them no more; but, later,
+    Tynesiders read in their newspapers of the deeds done on the vessels
+    which they have sent forth to the world.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The ice-breaker &ldquo;Ermack&rdquo; is one of the firm&rsquo;s most notable achievements,
+    the vessel having been built and designed in their Walker yard, to the
+    order of the Czar of Russia, in 1898, for the purpose of breaking up
+    ice-floes in the northern seas, and more especially for keeping open a
+    route across the great lakes of Siberia.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Elswick firm became Armstrong, Whitworth and Co., Ltd., in 1897,
+    which was also the year of another great strike; and two years later, a
+    disastrous fire burned down three of their shops, throwing two thousand
+    men temporarily out of employment. Still the works continued to grow,
+    and business to increase, until, instead of the five and a half acres
+    originally purchased, the Company&rsquo;s works, in 1900, covered two hundred
+    and thirty acres, and the number of men on the pay-roll was over
+    25,000&mdash;that is, sufficient with their families to people a town three
+    times the size of Hexham. And the scope and extent of these works are
+    extending, and yet extending; and now Elswick and Scotswood form an
+    uninterrupted line of closely-packed dwellings, which stretch without a
+    break from Newcastle, and make a background for the immense works on the
+    river shore; and one would look in vain for any signs of the pretty
+    country lanes and village of sixty years ago.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The founder of this great enterprise, in the early days of the Company,
+    built for his workpeople schools, library, and reading rooms, as well as
+    dwellings, and met them personally at their social gatherings and
+    entertainments&mdash;generally provided by himself; but the increasing size
+    of the concern, the excellence and capability, amounting to genius, of
+    the various heads of departments chosen by him, and his own increasing
+    years and failing health, led to his gradual withdrawal from personal
+    attendance at Elswick. The last time he appeared there officially was
+    when the King of Siam visited the works in 1897.
+</p>
+<p>
+    One who knew him well has written of him, &ldquo;His mind was at the same time
+    original and strictly practical; he noticed with a penetrating
+    observation, and drew conclusions with intuitive genius. Abstract
+    speculation had no charm for him; he never cherished wild dreams or
+    extravagant ideas. But if his conception was thus wisely restricted, his
+    execution of an idea was unrivalled in its thoroughness. Whether he was
+    founding an industrial establishment, or building a house, or making a
+    road, the hand of the man is quite unmistakable. There is the same solid
+    basis, the same enduring superstructure. Every stone that is laid at
+    Cragside or Bamburgh seems to be stamped as it were with the impression
+    of his great personality, and the thoroughness of his work.&rdquo; All his
+    life long, the thoroughness with which he was able to concentrate his
+    mind on the one subject which occupied it at the time, was a marked
+    feature of Lord Armstrong&rsquo;s character.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the early period of his career, while he was still in a solicitor&rsquo;s
+    office, and when the study of hydraulics was absorbing all his leisure
+    hours, he was quizzically said to have &ldquo;water on the brain.&rdquo; Electrical
+    problems also engaged his attention, and in 1844 he lectured at the Lit.
+    and Phil. rooms on his hydro-electric machine, on which occasion the
+    lecture room was so tightly packed that he had to get in through the
+    window. In the following year he explained to the same society his
+    hydraulic experiments and achievements; in 1846 he was elected a Fellow
+    of the Royal Society; and the next summer, 1847, saw the Elswick Works
+    begun.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is difficult to realize the fact, brought home to us on looking at
+    dates like these, that Lord Armstrong and Robert Stephenson were
+    contemporaries, and that both great engineers were engaged at the same
+    time on the works which were to bring them lasting fame. The life and
+    work of Robert Stephenson seem so remote, so much a part of bygone
+    history, that it strikes the mind with an unexpected shock to realise
+    that here is a life which began about the same time, yet has lasted
+    until quite recent years; for Lord Armstrong&rsquo;s long and successful
+    career only closed with the closing days of the nineteenth century.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the later years of his life he was greatly interested in repairing
+    and partly re-building the historic castle of Bamburgh, which Mr.
+    Freeman calls &ldquo;the cradle of our race,&rdquo; and which Lord Armstrong
+    purchased from Lord Crewe&rsquo;s Trustees. Of his personal character, the
+    writer above quoted says, &ldquo;Apart from his intellectual gifts, Lord
+    Armstrong&rsquo;s character was that of a great man. His unaffected modesty
+    was as attractive as his broad-minded charity. In business transactions,
+    he was the soul of integrity and honour, while in private life his mind
+    was far too large to regard accumulated wealth with any excessive
+    affection. He both spent his money freely and gave it away freely. His
+    benefactions to Newcastle were princely, and his public munificence was
+    fit to rank with that of any philanthropist of his time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    Princely, indeed, were his gifts to his native town, as the list of them
+    will show; they embraced either large contributions to, or the entire
+    gift of, Jesmond Dene, the Armstrong Park, the Lecture Theatre of the
+    Literary and Philosophical Society, St. Cuthbert&rsquo;s Church, the
+    Cathedral, St. Stephen&rsquo;s Church, the Infirmary, the Deaf and Dumb
+    Institution, the Children&rsquo;s Hospital, the Elswick Schools, Elswick
+    Mechanics&rsquo; Institute, the Convalescent Home at Whitley Bay, the Hancock
+    Museum&mdash;to which he and Lady Armstrong contributed a valuable collection
+    of shells, and &#163;11,500 in money&mdash;the Armstrong Bridge, the Armstrong
+    College, and the Bishopric Endowment Fund.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br/>THE CHEVIOTS.</h2>
+
+<p>
+    From the crowded, bustling scenes of Tyneside to the solitude of the
+    Cheviot Hills is a &ldquo;far cry,&rdquo; even farther mentally than in actual tale
+    of miles. Yet the two are linked by the same stream, which begins life
+    as a brawling Cheviot burn, having for its fellows the head waters of
+    the Rede, the Coquet, and the Till, with the scores of little dancing
+    rills that feed them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Nowhere in this land of swelling hills and grassy fields can one get out
+    of either sight or sound of running water. Every little dip in the hills
+    has its watercourse, every vale its broader stream, and the pleasant
+    sound of their murmurings and sweet babbling fills in the background of
+    every remembrance of days spent upon the green slopes of the Cheviots.
+    You may hear in their tones, if you listen, the shrill chatter and
+    laughter of children, soft cooing voices, and the deeper notes of
+    manhood, and might fancy, did not your sight contradict the fact, that
+    you were close to a goodly company, whose words met your ear, but whose
+    magic language you could not understand.
+</p>
+<p>
+    One little burn of my acquaintance, which runs through field and dell to
+    join the Till, I have hearkened to again and again for hours, unable to
+    break away from the spell of its ever-varying, yet constant music&mdash;a
+    sort of wilder, sweeter version of Mendelssohn&rsquo;s Duetto, with the voices
+    of Knight and Lady alternating and intermingling amidst a rippling
+    current of clear bell-like undertones.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Down from Cheviot itself, the lovely little Colledge Water splashes its
+    way, issuing from the wild ravine called the Henhole, where the cliffs
+    on each side of the rocky gorge rise in some places to a height of more
+    than two hundred feet. Concerning this ravine, there is a legend that a
+    party of hunters, long ages ago, were deer-stalking in Cheviot Forest,
+    when on reaching the Henhole their ears were greeted by the most
+    ravishing music they had ever heard. Allured by the enchanting sounds,
+    they followed the music into the ravine, where they disappeared, and
+    were never again seen.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The range of the Cheviot Hills stretches for about twenty-two miles
+    along the north-west border of Northumberland; and as the width of the
+    range is, roughly speaking, twenty-one miles, we have a tract of over
+    three hundred square miles of rolling, grassy, and heath-clad hills, of
+    which about one-third is over the Scottish border in Roxburghshire. The
+    giants of the range, The Cheviot (2,676 feet high), Cairn Hill (2,545
+    feet), and the striking cone of Hedgehope (2,348 feet), are all near to
+    each other on Northumbrian soil, a few miles south-west of Wooler, which
+    is a most convenient starting place for a visit to any part of the
+    Cheviots, as the Alnwick and Cornhill Railway brings within easy reach
+    the heights which lie still farther north.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The quiet little market town lies pleasantly among green meadows almost
+    at the foot of the Cheviots; its low substantial stone houses, with few
+    gardens in front, give the place a somewhat monotonous appearance, but
+    the newer streets try to make amends by blossoming out into brilliant
+    flower-plots in summer-time. Still, one would not quarrel with the older
+    buildings; solid and unpretentious, they must look much the same as in
+    the days of Border turmoil, when the first requisite in house or town
+    was strength, not beauty.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Near to Wooler are many interesting places; within the limits of quite a
+    short stroll one may visit the Pin Well, a wishing well of which there
+    are so many examples to be found wherever one may travel; the King&rsquo;s
+    Chair, a porphyry crag on the hill above the Pin Well; Maiden Castle,
+    or, less euphoniously, Kettles Camp, an ancient British encampment on
+    the same hill, the Kettles being pot-like cavities in the ravines
+    surrounding it; and the Cup and Saucer Camp, just half a mile distant
+    from Wooler. The Golf Course is now laid out on these same heights.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To reach the Cheviots from Wooler, the most usual way is by the
+    beautiful glen in which lies Langleeford. The bright streamlet known as
+    the Wooler Water runs through it from Cheviot on its way to the town
+    from which it has taken its present name; formerly it was known as
+    Caldgate Burn. It was at Langleeford that Sir Walter Scott stayed, as a
+    youth, in 1791, with his uncle, after they had vainly attempted to find
+    accommodation in Wooler. Here they rode, fished, shot, walked, and drank
+    the goat&rsquo;s whey for which the district was famous in those days and for
+    long afterwards.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Cheviot itself, or &ldquo;The Muckle Cheviot,&rdquo; is a huge cumbrous-looking
+    mass, with rounded sides and flat top, boggy and treacherous, where,
+    nevertheless, many wild berries brighten the marshy flats in their
+    season. The name &ldquo;Cheviot&rdquo; is said to mean &ldquo;Snowy Ridge&rdquo; and well does
+    this highest summit of the range merit the name, for on its marshy top
+    and in the rocky chasms of Henhole and Bazzle, the winter&rsquo;s snow often
+    lies until far into the summer. Down through the weird and fairy-haunted
+    cleft of Henhole, as we have seen, the little brown stream of Colledge
+    Water splashes its way, breaking into golden foam between mossy banks as
+    it reaches the outlet, and turns northward to join the Till.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This little burn is one of the prettiest of mountain streams; and in the
+    district surrounding it are perhaps more points of interest than any
+    other stream of such inconsiderable dimensions can show, saving only its
+    neighbour, the Till. The whole of the surrounding country, wild, lonely,
+    and romantic, teems with memories and reminders of the past. Sir Walter
+    Scott, while on the visit already referred to, found an additional
+    pleasure in the presence of so many relics of ancient days in the
+    neighbourhood. &ldquo;Each hill,&rdquo; he wrote to a friend, &ldquo;is crowned with a
+    tower, or camp, or cairn, and in no situation can you be near more
+    fields of battle.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    Indeed, the whole district of the Cheviots, and the lower lines of
+    swelling hills into which the land subsides as it nears the sea, is
+    crowded with the memorials of an earlier race; from every hill-top and
+    rocky height they speak with tantalising half-revelations of that race
+    which the Romans found here when their galleys brought them to the land
+    which was to them Ultima Thule. No convincing explanation has yet been
+    found of the concentric circular markings, with radiating grooves from
+    the cup-shaped hollow in the middle, which are scored on the rocks
+    wherever traces of an ancient camp are found; and the numbers of these
+    traces are proof that this district was once a very thickly populated
+    part of Britain.
+</p>
+<p>
+    And when Angle and Saxon were driving the early inhabitants before them,
+    westward and southward, these hills and valleys still sheltered a
+    considerable population; and Bede tells us of a royal residence not far
+    away, at the foot of the well known Yeavering Bell, one of the more
+    important hills of the range. It rises to a height of more than 1,100
+    feet, and then abruptly ends in a wide, almost level top, grass-grown
+    and boulder-strewn, and crowned near the centre with a roughly-piled
+    cairn. The ancient name of Yeavering Bell, as given by Bede in his
+    account of the labours of St. Paulinus, was Ad-gefrin.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To recall the days when King Edwin and his queen, Ethelburga, came here
+    from the royal city of Bamburgh, we must go back to a time nearly forty
+    years after the Bernician chieftain, Ida, established himself in that
+    rocky fortress, from whence he ruled a district roughly corresponding to
+    the present counties of Durham and Northumberland, and known as
+    Bernicia. One of Ida&rsquo;s successors, Ethelric, overcame the tribe of
+    Angles then established in the neighbouring district of Deira&mdash;the
+    Yorkshire of to-day. His successor, Ethelfrith, ruled over the united
+    district, and married the daughter of Ella, the vanquished chieftain.
+    Her brother, Edwin, he drove into exile, and the young prince found
+    refuge at the court of Redwald of East Anglia, where he remained for
+    some years.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Redwald&rsquo;s friendship, however, does not seem to have been above
+    suspicion, for we find that Ethelfrith&rsquo;s bribe had on one occasion
+    nearly induced him to give up his guest, whose life, however, was saved
+    by Redwald&rsquo;s wife who turned her husband from his purpose. In his exile
+    the thoughts of the young prince often turned towards his own land; and,
+    once, as he sat brooding over his misfortunes, he saw in a vision one
+    who came and spoke comforting words to him, saying that he should yet be
+    king and that his reign should be long and glorious. &ldquo;And if one should
+    come to thee and repeat this sign,&rdquo; said the stranger, laying his right
+    hand on Edwin&rsquo;s head &ldquo;wouldst thou hearken to his rede?&rdquo; Edwin gave his
+    word, and the vision fled. Some little time after this, Ethelfrith of
+    Northumbria, as the united districts were now called, fell in battle
+    against Redwald, and Edwin, returning northward, became ruler of
+    Northumbria, the sons of Ethelfrith fleeing in their turn before the new
+    king. Edwin wedded, as his second wife, Ethelburga, daughter of that
+    king of Kent in whose days Augustine came to England; and being a
+    Christian princess, she brought with her a priest to her new home in the
+    north. The priest&rsquo;s name was Paulinus; and one day he went to the King
+    and, placing his right hand on Edwin&rsquo;s head, asked if he knew that sign.
+    Edwin remembered, and redeemed his promise. He hearkened to the teaching
+    of the earnest monk, with the result that before long he and his court
+    were baptised by Paulinus, Edwin&rsquo;s little daughter, it is said, being
+    the first to receive the sacred rite.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This was at York; and when the king and queen went to the royal city of
+    Bamburgh, or to their country dwelling at the foot of the Cheviots,
+    Paulinus accompanied them; and wherever he went, he laboured to teach
+    the North-country Angles and Saxons the gospel of Christ. This country
+    dwelling, to which came Paulinus and his royal friends, was Ad-gefrin,
+    or Yeavering; and though it is extremely unlikely that any traces of it
+    could remain until our day, yet tradition points out a fragment of an
+    old building still standing there, as a remnant of the royal residence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the region of Kirknewton, a pretty little village to the north-west
+    of Yeavering, where Colledge Water joins the Glen, which gives its name
+    to the romantic district of Glendale, Paulinus baptised many hundreds of
+    Edwin&rsquo;s people; and the name of Pallinsburn&mdash;which is now confined to a
+    house at some little distance from the burn&mdash;enshrines the memory of
+    yet another scene of the labours of the indefatigable monk.
+</p>
+<p>
+    If we stand on the wind-swept top of Yeavering Bell, we are surrounded
+    by the evidences of still more remote days, for the whole of the summit
+    was once a fortified camp of the ancient Britons. A roughly-piled, but
+    massive wall, now almost all broken down, surrounded it, and within its
+    grass-grown oval are two additional walls, at the east and the west ends
+    of the enclosure, and many hut-circles, evidences of the rude dwellings
+    of our remote ancestors. Excavations here many years ago brought to
+    light a jasper ball, some fragments of a coarse kind of pottery, and
+    some oaken armlets. Evidently the enclosure on the summit was intended
+    to be a last resort in time of danger, for traces of many huts are to be
+    found outside its encircling wall, which is surrounded by a ditch and a
+    low rampart of earth. At the east end, where the porphyry crag juts out
+    from the hilltop to a height of about twenty feet, full advantage has
+    been taken of this naturally strong position.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Now, instead of advancing foes, the spreading heather climbs steadily up
+    the sloping sides of this ancient stronghold, and invades the central
+    enclosure at its will; a few hardy sheep that have wandered up here from
+    the richer pastures below, and now and again a stray tourist, anxious to
+    make acquaintance at first hand with one of the more famous of the
+    Cheviot heights, and more than satisfied with the glorious view spread
+    out before him, are all that disturb the brooding peace of its grassy
+    solitudes. Up here the wind blows keenly around us with an exhilarating
+    freshness in its breath, and we think regretfully of coats left behind
+    at the shepherd&rsquo;s hospitable dwelling, which, with the rest of the
+    cottages clustering round the old farm house, lies sunning itself in the
+    warm glow of the September afternoon, in the green fields at the foot
+    of the sheltering hills.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Looking southward now, up the stream, there is stretching away to the
+    left the long ridge of Newton Tor, and away behind it Great Hetha and
+    Little Hetha; while half-way down the vale the Colledge Water tumbles
+    over the rocks at Hethpoole Linn (or Heathpool, as the modern rendering
+    has it), breaking into amber spray deep down beneath overhanging trees
+    and boulders and golden bracken.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This brings our thoughts to days comparatively modern, for when Admiral
+    Collingwood was raised to the peerage of Great Britain, it was by the
+    title of &ldquo;Baron Collingwood of Caldburn and Hethpoole, in the county of
+    Northumberland.&rdquo; The brave Admiral was fond of planting an oak tree
+    whenever he found an opportunity, to secure the continuance of those
+    wooden walls which in his hands, and in those of his life-long friend,
+    Nelson, had proved such a sure defence to his country. In a letter dated
+    March, 1806, he wrote to his wife, &ldquo;I wish some parts of Hethpoole could
+    be selected for plantations of larch, oak, and beech, where the ground
+    could best be spared. Even the sides of a bleak hill would grow larch
+    and fir.&rdquo; In another letter some months later he told her what
+    &ldquo;agreeable news&rdquo; it was to hear that she was taking care of his oaks,
+    and planting some at Hethpoole; and saying that if he ever returned he
+    would plant a good deal there; adding, however, that he feared before
+    that could take place both he and Lady Collingwood might themselves be
+    planted in the churchyard beneath some old yew tree.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Hethpoole presents us with a link not only with history, but with
+    romance as well. An ivied ruin near at hand, with walls of enormous
+    strength, is said to be the remains of the castle where the final
+    tragedy in &ldquo;The Hermit of Warkworth&rdquo; took place. Here, it is said, the
+    distracted lover came upon his lady and his brother, who had at that
+    moment effected her escape, and not recognising the youth, rushed upon
+    the pair with drawn sword, only to discover too late his terrible
+    mistake, and lose both brother and bride&mdash;for the lady received a mortal
+    wound in trying to save her rescuer.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Turning our eyes now northward across the Glen from Yeavering Bell, we
+    are looking towards Coupland Castle, and the fact that it was built so
+    late as the reign of James I. bears eloquent testimony to the insecurity
+    of life and property on the Borders even at that period. The barony
+    either gave its name to, or took its name from, a well-known
+    Northumbrian family, of which one of the most prominent members was that
+    Sir John de Coupland who succeeded in capturing David of Scotland at the
+    battle of Neville&rsquo;s Cross&mdash;not, however, before he had lost some of his
+    teeth by a blow from the mailed fist of that doughty monarch!
+</p>
+<p>
+    Beyond Coupland Castle we look across Milfield Plain lying in the angle
+    formed by the meeting of the Glen with the deep and sullen Till, whose
+    slow windings can be traced as it gleams at intervals between the
+    undulations of the lower hills through which it flows northwestward to
+    the Tweed. Though a brisk and sparkling stream in certain parts of its
+    course, the general characteristics of the Till are well borne out by
+    the lines&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  Tweed says to Till
+  &ldquo;What gars ye rin sae still?&rdquo;
+  Till says to Tweed
+  &ldquo;Though ye rin wi&rsquo; speed
+  And I rin slaw;
+  Where ye droon ae man
+  I droon twa.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    There is yet more of historical and traditional interest to note in this
+    view from the top of Yeavering Bell, which, as I saw it last, lay warm
+    in the glow of a September afternoon. Nennius is our authority for
+    stating that on Milfield Plain took place one of the great conflicts in
+    which King Arthur
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Fought, and in twelve great battles overcame
+  The heathen hordes, and made a realm, and reigned&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    And, as we gazed, the level spaces seemed peopled once more with
+    charging knights, flashing sword and swinging battle-axe, and the
+    intervening centuries dropped away, and Arthur&rsquo;s call to battle for &ldquo;our
+    fair father Christ,&rdquo; seemed curiously befitting that romantic scene.
+    But, as the shadows lengthened, and the streams took on a golden glow in
+    the rays of the September sun, then slowly setting, &ldquo;the tumult and the
+    shouting of the captains&rdquo; died away, and the figure of an earnest monk
+    seemed to stand by the riverside, with prince and serf, peasant and
+    warrior for his audience, and the cold bright waters of the Glen
+    dripping from his hand, as he enrolled one after another into the ranks
+    of an army mightier than the hosts of Arthur or Edwin.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Milfield again emerges into notice out of the obscurity of those dark
+    ages, in the days of the Bernician kings who succeeded Edwin; for Bede
+    tells us that &ldquo;This town (Ad-gefrin) under the following kings, was
+    abandoned, and another was built instead of it at a place called
+    Melmin,&rdquo; now Milfield. Nothing, however, remains here of the buildings
+    which once sheltered the royal Saxons and their court. In later days,
+    Milfield has a melancholy interest attaching to it from its connection
+    with the battle of Flodden; for, on the heights above, King James fixed
+    his camp, in the hope that Surrey would lead his troops across the plain
+    below. Of the other considerable heights of the Cheviot range, Carter
+    Fell and Peel Fell are the best known; they both lie right on the border
+    line of England and Scotland, between the North Tyne and the Rede Water.
+    As we have already seen, the men of Tynedale and Redesdale bore a
+    reputation for lawlessness in the time of the Border &ldquo;Moss-trooping&rdquo;
+    days, and until nearly the end of the eighteenth century the tradesmen
+    and guilds of Newcastle would take no apprentice who hailed from either
+    of these dales. The tracks and passes between the hills, once alive with
+    frequent foray and wild pursuit, are now silent and solitary but for the
+    occasional passing of a shepherd or farmer, and the flocks of sheep
+    grazing as they move slowly up the hillsides. A quaint survival of the
+    remembrances of those days was unexpectedly brought before me one day. A
+    child presented me with a bunch of cotton-grass, gathered on the moors
+    not far from the Roman-Wall. I asked if she knew what they were that she
+    had brought. &ldquo;Moss-troopers,&rdquo; she replied.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Many of the Cheviot heights bear most suggestive and interesting
+    names, such as Cushat<a href="#fn-7" name="fnref-7"
+    id="fnref-7"><sup>[7]</sup></a> Law, Kelpie<a href="#fn-8"
+    name="fnref-8" id="fnref-8"><sup>[8]</sup></a> Strand, Earl&rsquo;s Seat,
+    Stot<a href="#fn-9" name="fnref-9" id="fnref-9"><sup>[9]</sup></a>
+    Crags, Deer Play, Wether Lair, Bloodybushedge, Monkside, etc., etc.
+</p>
+
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-7" id="fn-7"></a> <a href="#fnref-7">[7]</a>
+Cushat = a wood-pigeon.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-8" id="fn-8"></a> <a href="#fnref-8">[8]</a>
+Kelpie = a water-witch.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-9" id="fn-9"></a> <a href="#fnref-9">[9]</a>
+Stot = a bullock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+    In these lonely wilds, which occupy all the northwest of the county, one
+    may travel all day and meet with no living thing save the birds of the
+    air, and a few shy, wild creatures of the moorlands; curve after curve,
+    the rounded hills stretch away into the distance, grass-grown or
+    heatherclad, with occasional peat-mosses; above is the &ldquo;grey gleaming
+    sky,&rdquo; and, all around, a stillness as of vast untrodden wastes, and a
+    sense of solitude out of all proportion to the actual extent of this
+    lonely region. The fascination of it, however, admits of no denial, even
+    on the part of those newly making its acquaintance; while those who in
+    childhood or youth roam over its wild fells, and feel the spell of its
+    brooding mystery, retain in their hearts for all time an unfading
+    remembrance of its magic charm.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  COLLEDGE WATER.
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  My sire is the stooping Cheviot mist,
+  My mother the heath in her purple train;
+  And every flower on her gown I&rsquo;ve kissed
+  Over and over and over again.
+
+  The secret ways of the hills are mine,
+  I know where the wandering moor-fowl nest;
+  And up where the wet grey glidders<a href="#fn-10" name="fnref-10" id="fnref-10"><sup>[10]</sup></a> shine
+  I know where the roving foxes rest.
+
+  I know what the wind is wailing for
+  As it searches hollow and hag and peak;
+  And, riding restless on Newton Tor,
+  I know what the questing shadows seek.
+
+  I know the tale that the brown bees tell,
+  And they tell it to me with a raider&rsquo;s pride,
+  As, drunk with the cups of Yeavering Bell,
+  They stagger home from the English side.
+
+  I know the secrets of haugh and hill;
+  But sacred and safe they rest with me,
+  Till I hide them deep in the heart of Till,
+  To be taken to Tweed and the open sea.
+
+    &mdash;<i>Will. H. Ogilvie</i>.
+
+  BY PERMISSION OF MESSRS. W. AND R. CHAMBERS
+</pre>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-10" id="fn-10"></a> <a href="#fnref-10">[10]</a>
+Glidders = Patches of loose stones on the hillside.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br/>THE ROMAN WALL.</h2>
+
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Take these flowers, which, purple waving,
+  On the ruined rampart grew,
+  Where, the sons of Freedom braving,
+  Rome&rsquo;s imperial standard flew.
+  Warriors from the breach of danger
+  Pluck no longer laurels there;
+  They but yield the passing stranger
+  Wild-flower wreaths for Beauty&rsquo;s hair.&rdquo;
+    &mdash;<i>Sir Walter Scott.</i>
+                (Lines written for a young lady&rsquo;s album.)
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Of all the abundance of treasure which Northumberland possesses, from a
+    historical point of view&mdash;of all its wealth of interesting relics of
+    bygone days&mdash;ancient abbey, grim fortress, menhir and monolith, camp and
+    tumulus&mdash;none grips the imagination as does the sight of that unswerving
+    line which pursues its way over hill and hollow, from the eastern to the
+    western shores of the north-land, visible emblem, after more than a
+    thousand years, of the far-flung arm of Imperial Rome.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From Wallsend on the Tyne to Bowness on the Solway Firth it strode
+    triumphantly across the land; even now in its decay it remains a
+    splendid monument to that mighty nation&rsquo;s genius for having and holding
+    the uttermost parts of the earth that came within their ken. As was
+    inevitable, after the lapse of nearly eighteen centuries the great work
+    is everywhere in a ruinous condition, and in many places, especially at
+    its eastern end, has disappeared altogether; but not only can its course
+    be traced by various evidences, but it was actually standing within
+    comparatively recent years. As lately as the year 1800&mdash;lately, that is,
+    compared with the date of its building&mdash;its existence at Byker was
+    referred to in a magazine of the period. Now nothing is to be seen of it
+    excepting a few stones here and there, for many miles from Wallsend; but
+    the highroad westward from Newcastle, by Westgate Road, as is well
+    known, follows the course of the Wall for nearly twenty miles. But
+    farther west we may walk along the uneven, broken surface of the mighty
+    rampart, or climb down into the broad and deep fosse which lies closely
+    against it along its northern side, without troubling ourselves with the
+    arguments and uncertainties of antiquaries, who have by no means decided
+    on what was the original function of the Wall, who was its real builder,
+    why and when the earthen walls and fosse which accompany it on the south
+    were wrought, and many other smaller controversial points, which afford
+    endless matter for speculation and discussion.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Early references to the Wall show that our forefathers knew it as the
+    Picts&rsquo; Wall; it is now generally referred to as the Wall of Hadrian, the
+    general concensus of opinion yielding to that indefatigable ruler the
+    credit of having wrought the mighty work. Whether built originally as a
+    frontier line of defence or not, opinions are not agreed; but it is very
+    certain that the Wall afforded the only secure foothold in the North to
+    the Romans for well-nigh two centuries of hostility from the restless
+    Brigantes to the southward, and the Picts and Scots to the north; and
+    for another century or so after their southern neighbours had become
+    friendly and peaceful, it still remained a substantial bulwark against
+    the northern barbarians.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Throughout the whole of its length it steadily holds the line of the
+    highest ridges in its course, climbing up slopes and dipping down into
+    the intervening hollows with the least possible deviation from its
+    onward course. The most interesting, because most complete, portion of
+    the Wall, is that in the neighbourhood of the three loughs&mdash;Broomlee,
+    Greenlee, and Crag Loughs, which, with Grindon Lough to the south of the
+    Wall, boast the name of the Northumberland Lakes. On this portion of the
+    wall is situated the large Roman station of Borcovicus, from which we
+    have gained a great deal of our information as to what the life of the
+    garrisons on this lonely outpost of Empire was like.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The station is situated on hilly ground, which slopes gently to the
+    south, and is nearly five acres in extent. On entering the eastern
+    gateway one cannot but experience a sudden thrill on seeing the deep
+    grooves worn in the stone by the passing and repassing of Roman cart and
+    chariot wheels. That mute witness of the daily traffic of the soldiery
+    in those long-past centuries speaks with a most intimate note to us who
+    eighteen hundred years afterwards come to look upon the place of their
+    habitation. The station itself is of the usual shape of the Roman towns
+    on the course of the Wall&mdash;oblong, with rounded corners. The greatest
+    length lies east and west, in a line with the Wall; and two broad
+    streets crossing each other at right angles lead from the north to the
+    south, and from the east to the western gateways. Each of the four was
+    originally a double gateway; but in every case one half of it has been
+    closed up, no doubt when the garrison was declining in numbers, and the
+    attacks of the enemy were increasing in severity.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus09"></a>
+<a href="images/144.jpg">
+<img src="images/144.jpg" width="600" height="384" alt="Illustration:
+North Gateway, Housesteads and Roman Wall." /></a>
+<p class="caption"><b>North Gateway, Housesteads and Roman Wall.</b></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+    Considerable portions of the guard-chambers, one at each side of each
+    gateway, still remain; and near one of them was found a huge stone
+    trough, its edges deeply worn by, apparently, the frequent
+    sharpening of knives upon it. Its use has not been determined; Dr. Bruce
+    tells us that one of the men engaged in the work of excavation gave it
+    as his firm opinion that the Romans used it to wash their Scotch
+    prisoners in! The buildings of the little town&mdash;a row of houses against
+    the western wall, two large buildings near the centre of the camp, with
+    smaller chambers to the east of them&mdash;in which the garrison lived,
+    worked, and stored their supplies, are still quite plainly to be traced,
+    although the walls are only three or four courses high in most places,
+    and of the pillars the broken bases are almost all that remain.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A considerable number of people dwelt outside the walls of this, as of
+    all the stations, sheltering under its walls, and relying on the
+    protection of its garrison; the slope to the southward of Borcovicus
+    shows many traces of buildings scattered all over it. On the northern
+    side, the steep hill, massive masonry, and deep fosse would seem to have
+    offered well-nigh insuperable difficulties to an attacking force such as
+    then could be brought against the camp; yet not only here, but in all
+    the stations whose remains yet survive, there is unmistakable evidence
+    that more than once has the garrison been driven out by a victorious
+    foe, to re-enter and occupy it again at a later period. And when we
+    consider that the Wall and its forts were garrisoned by the Romans for a
+    period extending over nearly three centuries, a period corresponding to
+    the time from the reign of James I. to the present day, it becomes a
+    matter of wonder, not that such was the case, but that such occurrences
+    were not more frequent than the evidences seem to declare.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In spite of all the hard fighting, however, the recreations of lighter
+    hours would seem not to have been forgotten; on the north of the wall is
+    a circular hollow in the ground, evidently a little amphitheatre, in
+    which doubtless many a captive Briton and Pict played his part. On a
+    little rise to the southward, called Chapel Hill, stood the temple where
+    the garrison paid its vows to the various deities of its worship. Many
+    remarkably fine altars found on this and other sites have been
+    preserved, either at the fine museum at The Chesters, or at the Black
+    Gate in Newcastle. One of the most striking is the altar to Mithras, the
+    Persian sun-god, found in a cave near the camp, evidently constructed
+    for the celebration of the rites connected with the worship of Mithras.
+    The altar shows the god coming out of an egg, and surrounded by an oval
+    on which are carved the signs of the Zodiac.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Teutonic element in the garrison is represented by the altars to
+    Mars Thingsus, the discovery of which caused great interest in Germany,
+    and by the altars to the Deae Matres&mdash;the mother-goddesses, whose carved
+    figures are shown seated, fully draped, and holding baskets of fruits on
+    their knees. They are generally found in sets of three; but
+    unfortunately they have been much mutilated, and all the examples
+    remaining are headless. The Deae Matres would seem to correspond in some
+    degree to the Roman Ceres and the Greek Demeter, the bountiful givers of
+    the fruits of the earth. The majority of the altars found are, as was to
+    be expected, dedicated to the deities of Rome; chiefly, as shown by the
+    constantly recurring I.O.M.&mdash;<i>Jovi optimo maximo</i>&mdash;to &ldquo;Jupiter, the best
+    and greatest.&rdquo; The varying inscriptions which follow as reasons for
+    their erection as votive offerings give us glimpses of the life in these
+    communities clearer than those afforded by anything else. And as most,
+    if not all, of our knowledge concerning the details of the Roman
+    occupation of the north-country has to be obtained from the inscriptions
+    which the garrisons left behind them, the inscribed stones as well as
+    the altars are of the greatest possible interest and value. One such
+    stone, found at the Borcovicus mile-castle, states that &ldquo;the Second
+    Legion, the August (erected this at the command of) Aulus Platorius
+    Nepos, Legate and Propraetor, in honour of the Emperor Caesar Trajanus
+    Hadrianus Augustus.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    At &ldquo;Cuddy&rsquo;s&rdquo; (Cuthbert&rsquo;s) Crag near Borcovicus is one of the most
+    picturesque bits of scenery to be found on the whole course of the Wall.
+    My first acquaintance with it was made on a day of grey mist and
+    drizzling rain, which completely hid any view of the surrounding
+    country, and of necessity confined our attention to the stones (and wet
+    grass!) immediately beneath our feet. But another visit was on a day of
+    wind and sunshine, and in the company of a group of light-hearted
+    students. We explored the ruins of Borcovicus, walked along the broad
+    and broken top of the Wall, and climbed up hill and down dale with it
+    under the pleasantest conditions, if a trifle breezy on the heights.
+    June was at her traditional best, which she does not often vouchsafe to
+    show us; flowers waved all around, amongst the grass and in the crannies
+    between the stones, and more than once the lines at the head of this
+    chapter were quoted by one to another. Again and again our progress was
+    stayed while we admired the glorious view spread out all around, but
+    especially was this the case at Cuddy&rsquo;s Crag. We looked westward over
+    Crag Lough, its usually dark waters flashing in the afternoon sun; the
+    three Loughs were all within view; away to the southward, beyond
+    Barcombe Hill, and the site of Vindolana, Langley Castle could be seen,
+    &ldquo;standing four-square to all the winds that blew&rdquo;; and further away
+    again, beyond the valley of the South Tyne, to the southwest the faint
+    outlines of Crossfell and Skiddaw. Northward it was quite easy to
+    imagine oneself looking out over the Picts&rsquo; country still, so far do
+    the moorlands stretch, and so few are the signs of habitation. Rolling
+    ridges stretch northward, wave upon wave, clothed with grass and
+    heather, amongst which Parnesius and Pertinax went hunting with little
+    Allo the Pict; to the northeast the heights of Simonside showed; and far
+    beyond them, though more to the westward, the rounded summits of the
+    Cheviots lay on the horizon.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A short distance westward from the Crag is Hot Bank farmhouse, a place
+    which most visitors to the Wall remember with grateful feelings; for
+    what is more refreshing, after a long tramp, than a farmhouse cup of tea
+    accompanied by that most appetising of Northumbrian dainties, hot girdle
+    cakes! The Visitors&rsquo; Book at Hot Bank is a &ldquo;civil list&rdquo; of all the most
+    learned and noted names in Great Britain, and many outside its shores,
+    together with legions of humbler folk. In this it resembles the one at
+    Cilurnum, which is the only other considerable station along the line of
+    the Wall in Northumberland.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This station of Cilurnum, or Chesters, is a little over five acres in
+    extent, and is quite near to Chollerford station on the North British
+    Railway. To describe Cilurnum in detail, and the interesting museum
+    connected with it, filled with a wonderful collection of objects found
+    on the line of the Wall, would require a book to deal with that alone.
+    The general plan is the same as that which we have already seen at
+    Borcovicus, with the same rounded corners, and double gateway with
+    guard-chambers at each side; the western and eastern walls at Chesters,
+    however, have each an additional single gateway to the south of the
+    larger portals. We must content ourselves with a short survey of the
+    camp, with its two wide streets at right angles to each other as at
+    Borcovicus, and the rest of them very narrow&mdash;indeed, little more than
+    two feet in width; the remains of its Forum and market, its barracks
+    and houses, its open shops and colonnades, the bases of the pillars yet
+    in position; its baths, with pipes, cistern, and flues; and a vaulted
+    chamber which was thought, on its being first excavated, to lead to
+    underground stables, for a local tradition held that such were in
+    existence, and would be found, with a troop of five hundred horses. The
+    vault, however, did not lead further, so that the tradition remained
+    unproven. Notwithstanding this, there was a grain of fact in it; for
+    Chesters was a cavalry station, and five hundred was the full complement
+    of the <i>ala</i>, or troop (<i>ala</i> being a &ldquo;wing,&rdquo; and cavalry forming the
+    &ldquo;wing&rdquo; of an army in position).
+</p>
+<p>
+    Outside the walls of Cilurnum are traces of the usual suburban
+    dwellings; and here, near the river, stood the villa of the officer in
+    command of the station. The excavation of all these buildings and many
+    others took place in the forties and fifties of last century, and were
+    due to the energy of Mr. John Clayton, the learned and zealous
+    antiquary, in the possession of whose family the estate still remains.
+    To Mr. N.G. Clayton we owe the Museum at the Lodge gate, which he built
+    for the reception of the notable collection it contains of antiquities
+    gathered from all the various stations in Northumberland. A very fine
+    altar brought from Vindolana at once strikes the eye, and may be taken
+    as a type of many others, though not many are so perfect. The gravestone
+    of a standard-bearer, from the neighbouring station of Procolitia, shows
+    a full-length carving of the dead warrior. Other inscribed stones are of
+    great interest, though unfortunately most of them are but fragments;
+    still these fragments not infrequently contain a few words which enable
+    students of them to confirm a date or a fact concerning the garrisons,
+    which must otherwise have been a matter of pure conjecture. For
+    instance, it might seem very improbable that the same regiments should
+    have been quartered in certain stations for over two hundred years; yet
+    one of the inscribed stones proves that such was the case at Cilurnum.
+    The inscription states that the second <i>ala</i> of the Asturians repaired
+    the temple during the consulate of certain persons, which is found to be
+    about the year 221. In the <i>Notitia</i>, which was not compiled until the
+    beginning of the fifth century, the second <i>ala</i> of the Asturians is
+    given as the garrison of Cilurnum.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Another thing which strikes the imagination is the sight, after the
+    lapse of so many centuries, of the erasures on various inscribed
+    stones&mdash;erasures of some emperor&rsquo;s or Caesar&rsquo;s name after his death by
+    the chisel of a soldier in one of his legions on this far-away post of
+    his empire. It is one thing to read one&rsquo;s Gibbon, and learn of the
+    murder of Geta, son of Severus, by order of his brother Caracalla, and
+    another to see the youth&rsquo;s name roughly scratched out on a stone in
+    Hexham Abbey crypt; and to read of the assassination of Elagabalus does
+    not move us one whit, but to see his name erased from a stone in
+    Chesters museum brings the tumultuous happenings in ancient Rome very
+    closely home to us.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Here are also several Roman milestones, with their lengthy and sonorous
+    inscriptions, from various points on the Wall; and a miscellaneous and
+    deeply interesting collection of smaller articles, such as ornaments of
+    bronze, jet, or gold, fibulae (brooches or clasps), coins of many
+    reigns, Samian-ware, terra-cotta and glass, parts of harness, etc., etc.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of carven figures there are several besides the standard bearer already
+    mentioned. The best is a figure of Cybele, with elaborate draperies,
+    but unfortunately headless; another, of Victory, holds a palm branch in
+    the left hand, but the right arm is missing. A soldier is shown with
+    spear, shield, and ornate head-piece; and a representation of a
+    river-god, the genius of the Tyne, is worthy of notice. He is a bearded
+    figure, after the style of the figures of Nilus, or the representations
+    in old prints of Father Thames. From Procolitia comes an altar to the
+    goddess Coventina, a name not met with elsewhere, the presiding genius
+    of the well in that station. She is shown reclining on a water-lily
+    leaf, holding in one hand a water-plant, and in the other a goblet from
+    which a stream of water runs. An elaborate carving of three water
+    nymphs, most probably meant to be in attendance on the goddess, is one
+    of the few pieces of sculpture that are not greatly mutilated.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Centurial stones are numerous, having been put up at all parts of the
+    Wall to record the building of such and such parts by various centurions
+    and their companies. The mark >, which Dr. Hodgkin supposes to be a
+    representation of the vine rod, a centurion&rsquo;s symbol of authority, and
+    the sign C or Q, are used to signify a century. Thus a stone inscribed Q
+    VAL. MAXI. states that the century of Valerius Maximus built that part
+    of the Wall. Two or three small altars are inscribed DIBVS
+    VETERIBVS&mdash;&ldquo;To the Old Gods&rdquo;; and Mars Thingsus is well represented.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A very important relic of Roman times found at Cilurnum was a bronze
+    tablet of citizenship, giving this coveted privilege to a number of
+    soldiers who had served in twenty-five campaigns and received honourable
+    discharge. There have been only three specimens of this diploma found in
+    Britain, and all are preserved in the British Museum. There are many
+    memorial tablets erected by wives to their husbands, and husbands to
+    their wives, which leads to much speculation as to how these ladies,
+    high-born Roman, native Briton, or freed-woman, liked their sojourn in a
+    small garrison town on the breezy heights of a Northumbrian moorland.
+    Those ladies who dwelt at Cilurnum, however, had not so much cause to
+    complain, for such natural advantages as were to be had were certainly
+    theirs, in that sheltered spot. The scenery round about Cilurnum is
+    quiet, peaceful and pastoral, altogether different from the wild beauty
+    of Cuddy&rsquo;s Crag, Limestone Corner, or Whinshields.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Having now noticed the two chief stations on the line of the Wall, it
+    will be interesting to follow the course of the rampart itself
+    throughout its journey across Northumberland, though to do so in detail
+    is impossible within the limits of so small a volume as the present one.
+    Neither would it be necessary, or desirable, for the last word in
+    detailed description has been said long ago in the two wonderfully
+    exhaustive treatises on the subject by Dr. Bruce.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A list of Roman officials, civil and military, throughout the empire has
+    come down to us; in this list&mdash;<i>Notitia Dignitatem et Administratem, tam
+    civilium quam militarium in partibus orientis et occidentis</i>&mdash;the
+    portion which relates to the Wall is headed, <i>Item per lineam
+    Valli</i>&mdash;&ldquo;Also along the line of the Wall.&rdquo; The following is a copy of
+    this portion, as given by Dr. Bruce in his <i>Handbook to the Roman Wall</i>.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  The Tribune of the fourth cohort of the Lingones at Segedunum.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of Cornovii at Pons AElii.
+
+  The Prefect of the first <i>ala</i> of the Asturians at Condercum. The
+  Tribune of the first cohort of the Frixagi (Frisii) at Vindobala.
+
+  The Prefect of the Savinian <i>ala</i> at Hunnum.
+
+  The Prefect of the second <i>ala</i> of the Asturians at Cilurnum.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of the Batavians at Procolitia.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of the Tungrians at Borcovicus.
+
+  The Tribune of the fourth cohort of the Gauls at Vindolana.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of Asturians at Aesica.
+
+  The Tribune of the second cohort of Dalmatians at Magna.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of Dacians, styled Aelia, at Amboglanna.
+
+  The Prefect of the <i>ala</i> called &ldquo;Petriana,&rdquo; at Petriana.
+
+  The Prefect of a detachment of Moors, styled Aureliani, at Aballaba.
+
+  The Tribune of the second cohort of the Lingones at Congavata.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of Spaniards at Axelodunum.
+
+  The Tribune of the second cohort of the Thracians at Gabrosentum.
+
+  The Tribune of the first marine cohort, styled Aelia, at Tunnocelum.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of the Morini at Glannibanta.
+
+  The Tribune of the third cohort of the Nervians at Alionis.
+
+  The Cuneus of men in armour at Bremetenracum.
+
+  The Prefect of the first <i>ala</i>, styled Herculean, at Olenacum.
+
+  The Tribune of the sixth cohort of the Nervians at Virosidum.
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Of these stations, with their officers and troops, only those as far as
+    Magna are in Northumberland; the rest continue the chain of defences
+    across Cumberland to the Solway Firth. Besides these stations, there
+    were <i>castella</i> at the distance of every Roman mile (seven furlongs)
+    along the Wall, from which circumstance they are known as
+    &ldquo;mile-castles.&rdquo; They provided accommodation for the troops necessary
+    between the stations, which were at some distance from each other; and
+    between each two <i>castella</i> there were also erected two turrets, so that
+    communication from one end of the Wall to the other was speedy and
+    certain.
+</p>
+<p>
+    All traces of the station of Segedunum (Wallsend) have long since
+    disappeared; the Wall from there, beginning actually in the bed of the
+    river, ran almost parallel with the N.E.R. Tynemouth Branch, a little to
+    the south of it, and climbing the hill to Byker, went down the slope to
+    the Ouseburn parallel with Shields Road, crossing the burn just a little
+    to the south of Byker Bridge. From there its course has been traced to
+    Red Barns, where St. Dominic&rsquo;s now stands, to the Sallyport Gate, and
+    over the Wall Knoll to Pilgrim Street; thence to the west door of the
+    Cathedral, and on past St. John&rsquo;s Church, up Westgate Road.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The station at Pons AElii, it is generally agreed, occupied the ground
+    between the Cathedral church of St. Nicholas and the premises of the
+    Lit. and Phil. Society. Following the Wall up Westgate Road, we are now
+    out upon the highway from Newcastle to Carlisle, which, as we have seen,
+    is upon the very line of the Wall for nearly a score of miles. At
+    Condercum (Benwell) the next station, garrisoned by a cavalry corps of
+    Asturians from Spain, a small temple was uncovered in the course of
+    excavating, and two altars found still standing in their original
+    position. Both of these were to a deity unknown elsewhere, given as
+    Antenociticus on one, and as Anociticus on the other. The former was
+    erected by a centurion of the Twentieth Legion, the Valerian and
+    Victorious, whose crest, the running boar, we shall meet with more than
+    once in our journey.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Westward from here, near West Denton Lodge, faint indications of the
+    turf wall (generally called the Vallum, to distinguish it from the
+    Murus, or stone wall), come into sight, and traces of a mile-castle to
+    the left of the road. After this the Vallum and Murus accompany each
+    other for the rest of their journey, with but little intermission. The
+    next mile-castle was at Walbottle, from which point a delightful view of
+    the Tyne valley and the surrounding country can be obtained. Passing
+    Throckley and Heddon-on-the-Wall, where the fosse on the northern side
+    of the Wall is well seen, and also the Vallum and its fosse, Vindolana
+    (Rutchester) is reached; but there is little evidence here that it is
+    the site of a once busy and bustling garrison station. Indeed, up to
+    this point and for a considerable distance further, a few courses of
+    stones here and there are all that is to be seen of the Roman Wall, its
+    material having for the most part been swallowed up in the construction
+    of the turnpike road on which we are travelling. This road was made in
+    1745 because there was no road by which General Wade could convey his
+    troops from Newcastle to Carlisle, when &ldquo;Bonnie Prince Charlie&rdquo; marched
+    so gaily to that city on his way southward, and so sadly, in a month,
+    returned again.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Wall now makes for the ridge of Harlow Hill, while the Vallum goes
+    on in a perfectly straight line past the picturesque Whittle Dene and
+    the waterworks, until the Wall joins it again near Welton, where the
+    old pele-tower is entirely built of Roman stones. After Matfen Piers,
+    where a road to the northward leads to the beautiful little village of
+    Matfen, and one to the southward to Corbridge, the Wall passes Wall
+    Houses and Halton Shields, where the various lines of the Wall, road,
+    and earthworks, as well as the fosse of each, can be distinctly seen.
+    Passing Carr Hill, the Wall leads up to the station of Hunnum (Halton
+    Chesters), where Parnesius was stationed when Maximus gave him his
+    commission on the Wall. It is not easy to recognise the site now, but as
+    we follow the road we may comfort ourselves with the reflection that at
+    least we have walked right across it from the eastern gate to the
+    western.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A short distance further on is Stagshawbank, famed for its fairs, the
+    glory of which, however, has greatly departed since the days when Dandie
+    Dinmont had such adventures on returning from &ldquo;Staneshiebank.&rdquo; It stands
+    just where the Wall crosses the Watling Street, which enters
+    Northumberland at Ebchester, and crossing the moors to Whittonstall,
+    leads down the long descent to Riding Mill; there turning westward to
+    Corbridge, it comes straight on to Stagshawbank, leading thence
+    northwestward past the Wall through Redesdale to the Borders, which it
+    reaches at Ad Fines Camp, or Chew Green, where the solitudes of the
+    Cheviots and the silence of the deserted camp are soon to be startled by
+    the rifle-shots of Territorials at practice. West of Stagshawbank the
+    earthen ramparts are to be seen in great perfection.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As the Wall nears Chollerford, one may see, a little to the northward,
+    the little chapel of St. Oswald, which, as we have seen in a former
+    chapter, marks the site of the battle of Heavenfield. Just before
+    reaching this point, there is a quarry to the south of the Wall from
+    which the Romans obtained much building-stone, and one of them has left
+    his name carved on one of the stones left lying there, thus&mdash;(P)ETRA
+    FLAVI(I) CARANTINI&mdash;<i>The stone of Flavius Carantinus</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At Plane Trees Field and at Brunton there are larger pieces of the Wall
+    standing than we have yet seen. The Wall now parts company with the
+    highroad, which swerves a little to the north in order to cross the Tyne
+    by Chollerford Bridge, while the course of the Wall is straight ahead,
+    for the present bridge is not the one built and used by the Romans. That
+    is in a line with the Wall, and therefore south of the present one; and
+    as we have already noticed, its piers can be seen near the river banks
+    when the river is low. A diagram of its position is given in Dr. Bruce&rsquo;s
+    <i>Handbook</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Wall now leads up to the gateway of Cilurnum, which we have already
+    visited; and after leaving the park, it goes on up the hill to Walwick.
+    Here it is rejoined by the road, which now for some little distance
+    proceeds actually on the line of the Wall, the stones of which can
+    sometimes be seen in the roadway. The tower a little further on, on the
+    hill called Tower Tye, or Taye, was not built by the Romans, although
+    Roman stones were used in its erection; it is only about two hundred
+    years old.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At Black Carts farm, which the Wall now passes, the first turret
+    discovered on the line of the Wall after the excavations had begun, and
+    interest in the subject was revived, was here laid bare by Mr. Clayton
+    in 1873. At Limestone Bank, not much further on, the fosse north of the
+    Wall, and also that of the Vallum, show a skill in engineering such as
+    we are apt to fancy belongs only to these days of powerful machinery,
+    and explosives for rending a way through the hardest rock. The ditches
+    have both been cut through the solid basalt, and great boulders of it
+    are strewn around; one huge mass, weighing many tons, has been hoisted
+    out&mdash;by what means, we are left to wonder; and another, still in the
+    ditch, has the holes, intended for the wedges still discernible.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A mile or so further on is Procolitia (Carrawburgh), where is the famous
+    well presided over by the goddess Coventina, whose acquaintance we have
+    already made at Cilurnum. The remains of the station at Procolitia are
+    by no means to be compared with those at Borcovicus or Cilurnum; very
+    few of its stones are yet remaining. The well was the most interesting
+    find at Procolitia. It was known to be there, for Horsley had mentioned
+    it; but the waters which supplied it were diverted in consequence of
+    some lead-mining operations. Then the stream formed by its overflow
+    dried up, grass grew over its course and over the well, and it was lost
+    sight of entirely. But the same thing which had led to its disappearance
+    was the means of finding it again. Some lead miners, prospecting for
+    another vein of ore in the neighbourhood, happened to dig in this very
+    spot, and soon struck the stones round the mouth of the well. Mr.
+    Clayton had it properly excavated, and was rewarded by coming not only
+    upon the well, but a rich find of Roman relics of all kinds, which had
+    either been thrown pell-mell into it for concealment in a moment of
+    danger, or, what is more likely, been thrown in during the course of
+    ages as votive offerings to the presiding goddess of the well. There
+    were thousands of coins, mostly silver and copper, with four gold pieces
+    among them; and a large collection of miscellaneous objects, including
+    vases, shoes, pearls, ornaments, altars and inscribed stones, all of
+    which were taken to Chesters. The next point of interest on the Wall is
+    the farmhouse of Carraw, which the Priors of Hexham Abbey once used as a
+    summer retreat. A little further on, at Shield-on-the-Wall, Wade&rsquo;s road
+    crosses to the south of the earthen lines, and parts company with the
+    Wall for a little while, for the latter bends northward to take the high
+    ridge, as usual, while the road and Vallum continue in a straight line.
+    The fragments of a mile-castle are standing just at the point where the
+    Wall swerves northward; indeed, we have been passing the sites of these
+    <i>castella</i>, with fragments more or less in evidence all along the route,
+    but those which we shall now encounter are much more distinctly to be
+    seen than their fellows on the eastern part of the journey, many of
+    which have disappeared altogether.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The high crags which here shoulder the Wall are part of the Great Whin
+    Sill, an intrusive dyke of dolerite which stretches from Greenhead
+    northeastward across the county nearly to Berwick. The military road
+    here leaves the Wall, with which it does not again come into close
+    contact until both are near Carlisle, though in several places the Roman
+    road will be encountered near the Wall in a well-preserved condition.
+    The Wall now climbs another ascent to the farmhouse of Sewingshields,
+    which name is variously explained as &ldquo;Seven Shields,&rdquo; and as &ldquo;The shiels
+    (shielings, or little huts) by the seugh&rdquo; or hollow&mdash;the hollow being
+    the fosse. Sewingshields Castle, long since disappeared, is the scene of
+    the knight&rsquo;s adventures in Sir Walter Scott&rsquo;s &ldquo;Harold the Dauntless.&rdquo;
+    And tradition asserts that King Arthur, with Queen Guinevere and all the
+    court, lies in an enchanted sleep beneath the castle, or at least its
+    site. Not only is there no castle, but the Wall also has been despoiled
+    to supply the material for building the farmhouse and other buildings in
+    the neighbourhood. The Wall climbs unfalteringly over the crags, one
+    after the other, until the wide opening of Busy Gap is reached. This
+    being such a convenient pass from north to south, it was naturally used
+    constantly by raiders and thieves; and such an unenviable notoriety did
+    it possess, that to call a person a &ldquo;Busy Gap rogue&rdquo; was sufficient to
+    lay oneself open to an action for libel. Climbing the next slope we look
+    down on Broomlee Lough and reach the portion of the Wall we have already
+    noted&mdash;Borcovicus (Housesteads), Cuddy&rsquo;s Crag, Hot Bank farmhouse, and
+    Crag; Lough.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The course of the Wall continues, past Milking Gap, along the rugged
+    heights of Steel Rig, Cat&rsquo;s Stairs, and Peel Crag, till on reaching
+    Winshields we are at the highest point on the line, 1,230 feet above the
+    sea-level. Dipping down to Green Slack, the Wall crosses the valley
+    called Lodham Slack, and begins to ascend once more. The local names of
+    gaps and heights in this neighbourhood are highly descriptive, and
+    sometimes weirdly suggestive; we have had Cat&rsquo;s Stairs, and now we come
+    to Bogle Hole, Bloody Gap, and Thorny Doors. A little further west from
+    here the very considerable remains of a mile-castle may be seen, in
+    which a tombstone was found doing duty as a hearth-stone. The
+    inscription recorded that it had been erected by Pusinna to the memory
+    of her husband Dagvaldus, a soldier of Pannonia.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Westward from this mile-castle the Wall climbs Burnhead Crag, on which
+    the foundations of a building, similar to the turrets, were exposed a
+    few years ago; then it dips down again to Haltwhistle Burn, which comes
+    from Greenlee Lough, and is called, until it reaches the Wall, the Caw
+    Burn. From the burn a winding watercourse supplied the Roman station of
+    AEsica (Great Chesters) with water. Just here the Wall is in a very
+    ruinous condition; and of the station of AEsica but little masonry
+    remains, though the outlines of it can he clearly traced. Beyond AEsica,
+    however, is a splendid portion of the Wall, standing some seven or eight
+    courses high. Here it climbs again to the top of the crags which once
+    more appear, bold and rugged, to culminate in the &ldquo;Nine Nicks of
+    Thirlwall,&rdquo; so called from the number of separate heights into which the
+    crags divide, and over which the Wall takes its way.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At Walltown, on this part of its course, is to be seen an old well, in
+    which Paulinus is said to have baptised King Edwin; but the local name
+    for it is King Arthur&rsquo;s Well. Now the Wall descends to a level and
+    pastoral country, leaving behind it the wild moorland and craggy heights
+    across which it has travelled so long; but unfortunately much of it has
+    been destroyed by the quarrying operations at Greenhead. Of the station
+    of Magna (Caervoran) little can be seen at the present day. This station
+    and Aesica are nearer to each other than are any other two stations on
+    the Wall, and a line of camps, five in number, stand south of the Wall
+    and Vallum, from Magna to Amboglanna, showing that a third line of
+    defence was deemed necessary where the natural defences of moorland
+    ridge, lough or crag were absent.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Roman way called the Stanegate comes from the eastward almost up to
+    the station of Magna, which stands a little to the south of both Wall
+    and Vallum, between them and Wade&rsquo;s road, which here approaches nearer
+    to the Wall than it has done for many miles.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Another Roman road, the Maiden Way, comes from the South closely up to
+    the Vallum, quite near to Thirlwall castle. The name &ldquo;Thirlwals&rdquo; was
+    supposed to commemorate the &ldquo;thirling&rdquo; (drilling or piercing) of the
+    Wall at this point by the barbarians, but this is extremely doubtful;
+    though the difficulty of defending the wall on this level tract lends an
+    air of likelihood to this supposition. Near here the little river Tipalt
+    flows across the line of the Wall on its way southward to join the North
+    Tyne.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Passing Wallend, Gap, and Rose Hill, where Gilsland railway station now
+    stands, we follow the Wall to the deep dene of the Poltross Burn, which
+    forms the boundary between Northumberland and Cumberland. The railway
+    just beyond the burn crosses the line of the Wall; and, further on, an
+    interesting portion, several courses high, takes its way through the
+    Vicarage garden. Here we will leave it to continue its way through
+    Cumberland, and turn our attention to the chief Roman ways which cross
+    Northumberland, with other stations standing upon them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Watling Street or Dere Street, we have already noticed; and the
+    chief station on it, which has also proved to be the largest in
+    Northumberland, is Corstopitum, near Corbridge. The recent excavations
+    since 1906 have resulted in the finding of many interesting relics,
+    including some hundreds of coins, amongst which were forty-eight gold
+    pieces, of later Roman date, ranging from those of Valentinian I. to
+    those of Magnus Maximus. Pottery in large quantities has also been
+    found, most of it, of course, in a fragmentary condition, but some
+    pieces, notably bowls of Samian ware, almost perfect, and dating from
+    the first century. Several interesting pieces of sculpture have been
+    unearthed; one a finely sculptured lion standing over an animal which it
+    has evidently just killed; this was, no doubt, used as an outlet for
+    water at the fountain, judging by the projection of the lion&rsquo;s lower
+    lip. Another piece of sculpture represents a sun-god, the rays
+    surrounding his face; and several altars and many inscribed stones are
+    also amongst the treasures lately revealed. A clay mould of a human
+    figure was also found, which is supposed to represent some Keltic deity;
+    but as the figure wears a short tunic not unlike a kilt, and carries a
+    crooked club, the workmen promptly christened it Harry Lauder! The
+    buildings in this town, for it is much more than a military station,
+    have been large and imposing, as is shown by each successive revelation
+    made by the excavators&rsquo; spades. The portion of the Watling Street
+    leading from Corstopitum to the river has also been laid bare.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Roman road called the Stanegate runs westward from the North Tyne at
+    Cilurnum, a little to the north of Fourstones railway station, through
+    Newbrough, on past Grindon Hill, Grindon Lough, which it passes on the
+    south, and Grindon Dykes, to Vindolana (Chesterholm) another Roman town,
+    which lies a mile due south from Hot Bank farmhouse on the Wall.
+    Vindolana stood on a most favourable site, a high platform protected on
+    three sides, and it covered three and a half acres of ground. Here no
+    excavations have yet been made, and the site is grass grown and desolate
+    although the outlines of the station may be distinctly traced. A ruinous
+    building to the west of this station was popularly called the Fairies&rsquo;
+    Kitchen, a name given to it on account of the marks of fire and soot on
+    the pillars. From the station several inscribed stones and altars have
+    been taken to the museum at Chesters. One of them is dedicated to the
+    Genius of the Camp by Pituanius Secundus, the Prefect of the fourth
+    Cohort of the Gauls, which cohort, as we have already seen by the
+    <i>Votitia</i>, was stationed here. In the valley below Vindolana a little
+    cottage is standing. It is built entirely of Roman stones, and was
+    erected by an enthusiastic antiquary, Mr. Anthony Hedley, for himself.
+    Many of the stones used in its construction have inscriptions on them;
+    and in the covered passage, leading from the cottage down to the burn,
+    we come upon one of them inscribed with the name of our old friend the
+    XXth Legion, and its crest, the running boar. The most interesting relic
+    of all in the neighbourhood is a Roman mile-stone, standing in its
+    original position on the Stanegate.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Leaving Vindolana, this road goes on westward to Magna, where it joins
+    the Maiden Way, another important Roman road, which runs from north to
+    south. Coming from the neighbourhood of Bewcastle Fells, it enters
+    Northumberland at Gilsland, and leading eastward as far as Magna, then
+    turns directly southward past Greenhead.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In concluding this chapter on the Roman remains in our county, <i>apropos</i>
+    of the wholesale destruction of the Wall and larger stations which has
+    taken place in the last century or two, I will quote the words of two
+    historians on that subject. Dr. Thomas Hodgkin says: &ldquo;In the reign of
+    Queen Elizabeth, Camden, the enthusiastic antiquary, dared not traverse
+    the line of the wall by reason of the gangs of brigands by whom it was
+    infested. The union of the two countries brought peace, and peace
+    brought prosperity; prosperity, alas! more fatal to the Wall than
+    centuries of Border warfare. For now the prosperous farmers of
+    Northumberland and Cumberland awoke to the building facilities which
+    lurked in these square green enclosures on their farms, treated them as
+    their best quarries, and robbed them unmercifully of their fine
+    well-hewn stones. Happily that work of demolition is now in great
+    measure stayed, and at this day we visit the camps for a nobler purpose,
+    to learn all they can teach us as to the past history of our country.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    None, I think, will disagree with these words of the learned Doctor,
+    whether or not they may go as far as Cadwallader J. Bates, who, in
+    concluding his chapter on the Roman Wall, gave it as his opinion that
+    &ldquo;unless the island is conquered by some civilized nation, there will
+    soon be no traces of the Wall left. Nay, even the splendid whinstone
+    crags on which it stands will be all quarried away to mend the roads of
+    our urban and rural authorities.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus10"></a>
+<img src="images/166.jpg" width="300" height="174" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br/>SOME NORTHUMBRIAN STREAMS.</h2>
+
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Come, don&rsquo;t abuse our climate, and revile
+  The crowning county of England&mdash;yes, the best.
+</pre>
+
+<hr />
+
+<pre>
+  Have you and I, then, raced across its moors.
+  Till horse and boy were well-nigh mad with glee,
+  So often, summer and winter, home from school,
+  And not found that out? Take the streams away,
+  The country would be sweeter than the South
+  Anywhere; give the South our streams, would it
+  Be fit to match our Borders? Flower and crag,
+  Burnside and boulder, heather and whin,&mdash;you don&rsquo;t
+  Dream you can match them south of this? And then,
+  If all the unwatered country were as flat
+  As the Eton playing-fields, give it back our burns,
+  And set them singing through a sad South world,
+  And try to make them dismal as its fens&mdash;
+  They won&rsquo;t be! Bright and tawny, full of fun
+  And storm and sunlight, taking change and chance
+  With laugh on laugh of triumph&mdash;why, you know
+  How they plunge, pause, chafe, chide across the rocks,
+  And chuckle along the rapids, till they breathe
+  And rest and pant and build some bright deep bath
+  For happy boys to dive in, and swim up.
+  And match the water&rsquo;s laughter.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>
+    Northumberland is fortunate in the number of rivers which, owing to the
+    position of the Cheviot Hills, flow right across the county from west to
+    east. These Northumbrian streams have a distinct character of their own,
+    and are of a different breed from those of the southern; counties. They
+    are neither mountain torrents nor placid leisurely rivers, such as are
+    met elsewhere in Britain, but busy, bright, joyous, and sparkling,
+    never sluggish, never silent, even when deep and full, as is the Tyne in
+    its lower reaches. With the Tyne and its tributary streams we have
+    already travelled; but there are others yet awaiting us, claiming our
+    attention sometimes for the romantic scenery through which they run
+    their bright course, sometimes for the historic sites they pass on their
+    way, sometimes for both reasons. Wansbeck, Coquet, Aln, or Till&mdash;each
+    has its own interest, as has also the Tweed in that score or so of miles
+    along which it can he spoken of in connection with Northumberland.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The source of the Wansbeck, the only &ldquo;beck&rdquo; the county possesses, is
+    amongst the &ldquo;Wild Hills o&rsquo; Wannys&rdquo; (Wanny&rsquo;s beck) a group of picturesque
+    sandstone crags which surround Sweethope Lough, a sheet of water which
+    covers 180 acres. The scenery of this upper course of the Wansbeck is
+    very striking, from the Lough to Kirkwhelpington, flowing between bleak
+    moorland and rich pasture, and on to Littleharle Tower, which stands
+    secluded in deep woods.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Another mansion near at hand, and most picturesquely situated, is
+    Wallington Hall, lying a short distance away on the north bank of the
+    Wansbeck. It is one of the most notable country houses in
+    Northumberland, and especially so on account of its unique
+    picture-gallery, roofed with dull glass, and containing several series
+    of pictures connected with Northumbrian history. One of these is a
+    series of frescoes by William Bell Scott, whose name was for so many
+    years associated with all that was best in art in Newcastle, and whose
+    picture of the &ldquo;Building of the Castle&rdquo; may be seen at the head of the
+    staircase in the Lit. and Phil. building. His pictures at Wallington
+    are:&mdash;1. The Building of the Roman Wall. 2. The visit of King Egfrid
+    and Bishop Trumwine to St. Cuthbert on Fame. 3. A Descent of the Danes.
+    4. Death of the Venerable Bede. 5. The Charlton Spur. 6. Bernard Gilpin
+    taking down a challenge glove in Rothbury Church. 7. Grace Darling and
+    her father on the way to the wreck. 8. The Nineteenth Century&mdash;showing
+    the High Level Bridge, the Quayside, an Armstrong gun, etc., etc.
+    Another series consists of medallions and portraits of famous men
+    connected with Northumbrian events, from Hadrian and Severus down to
+    George Stephenson and others of modern times; while yet another depicts
+    all the incidents of &ldquo;Chevy Chase.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    Some miles further eastward, the Wansbeck receives the Hart Burn&mdash;which,
+    by the way, is larger than the parent stream at this point&mdash;and, a
+    little later, the Font. The lovely little village of Mitford, once
+    important enough to overshadow the Morpeth of that day, lies at the
+    junction of Font and Wansbeck. The Mitfords of Mitford can boast, if
+    ever family could, of being Northumbrian of the Northumbrians, as they
+    were seated here before the days of the Conqueror, who made such a
+    general upsetting amongst the Saxon landowners.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The beauty of the two miles walk along the banks of the Wansbeck from
+    here to Morpeth is not easy to surpass in all the county, though several
+    parts of the Coquet valley may justly compete with it. William Howitt
+    has left on record his admiration for this lovely region, and said
+    Morpeth was &ldquo;more like a town in a dream&rdquo; than a reality. Especially is
+    this so when looking at the town from the neighbourhood of the river.
+    Before actually reaching Morpeth the Wansbeck waters the fair fields
+    that once held Newminster Abbey in its pride; now, nothing remains but
+    an arch or so and a few stones, to remind us of the noble abbey which
+    Ralph de Merley built so long ago. When only half built it was
+    demolished by the Scots under King David; but willing hands set to work
+    again, and the abbey and monastery were completed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the town of Morpeth, though newer buildings are stretching out
+    towards the outskirts, many of the ancient buildings and streets remain,
+    and the general aspect of this part of it is much the same as when the
+    Jacobites of Northumberland gathered together here, and the clergyman,
+    Mr. Buxton, proclaimed James III. in its Market Place. Of Morpeth
+    Castle, built by a De Merley soon after the Conquest, only the gateway
+    tower remains, but the outlines of the original boundary walls can be
+    clearly traced. A company of five hundred Scots, whom Leslie had left as
+    a garrison in 1644, held out here for three weeks against two thousand
+    Royalists under Montrose. After the cannonading received during that
+    siege, the walls were not repaired again, and the castle fell into
+    decay. The inhabitants of Morpeth have a daily reminder of times yet
+    more remote, for the Curfew Bell still rings out over the little town
+    every evening at eight o&rsquo;clock.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Another walk of three miles along the still beautiful banks of the
+    Wansbeck brings us to Bothal, another little village of great beauty,
+    embowered and almost hidden amongst luxuriant woods. Its curious name is
+    derived from the Anglo-Saxon <i>bottell</i>, a place of abode (as in
+    Walbottle). The name conjures up memories of the knights of old, their
+    loves and their fortunes, fair or disastrous; for the best-known version
+    of &ldquo;The Hermit of Warkworth&rdquo; tells us that it was a Bertram of Bothal
+    who was the luckless hero of that tale, though another version avers
+    that he belonged to the house of Percy.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Wansbeck&rsquo;s fellow stream, the Coquet, has its birth amongst some of the
+    wildest scenery of the Cheviot Hills, where the heights of Deel&rsquo;s Hill
+    and Woodbist Law look down on the now silent Watling Street and the
+    deserted Ad Fines Camp. In its windings along the bases of the hills it
+    is joined by the Usway Burn, said to be named after King Oswy, between
+    which and the little river Alwine lies the famous Lordship of Kidland,
+    once desolate on account of the thieving and raiding of its neighbours
+    of Bedesdale and Scotland.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Hodgson, in his &ldquo;Northumberland,&rdquo; says of this region, &ldquo;All the said
+    Kydlande is full of lytle hilles or mountaynes, and between the saide
+    hilles be dyvers valyes in which discende litle Ryvvelles or brokes of
+    water, spryngynge out of the said hilles and all fallynge into a lytle
+    Rever or broke callede Kidlande water, w&rsquo;ch fallethe into the rever of
+    cockette nere to the towne of alwynntonn, w&rsquo;tin a myll of the castell of
+    harbottell.&rdquo; The reasons for the desolation of Kidland are graphically
+    set forth:&mdash;&ldquo;In somer seasons when good peace ys betwene England and
+    Scotland, th&rsquo;inhabitantes of dyv&rsquo;se townes thereaboutes repayres up with
+    theyr cattall in som&rsquo;ynge (summering) as ys aforesaid, and so have used
+    to do of longe tyme. And for the pasture of theyr cattall, so long as
+    they would tarye there they payed for a knoweledge two pens for a
+    household, or a grote at the most, though they had nev&rsquo; so many
+    cattalles. And yet the poore men thoughte their fermes dere enoughe.
+    There was but fewe yeres that they escaped w&rsquo;thout a greatter losse of
+    their goodes and cattalles, by spoyle or thefte of the Scottes or
+    Ryddesdale men, then would have paide for the pasture of theyr cattail
+    in a much better grounde. And ov&rsquo; (over, besides) that, the saide valyes
+    or hopes of Kidlande lyeth so distant and devyded by mounteynes one from
+    an other, that such as Inhabyte in one of these hoopes, valeys, or
+    graynes, can not heare the Fraye outcrye, or exclamac&rsquo;on of such as
+    dwell in an other hoope or valley upon the other side of the said
+    mountayne, nor come or assemble to theyr assystance in tyme of
+    necessytie. Wherefore we can not fynde anye of the neyghbours
+    thereabouts wyllinge cotynnally to Inhabyte or plenyshe w&rsquo;thin the saide
+    grounde of Kydland, and especially in wynter tyme.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    These reasons were given by the people of &ldquo;Cockdale&rdquo; in the neighbouring
+    valley, to account for the desolation of Kidland, which lay open on the
+    northward to attacks from the Scots, and had no defence on the south
+    from the rievers of Redesdale. The inhabitants of Coquetdale seem to
+    have been a right valiant and hardy fraternity, honest and fearless,
+    well able to give good blows in defence of their possessions, for it is
+    left on record that &ldquo;the people of the said Cock-dayle be best p&rsquo;pared
+    for defence and most defensyble people of themselfes, and of the truest
+    and best sorte of anye that do Inhabyte, endlonge, the frounter or
+    border of the said mydle m&rsquo;ches of England.&rdquo; The traces of these days of
+    raid and foray are to be found in abundance all over Coquetdale, as
+    indeed all over Northumberland, in pele-tower and barmkyn, fortified
+    dwelling and bastle house.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Harbottle Castle would have a good deal to tell, could it only speak, of
+    siege and assault from the day when, &ldquo;with the aid of the whole county
+    of Northumberland and the bishopric of Durham,&rdquo; it was built by Henry
+    II., until, after the Union of the Crowns, it shared the fate of many of
+    the Border strongholds, and fell into gradual decay, or was used as a
+    quarry from which to draw building material for new and modern
+    mansions. At Rothbury, a pele-tower has formed the dwelling of the
+    Vicars of that town from the time that any mention of Whitton Tower is
+    to be found, it being first noticed as &ldquo;Turris de Whitton, iuxta
+    Rothebery.&rdquo; Rothbury itself occupies quite the finest situation of any
+    of the Northumbrian towns. Others, besides it, lie on the banks of a
+    pretty river; others, too, possess fair meadows and rich pastures; but
+    none other has the combination of these attractive features with the
+    finer surroundings of hill, crag, and moorland as picturesquely
+    beautiful as those of Rothbury. In the old church here Bernard Gilpin,
+    &ldquo;the Apostle of the North,&rdquo; often preached; and even the fierce rival
+    factions of the Borderland were so influenced by the gentle, yet
+    fearless preacher, that they consented to forego their usual pleasure of
+    &ldquo;drawing&rdquo; whenever they met one of a rival family, at least so long as
+    Gilpin dwelt among them, and especially to refrain from showing their
+    hostility in church.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There are in Coquetdale, as elsewhere, memorials of the ancient British
+    days in the many camps to be found on the summits of the hills near the
+    town, on Tosson Hill and the Simonside Hills; and not camps only, but
+    barrows, cist-vaens, and flint weapons in considerable numbers. The
+    magnificent view to be obtained, on a clear day, from Tosson Hill or the
+    Simonsides is one to be remembered; to the west and north stretch the
+    vales of Coquet and Alwin, with the rolling heights of the Cheviots
+    bounding them; northward are the woods surrounding Biddlestone Hall, the
+    &ldquo;Osbaldistone Hals&rdquo; of Scot&rsquo;s <i>Rob Roy</i>, awakening memories of Di
+    Vernon; far to the eastward a faint blue haze denotes the distant
+    coastline; while southward, over the dales of Rede and Tyne, the smoke
+    of industrial Tyneside lies on the horizon, with the spires and towers
+    of Newcastle showing faintly against the heights of the Durham side of
+    the Tyne.
+</p>
+<p>
+    One of the chief sights of Rothbury is the beautiful mansion of Cragside
+    and the wonderful valley of Debdon and Crag Hill, as transformed by the
+    first Lord Armstrong into a paradise of beauty, where art and nature are
+    so blended as to make a romantically artistic whole. Another lovely spot
+    on the banks of Coquet is at Brinkburn, where the famous Priory stands
+    almost hidden at the foot of thickly wooded slopes. A very much larger
+    portion of this fine Priory is still standing than is the case with many
+    other religious houses of the same age, for it dates from the reign of
+    Henry I. The story is told of Brinkburn as well as of Blanchland, that a
+    party of marauding Scots on one of their forays passed by the Priory
+    without discovering it in its leafy bower; and so overjoyed were the
+    monks at their escape that they incautiously rang the bells by way of
+    showing their delight. The Scots, who had passed out of sight but not
+    out of hearing, immediately returned on their tracks, and, guided by the
+    joyful peal, reached the Priory, sacked the buildings, and then set them
+    on fire. It may well be that the tragedy occurred at both places, on
+    different occasions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Farther eastward down the Coquet are two places pre-eminently noted as
+    centres for the sport for which the river is famed above all other
+    Northumbrian streams, though some of them are worthy rivals. These two
+    places are Weldon Bridge and Felton; the old Angler&rsquo;s Inn at the
+    first-named is a favourite rendezvous of the fraternity of rod and
+    creel. Fishermen have long known the fascination of these two places,
+    and I quote from the &ldquo;Fisherman&rsquo;s Garland&rdquo; two stanzas written by two
+    enthusiastic anglers in praise of them. The writers are Robert Roxby
+    and Thomas Doubleday.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;But we&rsquo;ll awa&rsquo; to Coquetside,
+  For Coquet bangs them a&rsquo;;
+  Whose winding streams sae sweetly glide
+  By Brinkburn&rsquo;s bonny Ha&rsquo;!&rdquo;
+
+  <i>Written in 1821</i>
+
+  &ldquo;The Coquet for ever, the Coquet for aye!
+  The <i>Woodhall</i> and <i>Weldon</i> and <i>Felton</i> so gay,
+  And <i>Brinkburn</i> and <i>Linden</i>, wi&rsquo; a&rsquo; their sweet pride,
+  For they add to the beauty of dear Coquetside.&rdquo;
+
+  <i>Written in 1826</i>
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Felton, a charmingly placed little village, on the banks of the river
+    where they are overhung by graceful woods, and diversified by cliff and
+    grassy slope, stands just where the great North Road crosses the Coquet.
+    By reason of this position it has been the scene of one or two events of
+    historical interest, notably those connected with the &ldquo;Fifteen&rdquo; and the
+    &ldquo;Forty-five.&rdquo; On the former occasion, the gallant young Earl of
+    Derwentwater, with his followers, was joined here by a band of seventy
+    gentlemen from the Borders, and they rode on to Morpeth to proclaim
+    James III. And thirty years later, the soldiers of George II. passed
+    over the bridge from the southward, led by the Duke of Cumberland, and
+    pressed on towards the Scottish moor where they dealt the final blow to
+    the Stuart cause at Culloden. The interesting old church at Felton,
+    dating from the thirteenth century, is well worth a visit. After leaving
+    Felton behind, the Coquet enters on the most marked windings of all its
+    winding course, until, when it enters the sea at Warkworth Harbour, just
+    opposite Coquet Island, it has contrived to lengthen out its journey to
+    a distance of forty miles.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The bright clear stream of the Aln also begins its short journey across
+    Northumberland from the heights of Cheviot, but in the narrower
+    northern portion of the county. Alnham, with its pele-tower Vicarage,
+    ancient church, and memories of a castle, stands just at the foot of the
+    hills, near the source of the river. Some three or four miles eastward
+    along its banks, a walk through leafy woods brings us to
+    Whittingham&mdash;the final syllable of which, by the way, one pronounces as
+    &ldquo;jam,&rdquo; as one does that of nearly all the other place-names ending in
+    &ldquo;ing-ham&rdquo; in Northumberland, contrary though it be to etymological
+    considerations&mdash;excepting, curiously enough, Chillingham, situated in
+    the very midst of all the others. The &ldquo;ing&rdquo; and &ldquo;ham&rdquo; are in themselves
+    a historical guide to the days in which the various villages received
+    their names, these two syllables being a certain indication of a Saxon
+    settlement, the &ldquo;home of the sons, or descendants of&rdquo; whatever person
+    the first syllable indicates. Thus, Edlingham, only a few miles away, is
+    the &ldquo;home or settlement of the sons of Eadwulf&rdquo;; Ellingham, the &ldquo;home of
+    the sons of Ella,&rdquo; and so on. How the &ldquo;Whitt&rdquo; syllable was spelled we do
+    not know; most probably Hwitta or Hwitha&mdash;for all our <i>wh&rsquo;s</i> were <i>hw</i>
+    originally&mdash;<i>hwaet, hwa, hwaether</i> and so forth.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This ancient village is in these days a charming and peaceful place,
+    lying in the midst of rich meadow lands, and surrounded by magnificent
+    trees. It had its romances, too, in the course of years; so long ago as
+    the days of the early Danish invasions a certain widow in Whittingham,
+    in the reign of King Alfred, had no less a person than a Danish prince
+    among her slaves; he was ransomed, however, and made king of the Danes
+    in the North, in consequence of a vision in which St. Cuthbert had
+    directed the Abbot of Carlisle to see this done. Young Prince Guthred&rsquo;s
+    gratitude showed itself in a substantial grant of land to St. Cuthbert
+    at Durham. Whittingham Church is supposed to have been founded by the
+    Saxon king Ceolwulf, whose acquaintance we have already made at Holy
+    Island, and he bestowed the lands of Whittingham on the church at
+    Lindisfarne. It still shows some of the original Saxon work at the base
+    of the tower, and much more was to be seen before the so-called
+    &ldquo;restoration&rdquo; of the church in 1840. The pele-tower on the south side of
+    the river, after its days of storm and stress are over, still serves as
+    a shelter in time of need, for it is now used as an almshouse for the
+    poor of the village, a former Lady Ravensworth having originated the
+    quaint idea and seen it carried out.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Whittingham Fair, now Whittingham Sports, a well-known rendezvous of the
+    whole countryside, has lost some of its former splendour, but is still
+    looked forward to with great enjoyment in the surrounding district. The
+    old coaching road from Newcastle to Edinburgh passed through the
+    village, crossing the Aln by the stone bridge, from whence it went on
+    through Glanton and Wooler to Cornhill.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the vale of Whittingham, the little Aln flows placidly along, its
+    waters murmuring a soothing refrain, a peaceful interlude between its
+    busy bustling beginning and its ending. Before reaching Alnwick it flows
+    past the ancient walls of Hulne Abbey, the monastery of Carmelite friars
+    so romantically founded by the Northumbrian knight and monk after his
+    visit to the monastery on Mount Carmel. A considerable portion of the
+    ancient building is still standing, and few sites chosen by the old
+    monks, who had an unerring eye for beauty as well as safety and
+    convenience in their choice of abode, can surpass this one, surrounded
+    by fair meadows, and standing on the green hill-side, with the rippling
+    Aln flowing through the levels below. In Hulne Park is also the
+    Brislee Tower, erected by the first Duke of Northumberland in 1781, on
+    the top of Brislee Hill.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus11"></a>
+<a href="images/178.jpg">
+<img src="images/178.jpg" width="600" height="378" alt="[Illustration:
+Alnwick Castle]" /></a>
+<p class="caption"><b>Alnwick Castle</b></p>
+</div>
+	
+<p>
+    Alnwick itself, with its quaint, uneven, narrow streets, and grey stone
+    houses, looks the part of a Border town even in these days; and the grim
+    old Hotspur tower, bestriding the main street like an ancient warrior
+    still on guard, helps to give the illusion an air of reality. The tower,
+    however, was not built by Hotspur, but by his son. The names of the
+    streets, too, are redolent of the days when the only safety for the
+    inhabitants of a town worth plundering lay in the strength of its walls
+    and gateways. Bondgate, Bailiffgate, and Narrowgate, still speak of the
+    days of siege and sortie, of fierce attack and stout defence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The magnificent castle which dominates the town stands majestically at
+    the top of a green slope above the Aln, its vast array of walls and
+    towers far along the ridge, fronting the North as though still looking,
+    albeit with a seemingly languid interest, for the coming of the Scots
+    who were such inveterate foes of its successive lords. The principal
+    entrance, however, the Barbican, faces southwards to the town, and here
+    the massive gateway, with portcullis complete, and crowned by quaint
+    life-size figures of warriors in various attitudes of defence, conveys
+    the impression that the huge giant is still alert and on guard. The
+    history of Alnwick is the history of the castle and its lords, from the
+    days of Gilbert Tyson, variously known as Tison, Tisson, and De Tesson,
+    one of the Conqueror&rsquo;s standardbearers, upon whom this northern estate
+    was bestowed, until the present time. After being held by the family of
+    De Vesci (of which the modern rendering is Vasey&mdash;a name found all over
+    south-east Northumberland) for over two hundred years, it passed into
+    the hands of the house of Percy. The Percies, who hailed from the
+    village of Perce in Normandy, had large estates in Yorkshire, bestowed
+    by the Conqueror on the first of the name to arrive in England in his
+    train. The family, however, was represented by an heiress only in the
+    reign of Henry II., whose second wife, a daughter of the Duke of
+    Brabant, thought this heiress, with her wide possessions, a suitable
+    match for her own young half-brother Joceline of Louvain. The marriage
+    took place; and thereafter followed the long line of Henry Percies
+    (Henry being a favourite name of the Counts of Louvain) who played such
+    a large part in the history of both England and Scotland; for, as nearly
+    every Percy was a Warden of the Marches, Scottish doings concerned them
+    more or less intimately&mdash;indeed, often more so than English affairs.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was the third Henry Percy who purchased Alnwick in 1309 from Antony
+    Bec, Bishop of Durham and guardian of the last De Vesci, and from that
+    time the fortunes of the Percies, though they still held their Yorkshire
+    estates, were linked permanently with the little town on the Aln, and
+    the fortress which alike commanded and defended it. The fourth Henry
+    Percy began to build the castle as we see it now; but to call him &ldquo;the
+    fourth&rdquo; is a little confusing, as he was the second Henry Percy, Lord of
+    Alnwick. On the whole, it will be clearer to begin the enumerations of
+    the various Henry Percies from the time they became Lords of Alnwick. It
+    was, then, Henry Percy the second, Lord of Alnwick, who began the
+    re-building of the castle; he also was jointly responsible for the
+    safety of the realm during the absence of Edward III. in the French
+    wars, and in this official capacity, no less than in that of a Border
+    baron whose delight it was to exchange lusty blows with an ever-ready
+    foe, he helped to win the battle of Neville&rsquo;s Cross. His son, Henry,
+    married a sister of John of Gaunt, and their son, the next Henry Percy,
+    was that friend who stood John Wycliffe in such good stead, when he was
+    cited to appear before the Bishop of London. Henry Percy, who had been
+    made Earl Marshal of England, and the Duke of Lancaster took their
+    places one on each side of Wycliffe, and accompanied him to St. Paul&rsquo;s,
+    clearing a way for him through the crowd. It does not belong to this
+    story to tell how their private quarrels with the Bishop prevented
+    Wycliffe&rsquo;s interrogation, and how he left the Cathedral without having
+    uttered a word; we are concerned at the moment with his North-country
+    friend, who, the same year, was created Earl of Northumberland, which
+    title he was given after the coronation of Richard II. Nor was this all,
+    for he was that Northumberland whose doings in the next reign fill so
+    large a part of Shakespeare&rsquo;s Henry IV., and he was the father of the
+    most famous Percy of all, the gallant Henry Percy the fifth, better
+    known as &ldquo;Harry Hotspur.&rdquo; Hotspur never became Earl of Northumberland,
+    being slain at Shrewsbury in the lifetime of his father, whose estates
+    were forfeited under attainder on account of the rebellion of himself
+    and his son against King Henry IV.
+</p>
+<p>
+    King Henry V. restored Hotspur&rsquo;s son, the second Earl, to his family
+    honours, and the Percies were staunch Lancastrians during the Wars of
+    the Roses which followed, the third Earl and three of his brothers
+    losing their lives in the cause. The fifth Earl was a gorgeous person
+    whose magnificence equalled, almost, that of royalty. Henry Percy, the
+    sixth Earl of Northumberland, loved Ann Boleyn, and was her accepted
+    suitor before King Henry VIII. unfortunately discovered the lady&rsquo;s
+    charm, and interfered in a highhanded &ldquo;bluff King Has&rdquo; fashion, and
+    young Percy lost his prospective bride. He had no son, although married
+    later to the daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and his nephew, Thomas
+    Percy, became the seventh Earl.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thereafter, a succession of plots and counterplots&mdash;the Rising of the
+    North, the plots to liberate Mary Queen of Scots, and the Gunpowder
+    Plot&mdash;each claimed a Percy among their adherents. On this account the
+    eighth and ninth Earls spent many years in the Tower, but the tenth
+    Earl, Algernon, fought for King Charles in the Civil War, the male line
+    of the Percy-Louvain house ending with Josceline, the eleventh Earl. The
+    heiress to the vast Percy estates married the Duke of Somerset; and her
+    grand-daughter married a Yorkshire knight, Sir Hugh Smithson, who in
+    1766 was created the first Duke of Northumberland and Earl Percy, and it
+    is their descendants who now represent the famous old house.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At various points in the town are memorials of the constant wars between
+    Percies and Scots in which so many Percies spent the greater part of
+    their lives. At the side of the broad shady road called Rotten Row,
+    leading from the West Lodge to Bailiffgate, a tablet of stone marks the
+    spot where William the Lion of Scotland was captured as we have already
+    seen, in 1174, by Odinel de Umfraville and his friends; and there are
+    many others of similar interest.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Within the park, approached by the gate at the foot of Canongate, is the
+    fine gateway which is all that is left of Alnwick Abbey. No more
+    peaceful spot could have been found than this, on the level greensward,
+    surrounded by fine trees which shelter it on all sides save one, and
+    near the brink of the little Aln, whose banks are thickly covered with
+    wild flowers, while the steep slope on the opposite side of the river is
+    overhung with shady woods. The extent of the parks may be judged from
+    the fact that the enclosing wall is about five miles long. At the foot
+    of Bailiffgate, on the edge of a steep ridge above the descent to
+    Canongate and the banks of the river, the ancient parish church,
+    dedicated to St. Mary and St. Michael stands in a commanding position.
+    The present building dates from the fourteenth century, and occupies the
+    site of an earlier one, whose few remaining stones have been built into
+    the present structure. Two other reminders of long-past days are to be
+    found in Alnwick; one is the large stone in the Market Place to which
+    the bull ring used to be fixed in the days when bull-baiting and
+    bear-baiting took place; and the other, a relic of days still further
+    back in the distant years, is the sounding of the Curfew Bell, which is
+    still rung here every evening at eight o&rsquo;clock. Altogether there is the
+    quaintest and most unexpected mingling of the ancient and modern in the
+    little feudal town.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Between Alnwick and the sea, the Aln winds its way past Alnmouth
+    Station, formerly known as Bilton Junction, and past Lesbury, a pretty
+    little tree-shaded village, to the sandy flats by Alnmouth where it ends
+    its journey in the North Sea.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Till, by whose side we shall next wander, flows in the opposite
+    direction, for that historic stream is a tributary of &ldquo;Tweed&rsquo;s fair
+    river, broad and deep,&rdquo; and curves from the Cheviots round to the
+    North-west, where it enters the larger stream at Tillmouth. It begins
+    life as the Breamish, tumbling down the slopes of Cushat Law within
+    sight of all the giants of the Cheviot range. The Linhope Burn, a fellow
+    traveller down these steep hillsides, forms in its course the Linhope
+    Spout, one of the largest waterfalls to be found amongst the Cheviots,
+    before it joins the Breamish, which then flows through a country of
+    green slopes and grassy levels to Ingram. This village possesses an old
+    church with massive square tower and windows which suggest the fortress
+    rather than the church. The heights which stretch eastward from the
+    Cheviots and bound the valley of the Till add not a little to the beauty
+    and variety of the scenery in this district.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The little stream, which turns northward near Glanton railway station,
+    moves on in loops and windings past Beanley, which Earl Gospatric held
+    in former days by virtue of the curious office of being a kind of
+    official mediator between the monarchs of England and Scotland when they
+    came to blows; and past Bewick, with its little Norman church buried
+    from sight amongst leafy trees. The effigy of a lady in the chancel of
+    this church is said to be that of Matilda, wife of Henry I. This is the
+    more likely in that the lands of Bewick formed part of her dowry, and
+    were given by her to the monks of Tynemouth Priory. At Bewick Bridge the
+    little stream ceases to be the Breamish, and becomes the Till; as an old
+    rhyme has it&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;The foot of Breamish, and head of Till,
+  Meet together at Bewick Mils&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Some miles to the northward, the Till reaches the little village of
+    Chatton, having, on the way, passed a little to the westward of
+    Chillingham Castle and Park, where is the famous herd of wild cattle.
+    Roscastle, a craggy height covered with heather, stands at the edge of
+    the chase, and looks over a wild and romantic scene of moorland and
+    pastureland, deep glens and heathery hills. The Vicarage at Chatton is
+    another of those north-country vicarages in which an old pele-tower
+    forms part of the modern residence. On the top of Chatton Law is an
+    ancient British encampment, with inscribed circles similar to those on
+    Bewick Hill.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From Chatton, the loops and windings of the Till grow more insistent,
+    and the little stream adds miles to its length by reason of its
+    frequent doubling on its tracks; this, however, but gives an added charm
+    to the landscape, as the silvery gleams of the winding river come
+    unexpectedly into view again and again. It flows on through Glendale,
+    with which attractive region we have already made acquaintance; and on
+    its banks are the two prettiest villages in Northumberland&mdash;Ford and
+    Etal.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Ford Castle, as seen at the present day, is chiefly modern, but the
+    northwest tower is part of the old fortress of Odenel de Forde, which
+    experienced so many vicissitudes in its time. One of the most famous
+    owners of Ford Castle was Sir William Heron, who married Odenel&rsquo;s
+    daughter, and who held the responsible and troublesome office of High
+    Sheriff of Northumberland for eleven years, besides being Captain of
+    Bamburgh and Warden of the northern forests. The castle was burnt down
+    by James IV. of Scotland just before the battle of Flodden, which was
+    not by any means the only time in its career that it was demolished,
+    entirely or in part, and restored again.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the village of Ford, the walls of the schoolroom are decorated by a
+    series of pictures of the children of Scripture story, for whose
+    portrayal it is said the Marchioness of Waterford, the artist, took the
+    village children as models. The late Vicar of Ford, the Rev. Hastings
+    Neville, has laid all who are interested in the rural life of
+    Northumberland, and the quaint and traditional manners and customs of
+    the North-country which are so fast disappearing, under the greatest
+    obligation to him for his interesting and entirely delightful little
+    book, &ldquo;A Corner in the North.&rdquo; Historical records, and matters of
+    business, ownerships, etc., connected with any special area can always
+    be turned up for reference when required; but the manner of speech, the
+    customs of daily life, the quaint survivals of former usages and
+    half-forgotten lore, being entirely dependent on individual memory and
+    oral tradition, only too often disappear before any adequate record can
+    be made. Hence it is a matter for congratulation that such a book should
+    have been written.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Etal, Ford&rsquo;s pretty neighbour, also boasts a castle, built only two
+    years after that of Ford and by the same masons. A considerable portion
+    of the ruins remains, but, unlike Ford Castle, it was never restored
+    after James the Fourth&rsquo;s drastic handling of it, but was left to decay.
+    Opposite Ford and Etal, on the left bank of the Till, is Pallinsburn
+    House, referred to in another chapter, and the village of Crookham; and
+    beyond the woods of Pallinsburn, Flodden ridge, with its memories of the
+    disastrous field on which James was slain.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The mansion house of Tillmouth Park, owned by Sir Francis Blake, is
+    built of stones from the ruins of Twizell Castle, on the northern bank
+    of the Till; the castle was begun by a former Sir Francis Blake but
+    never finished. Between the two buildings the Berwick Road crosses the
+    Till by Twizell Bridge, over which Surrey marched his men southward on
+    the morning of Flodden. Not far from this bridge, to the westward, is
+    St. Helen&rsquo;s Well, alluded to by Scott in his account of the battle, in
+    &ldquo;Marmion&rdquo;&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Many a chief of birth and rank,
+  St. Helen, at thy fountain drank.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Sibyl&rsquo;s well, from which Lady Clare brought water to moisten the lips of
+    the dying Marmion, is beside the little church at Branxton. Tillmouth,
+    however, has older memories still; for it was to the little chapel there
+    that St. Cuthbert&rsquo;s body floated in its stone coffin from Melrose,
+    dating the course of its seven years&rsquo; wandering, ere it found a final
+    rest at Durham.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;From sea to sea, from shore to shore,
+  Seven years Saint Cuthbert&rsquo;s corpse they bore
+  They rested them in fair Melrose,
+  But though alive he loved it well
+  Not there his relics might repose,
+      For, wondrous tale to tell,
+  In his stone coffin forth he glides,
+  A ponderous bark for river tides,
+  Yet light as gossamer it glides
+      Downward to Tillmouth cell.
+</pre>
+
+<hr />
+
+<pre>
+  Chester-le-Street and Ripon saw
+  His holy corpse, ere Wardilaw
+      Hailed it with joy and fear;
+  Till, after many wanderings past,
+  He chose his lordly seat at last
+  Where his cathedral, huge and vast,
+      Looks down upon the Wear.&rdquo;
+
+  <i>Sir W. Scott</i>&mdash;MARMION.
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The &ldquo;stone coffin&rdquo; was boat-shaped, &ldquo;ten feet long, three feet and a
+    half in diameter, and only four inches thick, so that, with very little
+    assistance, it might certainly have swum; it still lies, or at least did
+    so a few years ago, in two pieces, beside the ruined chapel at
+    Tilmouth.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Sir W. Scott&rsquo;s Notes to &ldquo;Marmion.&rdquo;</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+    Three or four miles from Tillmouth, south-westward up the valley of the
+    Tweed, and just beyond Cornhill, lies the village of Wark, near which
+    the remains of the famous Border castle are still standing. The castle
+    was built on a stony ridge of detritus called the <i>Kaim</i>, which
+    stretches from Wark village towards Carham. In the reign of Henry I. all
+    those who owned land in the North were seemingly animated simultaneously
+    by a lively desire to secure their Borders; Bishop Flambard began to
+    build Norham Castle, Eustace Fitz-John, husband of Beatrice de Vesci,
+    built the greater part of Alnwick Castle, and Walter Espic raised the
+    mighty fortress, the great &ldquo;Wark&rdquo; or work (A.S. <i>were</i> or <i>weare</i>) on
+    the steep ridge above Tweed, in &ldquo;his honour (seignieury) of Carham.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    From that time the castle of Wark went through a greater succession of
+    sieges, assaults, burnings, surrenders, demolitions, and restorations
+    than any other place in England, except, perhaps, Norham Castle or
+    Berwick-upon-Tweed. In an age and situation where hard blows given and
+    returned, desperate adventures and equal chances of life or death were
+    the common-places of everyday existence, Wark was probably the place
+    where these excitements were to be had oftener than anywhere else.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The romantic episode which gave rise to the establishment of the Order
+    of the Garter is generally allowed to have taken place at Wark Castle.
+    The young king of Scotland, David Bruce, had &ldquo;ridden a raid&rdquo; into
+    England, and ravaged and plundered on his way as far as Auckland, after
+    having burnt the town of Alnwick, amongst others, but having been
+    repulsed before the castle. King Edward III. was at Stamford when he
+    heard of the invasion; but hurrying northward he reached Newcastle in
+    four days. The Scots, retreating before him, passed Wark Castle, which
+    was held by the Countess of Salisbury and her nephew, in the absence of
+    her husband. The young man was loth to let so much English booty be
+    carried off under his very eyes, so he fell upon the rearguard, and
+    succeeded in bringing a number of packhorses to the castle. On this the
+    whole Scottish array turned back, and a siege of the castle began; but
+    the Countess spiritedly held out, and Edward meanwhile drew nearer. Some
+    of the Scotsmen were captured, and from them the Countess&rsquo;s nephew
+    heard that Edward had reached Alnwick. He stole out of the castle before
+    dawning in heavy rain, to let the King know where his help was urgently
+    needed; and by noon of the same day Edward was at Wark, only to find his
+    quarry flown, the Scots having retreated a few hours earlier. The King
+    was joyfully received and thanked by the grateful Countess; and he in
+    his turn was much struck by the beauty and grace of the high-spirited
+    lady, and showed his admiration plainly. In the evening, according to
+    tradition, a ball was held, at which the incident occurred, so often
+    related, of the accidental losing of her garter by the fair chatelaine,
+    and the restoration of it by the King, with the remark, as a rebuke to
+    the smiling bystanders,&mdash;&ldquo;<i>Honi soit qui mal y pense.</i>&rdquo; This he
+    afterwards adopted as the motto of the Order he established in honour of
+    the beautiful Countess.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Garter is the most exclusive of Orders, and consists of the reigning
+    Sovereign and twenty-five Companions, of whom the Prince of Wales is
+    always one; and it takes precedence of all other titles, ranking next to
+    royalty. It is a matter of great pride to all Northumbrians that perhaps
+    the only instance of its having been bestowed on any except a peer of
+    the realm or a foreign Sovereign, has occurred recently in the bestowal
+    of the coveted decoration on Sir Edward Grey, a member of the ancient
+    and important Northumbrian house of that name.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Every King of England from Henry I. to Henry IV., seems to have been at
+    Wark at some time during his reign, with the exception of Richard
+    Coeur-de-Lion and Richard II. After the Union of the Crowns, Wark, like
+    most other fortresses in the north that were not in use as the dwellings
+    of their owners, was allowed to fall into decay. From Wark to Carham is
+    a walk of only two miles along the road which follows the course of the
+    river, and ultimately leads to Kelso. Carham has the remains of an
+    ancient monastery; and here the Danes, after having plundered
+    Lindisfarne, fought a battle in which the Saxons, led by several
+    Bishops, were defeated with great slaughter. From Carham, having reached
+    the last point of interest on the Tweed within the Northumbrian border,
+    we must retrace our steps to Tillmouth, and follow the Tweed through
+    pasture land and level haughs, until we come in sight of the steep
+    cliffs and overhanging woods by Norham Castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Naturally here, the words of the opening canto of &ldquo;Marmion&rdquo; are recalled
+    to our memory&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Day set on Norham&rsquo;s castled steep,
+  On Tweed&rsquo;s fair river, broad and deep,
+  And Cheviot&rsquo;s mountains lone
+  The battled towers, the donjon keep,
+  The loophole grates, where captives weep,
+  The flanking walls that round it sweep,
+      In yellow lustre shone.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The &ldquo;castled steep&rdquo; is still crowned by a massive fragment of the old
+    fortress that has braved, in its time, so many days of storm and stress.
+    A good deal of the curtain wall, too, is standing, and the natural
+    defences of the castle are admirable, for a deep ravine on the east and
+    the river with its steep banks on the south made it practically
+    unassailable at these points. It was built in 1121, as we have seen, by
+    Bishop Flambard of Durham, as a defence for the northern portions of his
+    diocese. The necessity for its presence there was soon made apparent,
+    for it was attacked by the Scots again and again; and by the time thirty
+    years had passed. Bishop Pudsey found it necessary to strengthen it
+    greatly. When Edward I. was called to arbitrate between the claimants
+    to the Scottish throne, he came to Norham and met the rival nobles, who,
+    with their followers, were quartered at Ladykirk, on the opposite side
+    of the Tweed. It was known as Upsettlington then, however; the name of
+    Ladykirk was bestowed upon it long afterwards, when James IV. built the
+    little chapel there, in gratitude for an escape from drowning in the
+    Tweed. Edward held his interview with the Scottish nobles in Norham
+    church, and announced that he had come there in the character of lord
+    paramount, and as such was prepared to make choice of one among them.
+    Edward did not by any means make up his mind quickly, and the various
+    places in which the successive acts in the affair took place are widely
+    scattered, for he met the nobles at Norham, some time afterwards
+    delivered his decision at Berwick, and finally received the homage of
+    John Balliol at Newcastle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Norham, like Wark, has also its romantic episode&mdash;or rather, an episode
+    more conspicuously so in a series of them to which the name might with
+    justice be applied. It occurred during the time that Sir Thomas Gray was
+    holding the castle against a determined blockade of it by the Scots in
+    1318. A certain fair lady of Lincolnshire sent one of her maidens to a
+    knight whom she loved, Sir William Marmion (whose name probably
+    suggested to Sir Walter Scott the name for the hero of his tale of
+    Norham and Flodden). Sir William was at a banquet when the maiden came
+    before him bearing a helmet with a golden crest, together with a letter
+    from his lady bidding him go &ldquo;into the daungerust place in England, and
+    there to let the heaulme be seene and knowen as famose.&rdquo; Evidently it
+    was well known where &ldquo;the daungerust place in England&rdquo; was to be found,
+    for the story laconically says &ldquo;So he went to Norham.&rdquo; He had not been
+    there more than a day or two when a band of nearly two hundred Scots,
+    bold and expert horsemen, led by Philip de Mowbray, made an attack on
+    the castle, rousing Sir Thomas and his garrison from their dinner. They
+    quickly mounted, and were about to sally forth when Sir Thomas caught
+    sight of Marmion, in rich armour, and on his head the helmet with the
+    golden crest; and halting his men, he cried out, &ldquo;Sir knight, ye be come
+    hither as a knight-errant to fame your helm; and since deeds of chivalry
+    should rather be done on horseback than on foot, mount up on your horse,
+    and spur him like a valiant knight into the midst of your enemies here
+    at hand, and I forsake God if I rescue not thy body dead or alive, or I
+    myself will die for it.&rdquo; At this Marmion mounted and spurred towards the
+    Scots, by whom he was instantly set upon, wounded, and dragged from the
+    saddle. But before they had time to give him the final blow they were
+    scattered by the rapid charge of Sir Thomas and his men, who quickly
+    rescued Marmion and set him on his horse again; and using their lances
+    against the horses of the Scots, caused many of them to throw their
+    riders, while the rest galloped away. The women of the castle caught
+    fifty of the riderless horses, on which more of the garrison mounted and
+    joined in the pursuit of the flying Scots, whom they chased nearly to
+    Berwick.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The tables were sometimes turned, however; and on one of these occasions
+    the valiant Sir Thomas Gray and his son were enticed out of the castle
+    into an ambush laid for them by their foes, and both captured.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1513, just before the battle of Flodden, its walls were at length
+    laid low by James IV., but not until the famous cannon &ldquo;Mons
+    Meg&rdquo;&mdash;still, I believe, to be seen at Edinburgh Castle&mdash;had been brought
+    against it. One of the cannon-balls fired from &ldquo;Mons Meg&rdquo; was found,
+    and is still kept with others at the Castle. It is said that the Scots
+    were told of the weakest spot in the fortifications by a treacherous
+    inmate of the castle, who doubtless expected a rich reward for his
+    information. Indeed, the ballad of &ldquo;Flodden&rdquo; says he came for it; but
+    the valiant and chivalrous king would give him no reward but that which
+    he said every traitor deserved&mdash;a rope.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Afterwards the castle was restored once more, but its more stirring days
+    were over; and, to-day, it stands a shattered but dignified ruin,
+    overlooking the tranquil river and peaceful woodlands which once echoed
+    so continuously to the clash of arms and the shouts of besiegers and
+    besieged.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The village of Norham was in Saxon days known as Ubbanford&mdash;the Upper
+    Ford of two that were available in those days on the Tweed. There was a
+    church here, too, in Saxon times, for Bishop Ecfrid built one about the
+    year 830, and in it was buried the Saxon king Ceolwulf who became a
+    monk: the present church has a good deal remaining of the one built on
+    the same site by Bishop Flambard, about the same time as the castle.
+    Earl Gospatric, whom William the Conqueror made Earl of Northumberland
+    in return for a considerable sum of money&mdash;doubtless thinking that to
+    give a Northumbrian the Earldom would reconcile the North to his
+    rule&mdash;is buried in the church porch. Gospatric joined in the resistance
+    of the North to William, but returned to his allegiance later. The
+    Market Cross of Norham stands on the original base.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From Norham to Tweedmouth the river sweeps forward between picturesque
+    ever-widening banks, and often hidden by a leafy screen, past the
+    village of Horncliffe, beneath the Union Suspension Bridge, one of the
+    first erected of its kind, until at length its bright waters lave the
+    historic walls of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and in the quiet harbour there
+    meet the inrushing tide from the North Sea.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br/>DRUM AND TRUMPET.</h2>
+
+<p>
+    &ldquo;The history of Northumberland is essentially a drum and trumpet
+    history, from the time when the <i>buccina</i> of the Batavian cohort first
+    rang out over the moors of Procolitia down to the proclamation of James
+    III. at Warkworth Cross&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Cadwallader J Bates</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This sentence of the historian of Northumberland sums up the story of
+    our northern county no less admirably than tersely, and it would be
+    difficult to find one which should more clearly bring before us the
+    whole atmosphere of north-country history and north-country doings for
+    many centuries.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Within the limits of this chapter it is impossible to go into the
+    details of every &ldquo;foughten field&rdquo; within the county; the most that can
+    be done is to indicate the many and treat in detail only the few. A
+    goodly number have already been alluded to in connection with the place
+    where each occurred.
+</p>
+<p>
+    After the Roman campaigns, from those of Agricola to those of Theodosius
+    the elder and Maximus, and the legion sent by Stilicho, the earliest
+    battle story is that of the one in Glendale fought by King Arthur. Then
+    the forming of the kingdom of Bernicia with the advent of Ida at
+    Bamburgh was the beginning of a long-protracted struggle between the
+    various little states, each fighting for its life, and surrounded by
+    others equally determined to take every advantage that offered against
+    it. The sons of Ida fought against the celebrated Urien, a Keltic
+    chief, who almost succeeded in dispossessing them of their kingdom of
+    Bernicia. Hussa, one of Ida&rsquo;s sons, ultimately vanquished Urien&rsquo;s son
+    Owen, &ldquo;chief of the glittering West&rdquo;; and after Hussa&rsquo;s death Ethelric
+    of Bernicia, as we have seen, overcame the neighbouring chieftain of
+    Deira, thus forming the kingdom of Northumbria. His successor,
+    Ethelfrith, in the year 603 gained a great victory over a large force of
+    northern Britons under a leader named Aedan at a place called
+    Daegsanstan, which is thought to be Dissington, near Newcastle. His
+    further victories were gained outside the limits of our present survey.
+</p>
+<p>
+    After the long and glorious reign of Edwin, his successor, Ethelfrith&rsquo;s
+    sons came back to Bamburgh; the eldest, Eanfrid, was slain within a
+    year, and his brother Oswald carried on the struggle against Penda of
+    Mercia. We have seen how he fought against Penda and Cadwallon on the
+    Heavenfield near Chollerford, and gained a victory which obtained for
+    him many years of peace. Penda was finally slain by Oswald&rsquo;s successor
+    Oswy in a great battle which is supposed to have taken place on the
+    banks of the Tweed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Many years afterwards, Sitric, grandson of that Prince Guthred who was
+    once a slave at Whittingham, married a sister of King Athelstan,
+    grandson of Alfred the Great. When Sitric died, Athelstan came northward
+    to claim Northumbria for himself. He captured Bamburgh&mdash;the first time
+    that stronghold of the Bernician kings had ever been taken&mdash;and arranged
+    for two earls to govern Northumbria for him. They attempted
+    unsuccessfully to oppose a force of Scots under Anlaf the Red, who was
+    joined by two earls of Bretland (Cumbria); and the whole force encamped
+    near a place called Weondune, supposed to be Wandon near Chatton.
+    Athelstan advanced against them and challenged them to a pitched battle
+    on this ground. They agreed, and with much deliberation the course was
+    staked out with hazel wands between a wood and a river (Chillingham
+    woods and the Till). The Scots greatly outnumbered Athelstan&rsquo;s men, who
+    set up their tents at the narrowest part of the plain, giving their king
+    time to reach a little &ldquo;burg&rdquo; (Old Bewick) in the neighbourhood. A
+    running fight followed, which was carried on the next day, and with the
+    help of two brothers, Egil and Thorold, who were Norsemen, it ended in a
+    complete victory for Athelstan. While in the north, King Athelstan gave
+    the well-known rhyming charter to a certain Paulan of Roddam;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;I kyng Adelstan
+  giffs hier to Paulan
+  Oddam and Roddam
+  als gud and als fair
+  als evyr thai myne war,
+  and thar to wytness
+  Mald my Wiffe.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Shortly after this, at the Battle of Brunanburh, Athelstan vanquished
+    Anlaf Sitricsson and Constantine, king of the Scots. The site of this
+    battle would seem to have been in Northumbria, as it was into the Humber
+    that Anlaf and Constantine sailed with their large fleet; but the
+    precise spot has never been determined.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the reign of Knut the Dane, the Scots obtained the whole of Lothian
+    from the Saxon earl of Northumberland, and the vast possessions of St.
+    Cuthbert beyond the Tweed seemed about to be lost to the church of
+    Durham. Accordingly, the clergy called upon all the people of St.
+    Cuthbert from the Tees to the Tweed&mdash;all those, that is, who dwelt on
+    lands granted by various donors to the church of St. Cuthbert&mdash;to rise
+    and march northward to fight for their lands. This great company set
+    out, in the autumn of 1018, and reached Carham on the Tweed, where they
+    were met by Malcolm king of the Scots. A comet had been seen in the sky
+    for some weeks and the fears inspired by this dread visitant seem to
+    have had more effect upon the Northumbrians than upon the Scots. From
+    whatever cause it arose, when the two forces joined in battle a panic
+    spread among the followers of St. Cuthbert. They were utterly routed,
+    and most of the leading Northumbrians as well as eighteen priests were
+    slain&mdash;thus curiously repeating the experience of the earlier battle of
+    Carham.
+</p>
+<p>
+    For the next three hundred years Northumberland was swept by successive
+    waves of raid and reprisal, in the course of which occurred the two
+    well-known events, the attack of William the Lion of Scotland on Alnwick
+    Castle, and the more famous affair still, the struggle between Percy and
+    Douglas known as the battle of Otterburn, which was fought in &ldquo;Chevy Chase&rdquo;
+    (Cheviot Forest). More important poetically than politically, it stands out
+    more vividly in the records of the time than many other conflicts of larger
+    import. The personal element in the fight, the deeds of gallantry recorded,
+    the sounding roll of the chief knights&rsquo; names, and the high renown of the
+    two leaders, throw a glamour around this particular contest which is kept
+    alive by the ballads that chant the praises of Percy or Douglas according
+    as the singer was Scot or Saxon. Sir Philip Sidney, that &ldquo;verray parfit
+    gentil knight&rdquo; and discriminating <i>litterateur</i>, said &ldquo;I never heard
+    the old song of Percie and Douglas that I found not my hart mooved more
+    than with a trumpet: and yet it is sung but by some blynd Crowder,<a
+    href="#fn-11" name="fnref-11" id="fnref-11"><sup>[11]</sup></a> with no
+    rougher voyce than rude stile! which beeing so evill apparelled in the dust
+    and cobweb of that uncivill age, what wolde it work trimmed in the gorgeous
+    eloquence of Pindare!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-11" id="fn-11"></a> <a href="#fnref-11">[11]</a>
+Crowder = fiddler.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+    In the endless warfare of the Borders the second of two short-lived
+    periods of truce had just expired, and an organised raid on a large
+    scale was arranged by the Scots. The main body was to ravage Cumberland;
+    and a smaller, but picked force led by Earls Douglas, Moray, and March
+    came southward by way of Northumberland. But Northumbrian towers and
+    towns knew nothing of their passing; they marched rapidly and by stealth
+    into Durham, having crossed the Tyne between Corbridge and Bywell, and
+    began to harry and lay waste the greener pastures and richer villages of
+    the southern county, the smoke of whose burning homesteads was the first
+    intimation to the unlucky English of the fact that a Scottish host was
+    in their midst.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Earl of Northumberland remained at Alnwick in the hope that he might
+    be able to attack the Scots on their homeward journey; but he despatched
+    his sons Henry Hotspur and Ralph in all haste to defend Newcastle. The
+    Scots in due time appeared before the walls.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  And he marched up to Newcastel
+  And rode it round about;
+  &ldquo;O wha&rsquo;s the lord o&rsquo; this castel?
+  Or wha&rsquo;s the lady o&rsquo;t?&rdquo;
+
+  But up spake proud Lord Percy then,
+  And O but he spake hie!
+  &ldquo;I am the lord o&rsquo; this castel,
+  My wife&rsquo;s the lady gay.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Douglas challenged Percy to meet him in single combat, and Percy
+    promptly accepted. In the duel Percy was unhorsed, and Douglas captured
+    his pennon and his gauntlet gloves, embroidered with the Percy lion in
+    pearls. This trophy Douglas vowed he would carry off to Scotland with
+    him, and set it in the topmost tower of his castle of Dalkeith, that it
+    might be seen from afar. &ldquo;By heaven! that you never shall,&rdquo; replied
+    Percy; &ldquo;you shall not carry it out of Northumberland.&rdquo; &ldquo;Come and take
+    it, then,&rdquo; was Douglas&rsquo; answer; and Hotspur would have attempted its
+    recovery there and then, but he was restrained by his knights. Douglas,
+    however, said he would give Percy a chance to recover it, and agreed to
+    await him at Otterburn.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Yet I will stay at Otterbourne,
+  Where you shall welcome be;
+  And if ye come not at three dayis end,
+  A fause lord I&rsquo;ll call thee&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Next day the Scots left Newcastle and marched northward. They took Sir
+    Aymer de Athol&rsquo;s castle of Ponte-land, and the good knight Sir Aymer
+    himself, and went on their way, harrying and burning as they went. At
+    Otterburn they halted, and rested all night, making huts for themselves
+    of boughs and branches. The spot they had chosen was a strong one, on
+    the site of a former British camp; and not only was it surrounded by
+    trees, but was near marshy ground as well. Next day they attempted to
+    take Otterburn tower, but without success.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Meanwhile word was brought to Hotspur that the Scots would spend the
+    night at Otterburn; and he, without waiting for Walter de Skirlaw,
+    Bishop of Durham, who was expected that evening with a strong force, at
+    once set off with 600 spearmen, and a force on foot which is variously
+    given as anything from 800 to 8,000. They covered the thirty-odd miles
+    by the time evening fell: and as the Scots were at supper in their
+    little huts, they were startled by a tumult amongst their grooms and
+    camp-followers, and cries of &ldquo;a Percy! a Percy!&rdquo; and the Englishmen were
+    among them. The Scottish leaders had placed their camp-followers and
+    servants at the outermost; part of their encampment, facing the
+    Newcastle road; and Hotspur&rsquo;s force, ignorant of this, mistook it for
+    the main camp. While they were thus engaged, the Scottish knights were
+    enabled to make a detour around the scene of the first attack, and take
+    the English in the rear. With loud shouts of &ldquo;Douglas! Douglas!&rdquo; they
+    fell upon them, and a fierce hand-to-hand struggle began. The moon rose
+    clear and bright, and the quiet evening air was filled with the din of
+    battle, the ring of steel on steel, the crash of axe on armour, the
+    groans of the wounded, and the battle-cries of the combatants on each
+    side. Sir Ralph Percy, pressing too rashly forward, was captured by a
+    newly-made Scottish knight, Sir John Maxwell. The battle was turning in
+    favour of Hotspur, when Douglas sent his silken banner to the front and
+    with renewed shouts of &ldquo;Douglas!&rdquo; the Scots pressed forward and overbore
+    their foes. According to Froissart, there was not a man there, knight,
+    squire, or groom, who played the coward. &ldquo;This bataylle was one of the
+    sorest and best foughten without cowards or faynte hearts; for there was
+    neither knight nor I squire but that did his devoyre and foughte hande
+    to hande.&rdquo; Great deeds were done, and the fame of none amongst them is
+    greater than that of the gallant Widdrington;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;For Witherington my heart is woe,
+  That ever he slaine sholde be!
+  For when his legs were hewn in two
+  He knelt and fought on his knee&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Douglas rushed into the thickest of the fray, and Hotspur tried to find
+    him, but in the dim light that was difficult, especially as Douglas
+    had, in his haste, come to the fight without helmet or breastplate.
+    Presently he was borne to the ground by three English spears; and as he
+    lay guarded by his faithful chaplain, Sir John and Sir Walter Sinclair,
+    with Sir James Lindsay, came upon him. &ldquo;How fare you, cousin?&rdquo; asked Sir
+    John. &ldquo;But poorly, I thank God,&rdquo; answered Douglas; &ldquo;for few of my
+    ancestors died in bed or chamber. I count myself dead, for my heart
+    beats slow. Think now to avenge me. Raise my banner and shout &lsquo;Douglas!&rsquo;
+    and let neither my friends nor my foes know of my state, lest the one
+    rejoice and the other be discomforted.&rdquo; His dying commands were obeyed;
+    and while his battle-cry was raised anew, his dead body was laid by a
+    &ldquo;bracken bush,&rdquo; and the fact of his death concealed from friend and foe
+    alike. The furious onslaught of the Scots now carried all before them;
+    and Hotspur fell a captive to the sword of Sir Hugh Montgomery, a nephew
+    of Douglas, after a fierce hand-to-hand encounter. The two chief English
+    leaders being captured, the day, or rather the night, was with the
+    Scots, in fulfilment of an old prophesy that &ldquo;a dead Douglas should win
+    a field.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;This deed was done at Otterbourne
+  At the breaking of the day;
+  Earl Douglas was buried at the braken bush,
+  And the Percy led captive away.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    When the fray was over, the two sides treated their captives with
+    knightly courtesy, many being allowed to go to their homes until they
+    recovered from their wounds, on giving their word of honour to send the
+    amount of their ransom, or themselves return to their captors.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Bishop of Durham, immediately after having had some refreshment at
+    Newcastle, had set out to join the Percies; but as he and his men
+    neared Otterburn, they met so many fugitives who gave them anything but
+    reassuring accounts of the fortunes of their friends, that half of his
+    force melted away, and the Bishop had perforce to return to Newcastle;
+    it was scarcely to be expected, indeed, that everyone should have that
+    thirst for hard blows which distinguished the knights and their
+    immediate followers. The Bishop, however, made one capture&mdash;Sir James
+    Lindsay, who had ridden so far in pursuit of Sir Matthew Redman that he
+    found himself amongst the force advancing under the leadership of the
+    warlike prelate.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the Scots retired from their camp, they took the body of Douglas
+    from the &ldquo;bracken bush&rdquo; where it lay, and carried it away for burial in
+    Melrose Abbey; and Hotspur, as the price of his ransom, built a castle
+    for Sir Hugh Montgomery.
+</p>
+<p>
+    After this there was peace on the Borders for the next ten years or so,
+    when the game began again as merrily as ever. When Sir Thomas Gray was
+    absent from his castle of Wark-on-Tweed, attending Parliament, the Scots
+    came down upon it and carried off his children and servants. Sir Robert
+    Umfraville met and checked another company that were harrying
+    Coquetdale. In the year 1400, Henry Bolingbroke himself led an army to
+    Edinburgh; but a guerilla band of Scots, avoiding his line of march,
+    stole behind him and ravaged Bamburghshire.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Two years after this, a party of Scots under the next Douglas rode into
+    Northumberland, coming nearly as far south as Newcastle. Hotspur set off
+    from Bamburgh, of which castle he was Constable at the time, to
+    intercept them. He awaited them on the banks of the Glen, near Wooler;
+    and the archers of his force went out for forage meanwhile. When the
+    Scots arrived, they found themselves in the presence of an enemy whom
+    they had imagined to be behind them, and they immediately occupied
+    Homildon Hill. The archers, returning, saw the Scottish force on the
+    hill, and began the attack forthwith, letting fly their arrows upon the
+    foe with deadly precision. Flight after flight fell upon the Scots, who
+    were completely bewildered, and seemed incapable of action. A Scottish
+    knight, Sir John Swinton, implored the leaders to charge, passionately
+    exclaiming, &ldquo;What madness has seized you, my brave countrymen, that you
+    stand here like deer to be shot down? Follow me, those who will! We will
+    either gain the victory, or die like men of courage.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    On hearing these brave words, Adam de Gordon, Swinton&rsquo;s deadly foe, felt
+    his hatred turn to admiration, and kneeling before Swinton, begged that
+    he might receive the honour of knighthood from so valiant a hand. The
+    two gallant knights then charged the enemy, followed by a number of the
+    Scots; but the showers of arrows forced them to retreat towards the
+    river, and thither also moved the whole Scottish force, followed still
+    by that grim and deadly hail from the English bows. Hotspur would now
+    have charged, but the Earl of March, his former antagonist, now his
+    friend, restrained his impetuous leader, and persuaded him to let the
+    archers continue their effective work.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The event proved his wisdom; the Scots were utterly routed by the
+    archers alone. The unfortunate Archibald Douglas added another to his
+    long list of reverses; he was taken prisoner, sorely wounded, as was
+    also Sir Hugh Montgomery, and over four-score others of importance. It
+    was in connection with these prisoners, whom Hotspur refused to deliver
+    up to Bolingbroke, that the quarrel took place which eventually led
+    Northumberland and his son Hotspur openly to throw off their allegiance
+    to Henry Bolingbroke and join in the rebellion of Owen Glendower. Not
+    only did Hotspur refuse to give up Douglas and the others to King Henry,
+    but he wished Henry to ransom his brother-in-law Mortimer.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  <i>K. Henry</i>. But sirrah, henceforth
+  Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer.
+  Send me your prisoners with the speediest means,
+  Or you shall hear in such a kind from me
+  As will displease you.&mdash;My lord Northumberland,
+  We licence your departure with your son.&mdash;
+  Send us your prisoners, or you&rsquo;ll hear of it.
+</pre>
+<p>
+    (<i>Exeunt</i> K. Henry, Blunt, <i>and train</i>)
+</p>
+<pre>
+  <i>Hotspur</i>. And if the devil come and roar for them
+  I will not send them:&mdash;I will after, straight,
+  And tell him so.
+</pre>
+
+<hr />
+
+<pre>
+  <i>Worcester</i>. These same noble Scots
+  That are your prisoners&mdash;
+
+  <i>Hotspur</i>. I&rsquo;ll keep them all;
+  By heaven, he shall not have a Scot of them;
+  No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not;
+  I&rsquo;ll keep them, by this hand.
+
+  <i>Worcester</i>. You start away,
+  And lend no ear unto my purposes.
+  Those prisoners you shall keep.&mdash;
+
+  <i>Hotspur</i>. Nay, I will, that&rsquo;s flat:&mdash;
+  He said he would not ransom Mortimer;
+  Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer;
+  But I will find him when he lies asleep,
+  And in his ear I&rsquo;ll holla &ldquo;Mortimer!&rdquo;
+  Nay, I&rsquo;ll have a starling shall be taught to speak
+  Nothing but &ldquo;Mortimer,&rdquo; and give it him
+  To keep his anger still in motion.
+
+  <i>The First Part of</i> KING HENRY IV., <i>Act I., Scene 3</i>.
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The fight at Homildon Hill took place on a Monday in August, 1402, and
+    the memory of it is kept alive by the name of the &ldquo;Monday Clough&rdquo; near
+    Wooler, where the archers commenced the fight.
+</p>
+<p>
+    More than a hundred years after this, the last, and in many respects the
+    greatest, battle ever fought on Northumbrian soil took place at Flodden.
+    King James IV. of Scotland had several grievances against England, which
+    had rankled in his mind for some time; he had not yet received the full
+    amount of the dowry which had been promised with his wife, Margaret
+    Tudor, sister of Henry VIII., although they had been married for many
+    years; a Scottish noble, Sir Robert Ker, had been killed in
+    Northumberland, and the slayer could not be found to be brought to
+    justice&mdash;he was outlawed, but that seemed to King James very
+    insufficient; a Border raid on a large scale, led by Lord Hume, had met
+    with disastrous defeat on Milfield Plain at the hands of Sir William
+    Bulmer; and Andrew Barton, a notable sea-captain, whom James was looking
+    forward to seeing as one of the best leaders of his new navy, had been
+    killed in a sea-fight by Thomas Howard, Lord Admiral of England. Added
+    to all this, France had appealed to him to invade England in order to
+    force Henry VIII. to abandon his French war; the English monarch was
+    just then conducting the siege of Terouenne, and the Queen of France
+    sent a romantic appeal to James (together with a large sum of money)
+    begging him to march &ldquo;three feet on to English ground&rdquo; for her sake.
+</p>
+<p>
+    No time could have been more favourable in James&rsquo; eyes for the
+    enterprise; and in a very short space of time he had an army of 100,000
+    men collected, and marched from Edinburgh to the Tweed, which he crossed
+    near Coldstream. He laid siege to Norham, and captured it after a week&rsquo;s
+    investment; and thereafter Wark, Ford, Etal, Duddo and Chillingham fell
+    before him. He took up his quarters at Ford Castle, and on marching
+    later to meet Surrey, left it almost in ruins.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Surrey meantime had gathered a large force from the northern counties,
+    much to James&rsquo; surprise, for he had taken it for granted that nearly
+    every English fighting man would be with Henry in Flanders. There were
+    bowmen and billmen from Cheshire and Lancashire under the Stanley
+    banner; and James Stanley, Bishop of Ely, brought the banner of St.
+    Etheldreda, the Northumbrian queen who founded the monastery of Ely.
+    Admiral Sir Thomas Howard brought a band of sailors to join his father
+    at Alnwick. Dacre came with a strong contingent from the western
+    Marches, men from Alston Moor, Gilsland, and Eskdale, and also some from
+    Tynemouth and Bamburgh; and Sir Brian Tunstall with Sir William Bulmer
+    led the men of the Bishopric under the banner of St. Cuthbert.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From Alnwick Surrey sent a letter pledging himself to meet James by
+    September 9th, and challenging him to battle, a challenge which was
+    promptly accepted by the Scottish king. Marching from Alnwick towards
+    the Scottish army, Surrey encamped on September 6th on Wooler Haughs.
+    James had formed his camp on Flodden Hill, and all Surrey&rsquo;s devices
+    could not induce him abandon this strong position. Many of his own
+    nobles advised him not to risk a battle, but to withdraw while there was
+    yet time; and some were ready to leave the camp and return home, which
+    thousands of the more undisciplined in his army had done already, being
+    more anxious to carry off their plunder safely than to stay and fight.
+    But James was eager for the contest, and felt himself bound in honour to
+    give battle to Surrey; he answered haughtily those who counselled
+    retreat, and scornfully told Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, that he
+    might go home if he were afraid. The old man sorrowfully left the field,
+    but his two sons remained with their rash but gallant king, and were
+    both slain.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the day before the battle took place, Surrey, that &ldquo;auld crooked
+    carle,&rdquo; as James called him, marched his men northward across the Till
+    and encamped for the night near Barmoor Wood. To the Scots this looked
+    as though they had gone off towards Berwick, to repeat James&rsquo; own
+    manoeuvre, and invade the country in the absence of its king; and they
+    must have thought that there would be little chance of the battle for
+    which James had punctiliously waited taking place on the morrow. But
+    Surrey&rsquo;s purpose proved to be quite otherwise. On the following morning
+    he sent the vanguard of his army, with the artillery, to make a detour
+    of several miles round by Twizell bridge, where they re-crossed to the
+    south bank of the Till; and coming south-eastward towards Flodden, they
+    were joined by the rest of the army, which had plunged through the
+    stream, swollen by continuous rains, at two points near Crookham. The
+    two divisions met at Branxton, after having waded through a marsh which
+    extended from Branxton nearly to the Till, and which the Scots had
+    thought impassable.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Seeing that the English were about to occupy Branxton Hill, which would
+    entirely cut him off from communication with Scotland, James was forced
+    to abandon his advantageous position; he gave orders for the camp-refuse
+    to be fired, and under cover of the dense clouds of smoke marched down
+    to forestall Surrey and occupy Branxton ridge. The two armies suddenly
+    found themselves within a few spears&rsquo; length of each other, and the
+    battle was begun by the artillery on both sides.
+</p>
+<pre>
+      Sudden, as he spoke,
+  From the sharp ridges of the hill,
+  All downward to the banks of Till
+      Was wreathed in sable smoke.
+  Volumed, and vast, and rolling far,
+  The cloud enveloped Scotland&rsquo;s war
+      As down the hill they broke;
+  Nor martial shout, nor minstrel tone
+  Announced their march; their tread alone,
+  At times one warning trumpet blown,
+      At times a stifled hum.
+  Told England, from his mountain throne
+      King James did rushing come.
+  Scarce could they hear or see their foes
+  Until at weapon-point they close.
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Many of the raw levies on the English side fled at the first sound of
+    the Scottish cannon; but the master of the ordnance, Lord Sinclair, was
+    killed, and his guns silenced. Then the battle joined, and the first
+    result was that the English right wing under Sir Edmund Howard was
+    scattered and broken before the impetuous charge of the Gordons and
+    Highlanders under the Earl of Huntley and Lord Home. Sir Edmund narrowly
+    escaped with his life; but Lord Dacre bringing up his reserve of
+    horsemen at that moment checked the further advance of the Scots. The
+    two central divisions of the armies engaged each other fiercely, the
+    Earl of Surrey, with his son Sir Thomas Howard commanding the English
+    centre, and King James, with the Earls of Crawford and Montrose that of
+    the Scots. Sir Thomas, after having been so hard pressed as to send the
+    <i>Agnus Dei</i> he wore to his father as a signal for help, afterwards with
+    Sir Marmaduke Constable defeated the Earl of Crawford, whose division
+    was opposed to him. Dacre and Sir Thomas now charged Lord Home and
+    drove him some little way back, but could not dislodge his men entirely
+    from their position. The Earl of Bothwell, who commanded the Scottish
+    reserves, now came up to the help of the king, and the day seemed about
+    to be decided in favour of the Scots, when Lord Stanley, on the English
+    left, exactly reversed the fortunes of the right wing, and scattered and
+    routed the Highlanders led by the Earls of Lennox and Argyle. Then with
+    his Lancashire lads he attacked the rear of the Scottish position, as
+    did also Dacre and Sir Thomas Howard.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;They saw Lord Marmion&rsquo;s falcon fly,
+  And stainless Tunstall&rsquo;s banner white
+  And Edmund Howard&rsquo;s lion bright
+  All bear them bravely in the fight,
+    Although against them come
+  Of gallant Gordons many a one,
+  And many a stubborn Highlandman,
+  And many a rugged Border clan
+    With Huntly and with Home.
+  Far on the left, unseen the while,
+  Stanley broke Lennox and Argyle.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Nothing now remained for the Scottish centre, hemmed in on all sides,
+    but to make a stubborn last stand; and gallantly did they do it. The
+    flower of Scotland&rsquo;s chivalry surrounded their brave monarch, and in the
+    falling dusk fought desperately to guard their king.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;No thought was there of dastard flight;
+  Linked in that serried phalanx tight,
+  Groom fought like noble, squire like knight,
+    As fearlessly and well.
+  The stubborn spearmen still made good
+  Their dark impenetrable wood,
+  Each stepping where his comrade stood
+    The instant that he fell.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    As night fell, the fierce struggle continued until the darkness made it
+    impossible to see friend or foe, but the fate of Scotland&rsquo;s bravest was
+    sealed. The king lay dead, covered with wounds, and around him a heap of
+    slain; those who were able made their way in haste from the field, while
+    the English host encamped where it stood. The more lawless in each army
+    plundered both sides impartially, and when the king&rsquo;s body was found
+    next day, it too was stripped like many others around it.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Then did their loss his foemen know,
+  Their king, their lords, their mightiest low,
+  They melted from the field as snow
+    Dissolves in silent dew.
+  Tweed&rsquo;s echoes heard the ceaseless plash
+    While many a broken band,
+  Disordered, through its currents dash
+    To gain the Scottish land;
+  To town and tower, to down and dale,
+  To tell red Flodden&rsquo;s dismal tale,
+  And raise the universal wail.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The tragic effects of that terrible day were long felt in Scotland.
+    Every family of note in the land lost one or more of its members on the
+    fatal field, besides the thousands of humbler beings who fell at the
+    same time. Scotland did not recover from the crushing blow for more than
+    a hundred years; and for many a day the people could not believe that
+    their gallant king was really slain, but continued to hope that he had
+    escaped in the darkness, and would one day return.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There has recently been erected on Flodden Field a simple cross of stone
+    as a memorial of that tragic day. It was unveiled on September 27th,
+    1910, by Sir George Douglas, Bart. The inscription on the stone is &ldquo;To
+    the Brave of both Nations.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  THE FLOWERS OF THE FOREST.
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  A LAMENT FOR FLODDEN.
+
+  I&rsquo;ve heard the liltin&rsquo; at our ewe-milking,
+  Lasses a&rsquo; liltin&rsquo; before dawn o&rsquo; day;
+  But now they are moaning on ilka green loaning&mdash;
+  The Flowers of the Forest are a&rsquo; wede away.
+
+  At bughts,<a href="#fn-12" name="fnref-12" id="fnref-12"><sup>[12]</sup></a> in the mornin&rsquo;, nae blythe lads are scornin&rsquo;,
+  Lasses are lonely and dowie and wae;
+  Nae daffin&rsquo;, nae jabbin&rsquo;, but sighin&rsquo; and sabbin&rsquo;,
+  Ilk ane lifts her leglin<a href="#fn-13" name="fnref-13" id="fnref-13"><sup>[13]</sup></a> and hies her away.
+
+  In harst, at the shearing, nae youths now are jeering,
+  Bandsters are lyart,<a href="#fn-14" name="fnref-14" id="fnref-14"><sup>[14]</sup></a> and runkled, and gray;
+  At fair or at preaching, nae wooing, nae fleeching<a href="#fn-15" name="fnref-15" id="fnref-15"><sup>[15]</sup></a>
+  The Flowers of the Forest are a&rsquo; wede away.
+
+  At e&rsquo;en, in the gloaming, nae younkers are roaming
+  &rsquo;Bout stacks, with the lasses at &ldquo;bogle&rdquo; to play;
+  But ilk ane sits drearie, lamenting her dearie&mdash;
+  The Flowers of the Forest are weded away.
+
+  Dool and wae for the order sent our lads to the Border!
+  The English for ance by guile wan the day;
+  The Flowers of the Forest, that fought aye the foremost,
+  The prime of our land, are cauld in the clay.
+
+  We&rsquo;ll hear nae mair liltin&rsquo; at our ewe-milkin&rsquo;;
+  Women and bairns are heartless and wae;
+  Sighing and moaning on ilka green loaning&mdash;
+  The Flowers of the Forest are a&rsquo; wede away.
+</pre>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-12" id="fn-12"></a> <a href="#fnref-12">[12]</a>
+Bughts = sheep-pens.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-13" id="fn-13"></a> <a href="#fnref-13">[13]</a>
+Leglin = milk-pail.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-14" id="fn-14"></a> <a href="#fnref-14">[14]</a>
+Lyart = grizzled.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-15" id="fn-15"></a> <a href="#fnref-15">[15]</a>
+Fleeching = coaxing.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X.<br/>TALES AND LEGENDS.</h2>
+
+<p>
+    Northumberland, as might be guessed from its wild history, is rich in
+    tales of daring and stories of gallant deeds; there are true tales, as
+    well as legendary ones, which latter, after all, may be true in
+    substance though not in detail, in spirit and possibility though not in
+    a certain sequence of facts. Now-a-days we look upon dragons as fabulous
+    animals, and stories of the destruction they wrought, their fierceness
+    and their might are dismissed with a smile, and mentally relegated to a
+    place amongst the fairy tales that delighted our childhood&rsquo;s days, when
+    the idea of belief or disbelief simply did not enter the question. Yet
+    what are the dragon stories but faint memories of those gigantic and
+    fearsome beasts which roamed the earth in the &ldquo;dim, red dawn of
+    man&rdquo;&mdash;their names, as we read the labels on their skeletons in our
+    museums, being now the most fearsome things about them! No one can deny
+    that the ichthyosaurus, plesiosaurus, and all the rest of their tribe
+    did exist; and were they to be encountered in these days would spread
+    the same terror around, and find man almost as helpless before them as
+    did any fierce dragon of the fairy tales. That part of the legends,
+    therefore, has its foundation in fact; though from the nature of the
+    case, we certainly do not possess an authenticated account of any
+    particular contest between primitive man and one of these gigantic
+    creatures. That oldest Northumbrian poem, however, the &ldquo;Beowulf,&rdquo;
+    chants the praises of its hero&rsquo;s prowess in encounters of the kind; and
+    the north-country still has its legends of the Sockburn Worm, the
+    Lambton Worm, and the &ldquo;Laidly&rdquo; Worm of Spindleston Heugh, the two first
+    having their <i>venue</i> in Durham, and the last in Northumberland. The
+    Spindlestone, a high crag not far from Bamburgh, and Bamburgh Castle
+    itself, form the scene of this well-known legend. The fair Princess
+    Margaret, daughter of the King of Bamburgh was turned into a &ldquo;laidly
+    worm&rdquo; (loathly or loathsome serpent) by her wicked stepmother, who was
+    jealous of the lovely maid. The whole district was in terror of this
+    dreadful monster, which desolated the country-side in its search for
+    food.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;For seven miles east and seven miles west
+  And seven miles north and south,
+  No blade of grass or corn would grow,
+  So deadly was her mouth.
+
+  The milk of seven streakit cows
+  It was her cost to kepe,
+  They brought her dayly, whyche she drank
+  Before she wente to slepe.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    This offering proved successful in pacifying the creature, and it
+    remained in the cave at Spindleston, coming out daily to drink its fill
+    from the trough prepared for it. But the fear of it in no wise
+    diminished, and
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Word went east, and word went west,
+  And word is gone over the sea,
+  That a laidly worm in Spindleston Heugh
+  Would ruin the North Countree.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The news in due course comes to the ears of Princess Margaret&rsquo;s only
+    brother, the Childe Wynde, who is away seeking fame and fortune abroad.
+    In fear for his lovely sister, he calls together his &ldquo;merry men all,&rdquo;
+    and they set to work to build a ship
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;With masts of the rowan-tree,&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    a sure defence against the spells of witchcraft; and hoisting their
+    silken sails they hasten homeward.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;... ... The wind with speed
+  Blew them along the deep.
+  The sea was calm, the weather clear,
+  When they approached nigher;
+  King Ida&rsquo;s castle well they knew,
+  And the banks of Bamburghshire.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The wicked queen saw the little bark coming near, and knew that her
+    guilt was about to meet its reward. In haste she tried to wreck the
+    vessel, but the rowan-tree masts made her spells of no avail. Then she
+    bade her servants go to the beach and oppose the landing of the Childe
+    and his crew; but the servants were beaten back, and the young knight
+    and his men landed in Budle Bay. The worm came fiercely to the attack,
+    as the Childe Wynde advanced against it; but on meeting him, and feeling
+    the touch of his &ldquo;berry-brown sword,&rdquo; it besought him to do it no harm.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;&lsquo;O quit thy sword, unbend thy brow,
+  And give me kisses three;
+  For though I be a laidly worm
+  No harm I&rsquo;ll do to thee.
+
+  O quit thy sword, unbend thy brow,
+  And give me kisses three;
+  If I&rsquo;m not won ere the sun goes down
+  Won shall I never be.&rsquo;
+
+  He quitted his sword, and smoothed his brow,
+  And gave her kisses three;
+  She crept intill the hole a worm,
+  And came out a fayre ladie.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The knight clasped his lovely sister in his arms, and, casting around
+    her his crimson cloak, led her back to her home, where the trembling
+    queen awaited them. Her doom was spoken by the Childe Wynde&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Woe be to thee, thou wicked witch;
+  An ill death mayst thou dee!
+  As thou hast likened my sister dear,
+  So likened shalt thou be&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    and he turned her into the likeness of an ugly toad, in which hateful
+    shape she remained to her dying day, wandering around the castle and the
+    green fields, an object of hatred to all who saw her. The
+    &ldquo;Spindlestone,&rdquo; a tall crag on which the young knight hung his bridle,
+    when he went further on to seek the worm in the &ldquo;heugh,&rdquo; is still to be
+    seen, but the huge trough from which the worm was said to drink has been
+    destroyed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There are two legends somewhat similar to each other which are told of a
+    company held in the spell of a magic sleep, to be awakened by certain
+    devices, in which the blowing of a horn and the drawing of a sword are
+    prominent. One is the story of &ldquo;Sir Guy the Seeker,&rdquo; and is told of
+    Dunstanborough Castle. Sir Guy sought refuge in the Castle from a storm;
+    and while within the walls a spectre form with flaming hair addressed
+    him,
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Sir knight, Sir knight, if your heart be right,
+  And your nerves be firm and true,&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    (fancy &ldquo;nerves&rdquo; in a ballad!)&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Sir knight, Sir knight, a beauty bright
+  In durance waits for you.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The ballad, written by M.G. Lewis, now describes in a painfully
+    commonplace manner the knight&rsquo;s further adventures. He and his guide
+    wandered round and round and high and low in the maze of chambers within
+    the castle, until at last a door of brass, whose bolt was a venomous
+    snake, gave them entrance to a gloomy hall, draped in black, which the
+    &ldquo;hundred lights&rdquo; failed to brighten. In the hall a hundred knights of
+    &ldquo;marble white&rdquo; lay sleeping by their steeds of &ldquo;marble black as the
+    raven&rsquo;s back.&rdquo; At the end of the hall, guarded by two huge skeleton
+    forms, the imprisoned lady was seen in tears within a crystal tomb. One
+    skeleton held in his bony fingers a horn, the other a &ldquo;falchion bright,&rdquo;
+    and the knight was told to choose between them, and the fate of himself
+    and the lady would depend upon his choice. Sir Guy, after long
+    hesitation, blew a shrill blast upon the horn; at the sound the hundred
+    steeds stamped their hoofs, the hundred knights sprang up, and the
+    unlucky knight fell down senseless, with his ghastly guide&rsquo;s words
+    ringing in his ears&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Shame on the coward who sounded a horn
+  When he might have unsheathed a sword!&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    In the morning, the unfortunate Sir Guy awoke to find himself lying
+    amongst the ruins, and forthwith began his ceaseless and unavailing
+    search for the lady he had failed to rescue.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The legend similar to this in many respects is that of King Arthur and
+    his court at Sewingshields, to which allusion has already been made in
+    the chapter on the Roman Wall. I cannot do better than give this in the
+    words of Mr. Hodgson, who tells the story in his History of
+    Northumberland. &ldquo;Immemorial tradition has asserted that King Arthur,
+    his queen Guenever, his court of lords and ladies, and his hounds were
+    enchanted in some cave of the crags, or in a hall below the castle of
+    Sewingshields, and would continue entranced there until someone should
+    first blow a bugle-horn that lay on a table near the entrance of the
+    hall, and then with the &lsquo;sword of the stone&rsquo; (was this Excalibur?) cut a
+    garter, also placed there beside it. But none had ever heard where the
+    entrance to this enchanted hall was, till the farmer at Sewingshields,
+    about fifty years since, was sitting knitting on the ruins of the
+    castle, and his clew fell, and ran downwards through a rush of briars
+    and nettles, as he supposed, into a subterraneous passage. Full in the
+    faith that the entrance to King Arthur&rsquo;s hall had now been discovered,
+    he cleared the briary portal of its weeds and rubbish, and entering a
+    vaulted passage, followed in his darkling way the thread of his clew.
+    The floor was infested with toads and lizards; and the dark wings of
+    bats, disturbed by his unhallowed intrusion, flitted fearfully around
+    him. At length his sinking courage was strengthened by a dim, distant
+    light, which as he advanced grew gradually brighter, till all at once he
+    entered a vast and vaulted hall, in the centre of which a fire without
+    fuel, from a broad crevice in the floor blazed with a high and lambent
+    flame, that showed all the carved walls and fretted roof, and the
+    monarch and his queen and court reposing around, in a theatre of thrones
+    and costly couches. On the floor beyond the fire lay the faithful and
+    deep-toned pack of thirty couple of hounds; and on a table before it the
+    spell-dissolving horn, sword, and garter. The shepherd reverently, but
+    firmly, grasped the sword, and as he drew it leisurely from its rusty
+    scabbard, the eyes of the monarch and his courtiers began to open, and
+    they rose till they sat upright. He cut the garter; and as the sword was
+    being slowly sheathed the spell assumed its ancient power, and they all
+    gradually sank to rest; but not before the monarch had lifted up his
+    eyes and hands, and exclaimed&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;O woe betide that evil day
+  On which this witless wight was born,
+  Who drew the sword, the garter cut.
+  But never blew the bugle horn!&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Terror brought on loss of memory, and the shepherd was unable to give
+    any correct account of his adventure, or to find again the entrance to
+    the enchanted hall.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Another legend is connected with Tynemouth. Just above the short sands
+    was a cave known as Jingling Geordie&rsquo;s Hole; the &ldquo;Geordie&rdquo; is evidently
+    a late interpolation, for earlier mention of the cave gives it as the
+    Jingling Man&rsquo;s Hole. No one knows how it came by its name; tradition
+    says that it was the entrance to a subterranean passage leading from the
+    Priory beneath the Tyne to Jarrow. In this cave it was said that a
+    treasure of a fabulous amount was concealed, and the tale of this hoard
+    fired a boy named Walter to seek it out, when he heard the tale from his
+    mother. On his attaining to knighthood, he resolved to make the finding
+    of the treasure his particular &ldquo;quest,&rdquo; and arming himself, he
+    adventured forth on the Eve of St. John. Making his way fearlessly down
+    into the cave, undaunted by spectre or dragon, as they attempted to
+    dispute his passage, he arrived at a gloomy gateway, where hung a bugle,
+    fastened by a golden cord. Boldly he placed the bugle to his lips, and
+    blew three loud blasts. To his amazement, at the sound the doors rolled
+    back, displaying a vast and brightly-lit hall, whose roof was supported
+    on pillars of jasper and crystal; the glow from lamps of gold shone
+    softly down on gold and gems, which were heaped upon the floor of this
+    magic chamber, and the treasure became the rich reward of the dauntless
+    youth.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Gold heaped upon gold, and emeralds green,
+  And diamonds and rubies, and sapphires untold,
+  Rewarded the courage of Walter the Bold.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The fortunate youth became a very great personage, indeed, as by means
+    of his great riches he was &ldquo;lord of a hundred castles&rdquo; and wide domains.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of a very different character is the story of the Hermit of Warkworth.
+    It is unfortunate that this, the most tragic and moving of all
+    Northumbrian tales, should be most widely known by means of the prosy
+    imitation ballad by Dr. Percy, whose ability as a poet did by no means
+    equal his zeal as a collector of ballads. The hero of the sorrowful tale
+    is said to have been a Bertram of Bothal, who loved fair Isabel,
+    daughter of the lord of Widdrington. Bertram was a knight in Percy&rsquo;s
+    train, and at a great feast made by the lord of Alnwick the fair maiden
+    and her father were amongst the guests. As the minstrels chanted the
+    praises of their lord, and sang of the valiant deeds by which his noble
+    house had won renown, the heart of Isabel thrilled at the thought of her
+    true knight rivalling those deeds of fame. Summoning one of her
+    attendant maidens, she sent her to Bertram, bearing a helmet of steel
+    with crest of gold. With the helmet the maiden gave her mistress&rsquo;
+    message, that she would yield to her knight&rsquo;s pleadings and become his
+    bride, as soon as he had proved himself a valiant and worthy wearer of
+    the golden-crested helm. Reverently Bertram accepted the commands of
+    his lady, and vowed to prove his devotion wherever hard blows were to be
+    given and danger to be found. The lord of Alnwick straightway arranged
+    for an expedition on to Scottish land, in requital of old scores, and
+    assembled together a goodly company to ride against the Scots. Earl
+    Douglas and his men opposed them, and blows were dealt thick and fast on
+    both sides. Bertram was sorely wounded, after showing wondrous prowess
+    in the fight; but being rescued by Percy, was borne to the castle of
+    Wark upon the Tweed, to recover from his wounds in safety. Isabel&rsquo;s aged
+    father had seen the young knight&rsquo;s valour, and promised that the maiden
+    herself should tend his hurts and care for him until he recovered. Day
+    after day passed, however, and still she came not. At last the knight,
+    scarcely able to take the saddle, rode back to Widdrington, tended by
+    his gallant young brother, to satisfy himself of what had become of his
+    lady. They reached Widdrington tower to find it all in darkness; and
+    after repeated knockings the aged nurse came to the gateway and demanded
+    the name of those who so insistently clamoured at the door. Bertram
+    enquired for the lady Isabel; and then, indeed, all was dismay. The
+    nurse, trembling with fear, told the two youths that her mistress had
+    set out immediately on hearing of her lover&rsquo;s plight, reproaching
+    herself for having led him to adventure his life so rashly, and it was
+    now six days since she had gone. Weary and weak, Bertram rested the
+    night at the castle, and then set out on his search for his lost lady.
+    That they might the sooner search the country round, he and his brother,
+    who loved him dearly, took different directions, one going eastward, and
+    the other north. They put on various disguises as they went, Bertram
+    appearing now in the guise of a holy Palmer, now as a wandering
+    minstrel As he was sitting, despondent and well-nigh despairing,
+    beneath a hawthorn tree, an aged monk came by, and on seeing the
+    supposed minstrel&rsquo;s face of sorrow, said to him,
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;All minstrels yet that e&rsquo;er I saw
+  Are full of game and glee,
+  But thou art sad and woe-begone;
+  I marvel whence it be.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Bertram replied that he served an aged lord whose only child had been
+    stolen away, and that he would know no happiness until he had found her.
+    The pilgrim comforted him and bade him hope, telling him that
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Behind yon hills so steep and high,
+  Down in a lonely glen,
+  There stands a castle fair and strong,
+  Far from the abode of men.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Saying that he had heard a lady&rsquo;s voice lamenting in this lonely tower,
+    he passed on, giving Bertram the hope that now at last his quest was
+    ended. He made his way to that strong castle, and with his music
+    prevailed upon the porter to let him stay near at hand in a cavern; for
+    the porter refused to admit him to the castle in the absence of his
+    lord, though at the same time giving him food and directing him to the
+    cave. He piped all day and watched all night, and was rewarded by
+    hearing his lady&rsquo;s voice lamenting within the walls of her prison. On
+    the second night he caught a glimpse of her beauteous form, fair as the
+    moonbeams that shone around the tower. On the third night, worn with
+    watching, he slept, and only awakened as dawn drew nigh. Grasping his
+    weapon, he stole near to the castle walls, when to his amazement, he saw
+    his lady descend from her window by a ladder of rope, held for her by a
+    youth in Highland dress. Stunned at the sight, he could not move to
+    follow them, till they had left behind them the castle where the lady
+    had been held captive, and were about to disappear over the hill.
+    Silently and swiftly then he drew near, and crying furiously, &ldquo;Vile
+    traitor! yield that lady up!&rdquo; fell upon the youth who accompanied her,
+    who in his turn fought as furiously as he. In a few moments Bertram&rsquo;s
+    antagonist lay stretched on the ground; and as he gave him the fatal
+    thrust he cried, &ldquo;Die, traitor, die!&rdquo; The lady recognised his voice, and
+    rushing forward, shrieked, &ldquo;Stay! stay! it is thy brother.&rdquo; But the
+    sword of Bertram, already descending with the force of rage and fury in
+    the blow, could not be stayed until too late. The fair maid&rsquo;s breast was
+    pierced by the sword of the knight who loved her, and she sank down by
+    the side of the youth who had delivered her. It was indeed Bertram&rsquo;s
+    brother, who had succeeded in his search; and the dying maiden found
+    time to tell of his devotion, in rescuing her from this castle of the
+    son of a Scottish lord who fain would have made her his bride, before
+    she, too, lay lifeless by the side of her brave rescuer, leaving her
+    lover too despairing and desolate to seek safety in flight, so that the
+    band of searchers from the castle, seeking their prisoner on the hills,
+    and dreading their lord&rsquo;s wrath on his return, bore him back with them
+    to the dungeon. Their lord, however, had meantime been taken captive by
+    Percy (Hotspur), who, as soon as he heard of Bertram&rsquo;s capture, quickly
+    exchanged the Scottish chief for his friend. Bertram&rsquo;s sorrow lasted for
+    the rest of his days; he gave away his lands and possessions to the
+    poor, and retiring to a lovely spot on the banks of the Coquet, where
+    rocky cliffs overhung the river, he carved out in the living stone a
+    little cell, dormitory, and chapel, and dwelt there, passing his days in
+    mourning, meditation, and prayer. In the chapel, with its gracefully
+    arched roof, he fashioned on an altar-tomb the image of a lady, and at
+    her feet the figure of a hermit, in the attitude of grief, one hand
+    supporting his head and the other pressed against his breast, leaning
+    over and gazing at the lady for ever. The poignant sentence &ldquo;My tears
+    have been my meat day and night,&rdquo; is carved over the entrance to the
+    little chapel. Here, in this beautiful spot, almost under the shadow of
+    the castle walls belonging to his noble friend, the sorrowing knight,
+    now a holy hermit, spent the remainder of his life in the little
+    dwelling he had wrought in the living rock. It remains to-day more
+    beautiful, if possible, than ever, overhung by a canopy of waving
+    greenery, and draped with ferns and mosses, their graceful fronds laved
+    by the rippling Coquet whose gentle murmurings fill the still air with
+    music.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The next tale takes us to the neighbourhood of Belford, and out upon the
+    old post road from London to Edinburgh. In the unsettled times of James
+    the Second&rsquo;s reign, one Sir John Cochrane of Ochiltree was condemned to
+    death for his part in the rising which was led by the Duke of Argyle.
+    Powerful friends, heavily bribed by Sir John&rsquo;s father, the Earl of
+    Dundonald, were working in Sir John&rsquo;s favour, and they had strong hopes
+    of obtaining a pardon. But meanwhile, Sir John lay in the Tolbooth at
+    Edinburgh, and the warrant for his execution was already on its way
+    northward, in the post-bag carried forward by horseman after horseman
+    throughout the length of the way. Could the arrival of the warrant only
+    be delayed by some means, his life might be saved. In this strait, his
+    daughter Grizzel, a girl of eighteen, conceived the desperate idea of
+    preventing the warrant&rsquo;s reaching its destination. Saying nothing to
+    anyone of her intentions, she stole away from home, and rode swiftly to
+    the Border. Following the road for about four miles on the English
+    side, she arrived at the house of her old nurse; and here she changed
+    her clothes, persuading the old dame to lend her a suit belonging to her
+    foster-brother. Making her way southward, she went to the inn at Belford
+    where the riders carrying the mail usually put up for the night. Here,
+    the same night, came the postman, and the seeming youth watched
+    nervously, but determinedly, for an opportunity of finding out whether
+    the fateful paper was in his bag or not. No slightest chance presented
+    itself, however, and an attempt to obtain the mail-bag during the night
+    failed by reason of the fact that the man slept upon it. One thing she
+    did accomplish, which gave her hope that the encounter for which she was
+    nerving herself might end successfully for her; she managed, unseen, to
+    draw the charges from his pistols. Then the courageous girl rode off
+    through the dark night to select a favourable spot in which to await his
+    coming. For two or three lonely hours she waited, the thought that she
+    was fighting for her father&rsquo;s life giving her courage. In the dim light
+    of the early dawn she heard the sound of his horse&rsquo;s hoofs from where
+    she stood in the shadow of a clump of trees; and steeling herself for
+    the part she was to play, and in ignorance of whether he might have
+    found out that the charges had been withdrawn from his pistols and might
+    have re-loaded them, she waited until he was almost abreast of her, and
+    fired at his horse, bringing it down. Before he could extricate himself
+    she was upon him with drawn sword; but promising to spare his life if he
+    would let her have the mail-bag, she seized it and darted away. He
+    attempted to follow to recover his charge, but she reached her horse,
+    and rode off like the wind. When she reached a place of safety and
+    examined the contents of the bag, what was her joy to find that the
+    warrant was there. It was speedily destroyed; and during the time that
+    elapsed before the news of the loss could be sent to London and another
+    one made out, the friends of Sir John succeeded in obtaining his pardon.
+    &ldquo;Cochrane&rsquo;s bonny Grizzy&rdquo; lived to a good old age; and &ldquo;Grizzy&rsquo;s clump&rdquo;
+    on the north road near the little village of Buckton keeps green the
+    memory of her daring exploit.
+</p>
+<p>
+    &ldquo;Bonny Grizzy&rdquo; was a Scottish maid, though her gallant if lawless deed
+    was performed on Northumbrian soil; but there is one Northumbrian maiden
+    whose fame will live as long as the sea-waves beat on the wild
+    north-east coast, and as long as men&rsquo;s hearts thrill to a tale of
+    courage and high resolve. Grace Darling&rsquo;s name still awakens in every
+    bosom a response to all that is compassionate, courageous, and
+    unselfish; and the thoughts of all north-country folk bold that
+    admiration for the gentle girl which has been voiced as no other could
+    voice it, in the magical words of Swinburne&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Take, O star of all our seas, from not an alien hand,
+  Homage paid of song bowed down before thy glory&rsquo;s face,
+  Thou the living light of all our lovely stormy strand,
+  Thou the brave north-country&rsquo;s very glory of glories, Grace.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The story of her gallantry has been many times re-told, but never grows
+    wearisome. The memory of that stormy voyage of the <i>Forfarshire</i>, which
+    ended in disaster on the Harcar rocks in the Farne group, remains in
+    men&rsquo;s minds as the dark and tragic setting which throws into bright
+    relief the gallant action of the father and daughter who dared almost
+    certain death to rescue their fellow-creatures in peril. It was in
+    September, 1838, that the ill-fated vessel left Hull for Dundee; but a
+    leak in the boilers caused the fires to be nearly extinguished in the
+    storm the vessel encountered. It reached St. Abb&rsquo;s Head by the aid of
+    the sails, but then drifted southward, driven by the storm, and struck
+    in the early morning, in a dense fog, on the Harcar rocks. Nine of the
+    people on board managed to escape in a small boat, which was driven in a
+    miraculous manner through the only safe outlet between the rocks. They
+    were picked up by a passing boat and taken to Shields. Meanwhile a heavy
+    sea had crashed down upon the <i>Forfarshire</i>, and broken it in half, one
+    portion, with the greater number of crew and passengers, being swept
+    away immediately. The remaining portion, the fore part of the vessel,
+    was firmly fixed upon the rock. Here the shivering survivors clung all
+    that stormy day, the waves dashing over them continually. The captain
+    and his wife were washed overboard, clasped in each others&rsquo; arms; and
+    two little children, a boy of eight and a girl of eleven years of age,
+    died from exposure and the relentless buffeting of the waves, their
+    distracted mother clasping them by the hand long after life was extinct.
+    To a terrible day succeeded a yet more terrible night.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Scarce the cliffs of the islets, scarce the walls of Joyous Gard
+  Flash to sight between the deadlier lightnings of the sea;
+  Storm is lord and master of a midnight evil-starred,
+  Nor may sight nor fear discern what evil stars may be.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Until the morning they endured; and in the stormy dawn the keeper of the
+    Longstone lighthouse, William Darling, and his daughter Grace saw them
+    huddled in a shivering heap upon the wave-swept fragments of the wreck.
+    The girl begged her father to try to save them, and to allow her to help
+    in the task, and after some natural hesitation he consented. The
+    brave-hearted mother helped them to launch the boat, and they set forth.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus12"></a>
+<a href="images/228.jpg">
+<img src="images/228.jpg" width="600" height="393" alt="Illustration:
+The Wreck of the “Forfarshire”" /></a>
+<p class="caption"><b>The Wreck of the &ldquo;Forfarshire&rdquo;</b></p>
+</div>
+
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Sire and daughter, hand on oar and face against the night.
+  Maid and man whose names are beacons ever to the north.
+  ...... all the madness of the stormy surf
+  Hounds and roars them back, but roars and hounds them back in   vain.
+
+  Not our mother, not Northumberland, brought ever forth.
+  Though no southern shore may match the sons that kiss her mouth,
+  Children worthier all the birthright given of the ardent north,
+  Where the fire of hearts outburns the suns that fire the south.&rdquo;
+
+  They reached the rock, where nine persons were still
+  clinging to the wreck, and
+
+  &ldquo;Life by life the man redeems them, head by storm-worn head,
+  While the girl&rsquo;s hand stays the boat whereof the waves are fain.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    With five of the exhausted survivors the boat returned to the Longstone;
+    and two of the men went back with William Darling for the other four.
+    All were safely housed in the lighthouse and tended by the noble family
+    of the Darlings; but the storm raged for several days longer, and made
+    it impossible for them to be put ashore. When at length they returned to
+    their homes, and the story of the rescue was made known, the whole
+    country was moved by it; and presents of all kinds, money, and offers of
+    marriage poured in upon Grace, who remained quite unmoved by it all, and
+    was still the gentle unassuming girl that she had always been. She
+    refused to leave her home, though she was offered twenty pounds a night
+    at the Adelphi if she would consent merely to sit in a boat for London
+    audiences to gaze upon her. Sad to say, she died of consumption about
+    two years afterwards, after having tried in vain to arrest the course of
+    her sickness by change of air at Wooler and Alnwick; and she sleeps in
+    Bamburgh churchyard, within sound of the sea by which she had spent her
+    short life.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;East and west and south acclaim her queen of England&rsquo;s maids.
+  Star more sweet than all their stars, and flower than all their flowers.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The actual boat in which the gallant deed was performed was long
+    preserved at Newton Hall, Stocksfield; but the owners have lately
+    presented it to the Marine Laboratory at Cullercoats.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus13"></a>
+<img src="images/231.jpg" width="300" height="181" alt="[Illustration:
+Drawing of boat]" />
+</div>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br/>BALLADS AND POEMS.</h2>
+
+<p>
+    The ballads of Northumberland, as all true ballads should do, partake of
+    the characteristics of the district which is their home. As we should
+    expect, they treat chiefly of warlike themes, of the chieftain&rsquo;s doughty
+    deeds, the moss-trooper&rsquo;s daring and skill, of the knight&rsquo;s courtesies
+    and gallant feats of arms, and the feuds of rival clans; in fact, they
+    portray for us vividly the time of which they treat, and in a few
+    graphic touches bring before us the very spirit of the period. In direct
+    and simple phrases the narrative proceeds, giving with rare power just
+    the necessary expression to the tale.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These ballads fall naturally into three main divisions. The historical
+    ballad is at its best in the famous &ldquo;Chevy-Chase,&rdquo; which has been the
+    delight of gentle and simple for centuries; and the oft-quoted
+    declaration of Sir Philip Sidney concerning it still finds an echo in
+    our own day.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of the two best known versions of the ballad, the one here given is the
+    more poetical by far; the other, however, contains the account of the
+    courage of Hugh Widdrington which has made the gallant squire immortal.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The latter version is as evidently English as the former is Scottish; or
+    rather, each has grown to its present form as the reciters exercised
+    their art to please an English or a Scottish audience. In the one
+    version it is Douglas who takes the offensive, and challenges Percy,
+    waiting for him at Otterbourne; in the other we are told that
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;The stout Erle of Northumberland
+  A vow to God did make,
+  His pleasure in the Scottish woods
+  Three summer days to take.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    On the death of Douglas&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Erle Percy took
+  The dead man by the hand,
+  And said, &lsquo;Erle Douglas, for thy life
+  Would I had lost my land!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    When the battle is over,
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Next day did many widdowes come
+  Their husbands to bewayle;
+  Their bodyes bathed in purple blood
+  They bore with them away;
+  They kist them dead a thousand times
+  Ere they were cladd in clay.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    It was neither of these versions, however, that so moved the heart of
+    gallant Sidney, but a much older one, beginning
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;The Perse owt off Northomberlande
+    And a vow to God made he,
+  That he wold hunt in the mountayns
+    Off Chyviat within days iii.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Other historical ballads are &ldquo;The Rising of the North,&rdquo; &ldquo;The Raid of the
+    Reidswire,&rdquo; &ldquo;Flodden Field,&rdquo; &ldquo;Homildon Hils&rdquo; and &ldquo;Hedgeley Moor.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    The next division may be termed semi-historical; that is, they treat of
+    events which actually happened, but which have chiefly a local interest;
+    and these may therefore be said to be more truly Northumbrian than any
+    others. Such are &ldquo;Jock o&rsquo; the Side,&rdquo; &ldquo;Johnnie Armstrong,&rdquo; &ldquo;Hobbie Noble&rdquo;
+    and &ldquo;The Death of Parcy Reed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of the third class, the romantic ballads, we have not so rich a store;
+    yet &ldquo;The Gay Goss-hawk,&rdquo; the &ldquo;Nut-browne Mayde&rdquo; and the touchingly
+    beautiful &ldquo;Barthram&rsquo;s Dirge&rdquo; may stand amongst the best of their kind.
+</p>
+<p>
+    &ldquo;The Gay Gross-hawk&rdquo; is one of those delightful and imaginative
+    productions of which there are so many examples, in which birds and
+    hounds share their lords&rsquo; and ladies&rsquo; secrets, and serve them staunchly
+    in hours of peril; they belong to the times when fairies were still seen
+    holding their moonlight revels, when witches exercised their baleful
+    arts, and fearsome dragons wore still to be met and conquered&mdash;&ldquo;and if
+    you do not believe it,&rdquo; said Dr. Spence Watson, &ldquo;I am sorry for you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    The &ldquo;Nut-browne Mayde&rdquo; is supposed to have been a Lady Margaret Percy,
+    who lived in the reign of Henry VIII.; and the lover to whom she was so
+    faithful, notwithstanding his trial of her love by declaring that he was
+    an outlaw, and &ldquo;must to the greenwood go, alone, a banished man,&rdquo; was
+    Henry Clifford, son of the Earl of Westmoreland. The inordinate length
+    of this ballad forbade its inclusion in the present selection; I am
+    sensible that that selection may appear somewhat meagre, but only want
+    of space has prevented the inclusion of others that many of my readers
+    would doubtless have been glad to see.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of songs in dialect, Joe Wilson&rsquo;s &ldquo;Aw wish yor Muthor wad cum!&rdquo; stands
+    easily first; and the other, &ldquo;Sair feyl&rsquo;d, hinny!&rdquo; is given as an
+    example of the Northumbrian muse in another mood.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In conclusion, let me say that of the modern verse every example is from
+    the pen of a Northumbrian.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  CHEVY CHASE I.
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  It fell about the Lammas tide,
+  When muir-men win their hay,
+  The doughty Douglas bound him to ride
+  Into England to drive a prey.
+
+  He chose the Gordons and the Graemes,
+  With them the Lindsays, light and gay;
+  But the Jardines would not with them ride,
+  And they rue it to this day.
+
+  And he has burned the dales o&rsquo; Tyne,
+  And part o&rsquo; Bamburghshire;
+  And three good towers on Reidswire fells
+  He left them all on fire.
+
+  And he marched up to New Castel,
+  And rode it round about;
+  &ldquo;O wha&rsquo;s the lord of this castel?
+  Or wha&rsquo;s the lady o&rsquo;t?&rdquo;
+
+  And up spake proud Lord Percy then,
+  And O! but he spake hie!
+  &ldquo;O I&rsquo;m the lord of this castel,
+  My wife&rsquo;s the lady gay.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;If thou art the lord of this castel,
+  Sae weel it pleases me!
+  For ere I cross the Border fells,
+  The tane of us sall die.&rdquo;
+
+  He took a lang spere in his hand
+  Shod wi&rsquo; the metal free,
+  And for to meet the Douglas there
+  He rode right furiouslie!
+
+  But oh! how pale his lady looked
+  Frae off the castle wa&rsquo;,
+  When down before the Scottish speare
+  She saw proud Percy fa&rsquo;!
+
+  &ldquo;Had we twa been upon the green,
+  And never an eye to see,
+  I wad hae had you, flesh and fell,
+  But your sword shall gae wi&rsquo; me.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;But gae ye up to Otterbourne
+  And wait there dayis three,
+  And if I come not ere three dayis end,
+  A fause knight ca&rsquo; ye me.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;The Otterbourne&rsquo;s a bonnie burn,
+  &rsquo;Tis pleasant there to be;
+  But there is naught at Otterbourne
+  To feed my men and me.
+
+  &ldquo;The deer rins wild on hill and dale,
+  The birds fly wild frae tree to tree,
+  But there is neither bread nor kale
+  To feed my men and me.
+
+  &ldquo;Yet I will stay at Otterbourne
+  Where you sall welcome be;
+  And if ye come not at three dayis end
+  A fause lord I&rsquo;ll call thee.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;Thither will I come,&rdquo; proud Percy said,
+  &ldquo;By the might of Our Ladye!&rdquo;
+  &ldquo;Thither will I bide thee,&rdquo; said the Douglas,
+  &ldquo;My troth I plight to thee.&rdquo;
+
+  They lighted high on Otterbourne,
+  Upon the bent sae brown;
+  They lighted high on Otterbourne
+  And threw their pallions down.
+
+  And he that had a bonnie boy,
+  Sent out his horse to grass;
+  And he that had not a bonnie boy,
+  His ain servant he was.
+
+  And up then spake a little foot-page,
+  Before the peep o&rsquo; dawn&mdash;
+  &ldquo;O waken, waken ye, my good lord,
+  The Percy is hard at hand!&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;Ye lee, ye lee, ye leear loud!
+  Sae loud I hear ye lee!
+  For Percy had not men yestreen
+  To dight my men and me!&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;But I hae dreamed a dreary dream,
+  Beyond the Isle of Skye;
+  I saw a dead man win a fight,
+  An&rsquo; I think that man was I.&rdquo;
+
+  He belted on his gude braid-sword,
+  And to the field he ran;
+  But he forgot his helmet good,
+  That should have kept his brain.
+
+  When Percy wi&rsquo; the Douglas met
+  I wat he was fu&rsquo; fain!
+  They swakked their swords till sair they swat,
+  The blude ran down like rain.
+
+  But Percy, with his gude braid-sword,
+  That could sae sharply wound,
+  Has stricken Douglas on the brow,
+  Till he fell to the ground.
+
+  Then he called on his little foot-page
+  And said, &ldquo;Run speedilie,
+  And fetch my ain dear sister&rsquo;s son,
+  Sir Hugh Montgomerie.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;My nephew good,&rdquo; the Douglas said,
+  &ldquo;What recks the death of ane?
+  Last night I dreamed a dreary dream,
+  And I ken the day&rsquo;s thy ain.
+
+  &ldquo;My wound is deep, I fain wad sleep;
+  Take thou the vanguard of the three,
+  And hide me by the bracken bush
+  That grows on yonder lilye lea.
+
+  &ldquo;O bury me by the bracken bush,
+  Beneath the bloomin&rsquo; brier;
+  Let never a living mortal ken
+  That ever a kindly Scot lies here.&rdquo;
+
+  He lifted up that noble lord,
+  Wi&rsquo; the saut tear in his e&rsquo;e;
+  He hid him in the bracken bush
+  That his merrie men might not see.
+
+  The moon was clear, the day drew near,
+  The speres in flinders flew,
+  And mony a gallant Englishman
+  Ere day the Scotsmen slew.
+
+  The Gordons gude, in English blude
+  They steeped their hose and shoon;
+  The Lindsays flew like fire about
+  Till a&rsquo; the fray was dune.
+
+  The Percy and Montgomerie met,
+  And either of other was fain;
+  They swakk&#232;d swords, and sair they swat,
+  And the blude ran doun like rain.
+
+  &ldquo;Now yield thee, yield thee, Percy!&rdquo; he cried;
+  &ldquo;Or else will I lay thee low.&rdquo;
+  &ldquo;To whom sall I yield?&rdquo; quoth Erle Percy,
+  &ldquo;Sin I see it maun be so.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;Thou shalt not yield to lord or loon,
+  Nor yet shalt thou yield to me,
+  But thou shalt yield to the bracken bush
+  That grows on yon lilye lea.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;I will not yield to a bracken bush;
+  Nor yet will I yield to a brier;
+  But I would yield to Erle Douglas,
+  Or Hugh Montgomerie if he were here.&rdquo;
+
+  As soon as he knew it was Montgomerie
+  He stuck his sword&rsquo;s-point in the gronde;
+  The Montgomerie was a courteous knight,
+  And quickly took him by the honde.
+
+  This deed was done at the Otterbourne,
+  About the breaking of the day;
+  Erle Douglas was buried at the bracken bush.
+  And the Percy led captive away.
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  JOCK O&rsquo; THE SIDE.
+
+  Now Liddesdale has ridden a raid,
+  But I wat they had better hae staid at hame;
+  For Michael o&rsquo; Winfield he is dead,
+  And Jock o&rsquo; the Side is prisoner ta&rsquo;en.
+
+  For Mangerton house Lady Downie has gane,
+  Her coats she has kilted up to her knee;
+  And down the water wi&rsquo; speed she rins,
+  While tears in spates fa&rsquo; fast frae her e&rsquo;e.
+
+  Then up and spoke our guid auld laird&mdash;
+  &ldquo;What news, what news, sister Downie, to me?&rdquo;
+  &ldquo;Bad news, bad news, for Michael is killed,
+  And they hae taken my son Johnnie.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;Ne&rsquo;er fear, sister Downie,&rdquo; quo&rsquo; Mangerton,
+  &ldquo;I have yokes of owsen, twenty and three,
+  My barns, my byres, and my faulds a&rsquo; weel filled,
+  I&rsquo;ll part wi&rsquo; them a&rsquo; ere Johnnie shall dee.
+
+  &ldquo;Three men I&rsquo;ll send to set him free,
+  A&rsquo; harnessed wi&rsquo; the best o&rsquo; steel;
+  The English loons may hear, and drie
+  The weight o&rsquo; their braid-swords to feel.
+
+  &ldquo;The Laird&rsquo;s Jock ane, the Laird&rsquo;s Wat twa,
+  O Hobbie Noble, thou ane maun be!
+  Thy coat is blue, thou has been true
+  Since England banished thee to me.&rdquo;
+
+  Now Hobbie was an English man,
+  In Bewcastle dale was bred and born;
+  But his misdeeds they were so great,
+  They banished him ne&rsquo;er to return.
+
+  Laird Mangerton them orders gave,
+  &ldquo;Your horses the wrang way maun be shod;
+  Like gentlemen ye maunna seem,
+  But look like corn-cadgers ga&rsquo;en the road.
+
+  &ldquo;Your armour gude ye maunna show,
+  Nor yet appear like men of weir;
+  As country lads be a&rsquo; array&rsquo;d,
+  Wi&rsquo; branks and brecham on each mare.&rdquo;
+
+  Sae their horses are the wrang way shod,
+  And Hobbie has mounted his gray sae fine;
+  Jock his lively bay, Wat&rsquo;s on his white horse behind.
+  And on they rode for the water of Tyne.
+
+  At the Cholerford they a&rsquo; light doun,
+  And there wi&rsquo; the help o&rsquo; the light o&rsquo; the moon,
+  A tree they cut, wi&rsquo; fifteen nogs on each side,
+  To climb up the wa&rsquo; of Newcastle toun,
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  But when they cam&rsquo; to Newcastle toun,
+  And were alighted at the wa&rsquo;
+  They fand their tree three ells ower laigh,
+  They fand their stick baith short and sma&rsquo;.
+
+  Then up and spak the Laird&rsquo;s ain Jock,
+  &ldquo;There&rsquo;s naething for&rsquo;t; the gates we maun force.&rdquo;
+  But when they cam&rsquo; the gate untill,
+  A proud porter withstood baith men and horse.
+
+  His neck in twa the Armstrangs wrung;
+  With fute or hand he ne&rsquo;er played pa!
+  His life and his keys at once they hae ta&rsquo;en,
+  And cast the body ahint the wa&rsquo;.
+
+  Now sune they reach Newcastle jail,
+  And to the prisoner thus they call:
+  &ldquo;Sleeps thou, or wakes thou, Jock o&rsquo; the Side,
+  Or art thou weary of thy thrall?&rdquo;
+
+  Jock answered thus, wi&rsquo; doleful tone,
+  &ldquo;Aft, aft I wake&mdash;I seldom sleep;
+  But wha&rsquo;s this kens my name sae weel,
+  And thus to ease my wae does seek.&rdquo;
+
+  Then out and spake the gude Laird&rsquo;s Jock,
+  &ldquo;Now fear ye na&rsquo;, my billie,&rdquo; quo&rsquo; he;
+  &ldquo;For here are the Laird&rsquo;s Jock, the Laird&rsquo;s Wat,
+  And Hobbie Noble, come to set thee free.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;Now haud thy tongue, my gude Laird&rsquo;s Jock,
+  For ever, alas! this canna be;
+  For if a&rsquo; Liddesdale were here the night,
+  The morn&rsquo;s the day that I maun dee.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;Full fifteen stane o&rsquo; Spanish iron
+  They hae laid a&rsquo; right sair or me;
+  Wi&rsquo; locks and keys I am fast bound
+  Into this dungeon dark and dreirie!&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;Fear ye nae that,&rdquo; quo&rsquo; the Laird&rsquo;s Jock;
+  &ldquo;A faint heart ne&rsquo;er won a fair ladie;
+  Work thou within, we&rsquo;ll work without,
+  And I&rsquo;ll be sworn we&rsquo;ll set thee free.&rdquo;
+
+  The first strong door that they cam&rsquo; at,
+  They loosed it without a key;
+  The next chain&rsquo;d door that they cam&rsquo; at
+  They gar&rsquo;d it a&rsquo; to flinders flee.
+
+  The prisoner now upon his back
+  The Laird&rsquo;s Jock has gotten up fu&rsquo; hie;
+  And down the stair, him, irons and a&rsquo;,
+  Wi&rsquo; nae sma&rsquo; speid and joy brings he.
+
+  &ldquo;Now Jock, my man,&rdquo; quo Hobbie Noble,
+  &ldquo;Some o&rsquo; his weight ye may lay on me.&rdquo;
+  &ldquo;I wat weel no,&rdquo; quo&rsquo; the Laird&rsquo;s ain Jock;
+  &ldquo;I count him lighter than a flee.&rdquo;
+
+  Sae out at the gates they a&rsquo; are gane,
+  The prisoner&rsquo;s set on horseback hie;
+  And now wi&rsquo; speed they&rsquo;re ta&rsquo;en the gate,
+  While ilk ane jokes fu&rsquo; wantonlie.
+
+  &ldquo;O Jock! sae winsomely &rsquo;s ye ride,
+  Wi&rsquo; baith your feet upon ae side;
+  Sae weel ye&rsquo;re harnessed, and sae trig,
+  In troth ye sit like ony bride!&rdquo;
+
+  The night, tho&rsquo; wat, they didna mind,
+  But hied them on fu&rsquo; merrilie
+  Until they cam&rsquo; to Cholerford brae,
+  Where the water ran baith deep and hie.
+
+  But when they came to Cholerford,
+  There they met with an auld man,
+  Says, &ldquo;Honest man, will the water ride?
+  Tell us in haste, if that ye can.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;I wat weel no,&rdquo; quo&rsquo; the gude auld man;
+  &ldquo;I hae lived here thirty years and three,
+  And I ne&rsquo;er yet saw the Tyne sae big,
+  Nor running anes sae like a sea.&rdquo;
+
+  Then out and spake the Laird&rsquo;s Saft Wat,
+  The greatest coward in the companie;
+  &ldquo;Now halt, now halt, we needna try&rsquo;t,
+  The day is come we a&rsquo; maun dee.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;Puir faint-hearted thief!&rdquo; cried the Laird&rsquo;s ain Jock,
+  &ldquo;There&rsquo;ll nae man die but him that&rsquo;s fey;
+  I&rsquo;ll guide ye a&rsquo; right safely thro&rsquo;,
+  Lift ye the prisoner on ahint me.&rdquo;
+
+  Wi&rsquo; that the water they hae ta&rsquo;en;
+  By anes and twas they a&rsquo; swam thro&rsquo;;
+  &ldquo;Here we are a&rsquo; safe,&rdquo; quo&rsquo; the Laird&rsquo;s Jock,
+  &ldquo;And puir faint Wat, what think ye now?&rdquo;
+
+  They scarce the other brae had won
+  When twenty men they saw pursue;
+  Frae Newcastle toun they had been sent,
+  A&rsquo; English lads baith stout and true.
+
+  But when the land-serjeant the water saw,
+  &ldquo;It winna ride, my lads,&rdquo; says he;
+  Then cried aloud&mdash;&ldquo;The prisoner take,
+  But leave the fetters, I pray, to me.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;I wat weel no,&rdquo; quo&rsquo; the Laird&rsquo;s Jock;
+  &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll keep them a&rsquo;; shoon to my mare they&rsquo;ll be.
+  My gude bay mare&mdash;for I am sure
+  She has bought them a&rsquo; right dear frae thee.&rdquo;
+
+  Sae now they are on to Liddesdale,
+  E&rsquo;en as fast as they could them hie;
+  The prisoner is brought to his ain fireside,
+  And there o&rsquo; his airns they mak&rsquo; him free.
+
+  &ldquo;Now, Jock, ma billie,&rdquo; quo&rsquo; a&rsquo; the three,
+  &ldquo;The day is com&rsquo;d thou was to dee.
+  But thou&rsquo;s as weel at thy ain ingle-side,
+  Now sitting, I think &rsquo;twixt thou and me.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  BARTHRAM&rsquo;S DIRGE.
+
+  They shot him dead at the Nine-stane Rig,
+  Beside the Headless Cross,
+  And they left him lying in his blood,
+  Upon the moor and moss.
+
+  They made a bier of the broken bough
+  The sauch and the aspin grey,
+  And they bore him to the Lady Chapel,
+  And waked him there all day.
+
+  A lady came to that lonely bower,
+  And threw her robes aside;
+  She tore her ling lang yellow hair,
+  And knelt at Barthram&rsquo;s side.
+
+  She bathed him in the Lady-Well,
+  His wounds sae deep and sair;
+  And she plaited a garland for his breast,
+  And a garland for his hair.
+
+  They rowed him in a lily sheet
+  And bare him to his earth;
+  And the Grey Friars sung the dead man&rsquo;s mass
+  As they passed the Chapel garth.
+
+  They buried him at the mirk midnight,
+  When the dew fell cold and still,
+  When the aspin grey forgot to play,
+  And the mist clung to the hill.
+
+  They dug his grave but a bare foot deep,
+  By the edge of the Nine-stane Burn,
+  And they covered him o&rsquo;er with the heather-flower,
+  The moss and the lady-fern.
+
+  A Grey Friar staid upon the grave,
+  And sang till the morning tide;
+  And a friar shall sing for Barthram&rsquo;s soul
+  While the Headless Cross shall bide.
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  THE FAIR FLOWER OF NORTHUMBERLAND
+
+  It was a knight in Scotland born,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Was taken pris&rsquo;ner and left forlorn,
+  Even by the good Earl of Northumberland.
+
+  Then was he cast in prison strong,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Where he could not walk nor lie along,
+  Even by the good Earl of Northumberland.
+
+  And as in sorrow thus he lay,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  The Earl&rsquo;s sweet daughter passed that way,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  And passing by, like an angel bright,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  The prisoner had of her a sight,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  And aloud to her this knight did cry,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  The salt tears standing in her eye,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  &ldquo;Fair lady,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;take pity on me,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And let me not in prison dee,
+  And you the fair flower of Northumberland.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;Fair sir, how should I take pity on thee,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Thou being a foe to our countrie,
+  And I the fair flower of Northumberland?&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;Fair lady, I am no foe,&rdquo; he said,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  &ldquo;Through thy sweet love here was I stayed,
+  And thou the fair flower of Northumberland.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;Why shouldst thou come here for love of me,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Having wife and bairns in thy own countrie,
+  And I the fair flower of Northumberland?&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;I swear by the Blessed Trinity,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  That neither wife nor bairns have I,
+  And thou the fair flower of Northumberland.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;If courteously thou wilt set me free,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  I vow that I will marry thee,
+  And thou the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  &ldquo;Thou shalt be lady of castles and towers,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And sit like a queen in princely bowers,
+  Even thou the fair flower of Northumberland.&rdquo;
+
+  Then parted hence this lady gay,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And got her father&rsquo;s ring away,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  Likewise much gold got she by sleight,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And all to help this forlorn knight,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  Two gallant steeds both good and able,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand),
+  She likewise took out of the stable,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  And to the goaler she sent the ring,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Who the knight from prison forth did bring,
+  To meet the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  This token set the prisoner free,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Who straight went to this fair ladye,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  A gallant steed he did bestride,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And with the lady away did ride,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  They rode till they came to a water clear,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  &ldquo;Good sir, how shall I follow you here,
+  And I the fair flower of Northumberland?
+
+  &ldquo;The water is rough and wonderful deep,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And on my saddle I shall not keep,
+  And I the fair flower of Northumberland?
+
+  &ldquo;Fear not the ford, fair lady,&rdquo; quoth he,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  &ldquo;For long I cannot stay for thee,
+  Even thou the fair flower of Northumberland.&rdquo;
+
+  The lady prickt her gallant steed,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And over the water swam with speed,
+  Even she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  From top to toe all wet was she,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  &ldquo;This have I done for love of thee,
+  Even I the fair flower of Northumberland.&rdquo;
+
+  Thus rode she all one winter&rsquo;s night.
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Till Edenborough they saw in sight,
+  The fairest town in all Scotland.
+
+  &ldquo;Now I have a wife and children five,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  In Edenborough they be alive,
+  And thou the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  &ldquo;And if thou wilt not give thy hand,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Then get thee home to fair England,
+  And thou the fair flower of Northumberland
+
+  &ldquo;This favour thou shalt have, to boot,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  I&rsquo;ll have thy horse; go thou on foot,
+  Even thou the fair flower of Northumberland.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;O false and faithless knight,&rdquo; quoth she;
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  &ldquo;And canst thou deal so bad with me,
+  Even I the fair flower of Northumberland?&rdquo;
+
+  He took her from her stately steed,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And left her there in extreme need,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  Then she sat down full heavily,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  At length two knights came riding by,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  Two gallant knights of fair England,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And there they found her on the strand,
+  Even she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  She fell down humbly on her knee,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Crying, &ldquo;Courteous knights, take pity on me,
+  Even I the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  &ldquo;I have offended my father dear,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  For a false knight that brought me here,
+  Even I the fair flower of Northumberland.&rdquo;
+
+  They took her up beside them then,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And brought her to her father again,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  Now all you fair maids, be warned by me,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Scots never were true, nor ever will be,
+  To lord, nor lady, nor fair England.
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  WHITTINGHAM FAIR.
+
+  Are you going to Whittingham Fair
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  Remember me to one that lives there,
+  For once she was a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell her to make me a cambric shirt,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  Without any seam or needlework,
+  Then she shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell her to wash it in yonder well,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  Where never spring water or rain ever fell,
+  And she shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell her to dry it on yonder thorn,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  Which never bore blossom since Adam was born.
+  Then she shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Now he has asked me questions three,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  I hope he&rsquo;ll answer as many for me,
+  Before he shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell him to buy me an acre of land,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  Betwixt the salt water and the sea sand,
+  Then he shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell him to plough it with a ram&rsquo;s horn.
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  And sow it all over with one pepper corn.
+  And he shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell him to shear&rsquo;t with a sickle of leather,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  And bind it up with a peacock feather,
+  And he shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell him to thrash it on yonder wall,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  And never let one corn of it fall,
+  Then he shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  When he has done and finished his work,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  O tell him to come and he&rsquo;ll have his shirt,
+  And he shall be a true lover of mine.
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  O THE OAK AND THE ASH.
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  A North country mayde up to London had strayed,
+  Although with her nature it did not agree.
+  Which made her repent, and often lament,
+  Still wishing again in the North for to be.
+    &ldquo;O the Oak and the Ash and the bonny Ivy tree,
+    They are all growing green in my North Countrie!&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;O fain wad I be in the North Countrie
+  Where the lads and the lasses are all making hay;
+  O there wad I see what is pleasant to me,&mdash;
+  A mischief &rsquo;light on them enticed me away!
+    O the Oak and the Ash and the bonny Ivy tree,
+    They are all growing green in my North Countrie!&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;Then farewell my father, and farewell my mother,
+  Until I do see you I nothing but mourn;
+  Remembering my brothers, my sisters, and others&mdash;
+  In less than a year I hope to return.
+    O the Oak and the Ash and the bonny Ivy tree.
+    They are all growing green in my North Countrie!&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  SAIR FEYL&rsquo;D, HINNY!
+</pre>
+<pre>
+     &ldquo;Sair feyl&rsquo;d, hinny!
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d now,
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d, hinny,
+      Sin&rsquo; aw ken&rsquo;d thou.
+  Aw was young and lusty,
+  Aw was fair and clear;
+  Aw was young and lusty
+  Mony a lang year.
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d, hinny!
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d now;
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d, hinny,
+      Sin&rsquo; aw ken&rsquo;d thou.
+
+  &ldquo;When aw was young and lusty
+  Aw cud lowp u dyke;
+  But now aw&rsquo;m aud and still.
+  Aw can hardly stop a syke.
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d, hinny!
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d now,
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d hinny,
+      Sin&rsquo; aw ken&rsquo;d thou.
+
+  &ldquo;When aw was five and twenty
+  Aw was brave an bauld.
+  Now at five an&rsquo; sixty
+  Aw&rsquo;m byeth stiff an&rsquo; cauld.
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d, hinny!
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d now.
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d, hinny,
+      Sin&rsquo; aw ken&rsquo;d thou&rdquo;
+
+  Thus said the aud man
+  To the oak tree;
+  &ldquo;Sair feyl&rsquo;d is aw
+  Sin&rsquo; aw kenn&rsquo;d thee!
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d, hinny!
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d now;
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d, hinny,
+      Sin&rsquo; aw ken&rsquo;d thou.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  AW WISH YOE MUTHER WAD CUM!
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Cum, Geordy, haud the bairn,
+  Aw&rsquo;s sure aw&rsquo;ll not stop lang,
+  Aw&rsquo;d tyek the jewl me-sel,
+  But really aw&rsquo;s not strang.
+  Thor&rsquo;s flooer and coals te get,
+  The hoose-torns thor not deun,
+  So haud the bairn for fairs,
+  Ye&rsquo;re often deun&rsquo;d for fun!&rdquo;
+
+  Then Geordy held the bairn,
+  But sair agyen his will,
+  The poor bit thing wes gud,
+  But Geordy had ne skill,
+  He haddint its muther&rsquo;s ways,
+  He sat both stiff an&rsquo; num,&mdash;
+  Before five minutes wes past
+  He wished its muther wad cum!
+
+  His wife had scarcely gyen,
+  The bairn begun te squall,
+  Wi&rsquo; hikin&rsquo;t up an&rsquo; doon
+  He&rsquo;d let the poor thing fall,
+  It waddent haud its tung,
+  Tho&rsquo; sum aud teun he&rsquo;d hum,&mdash;
+  &lsquo;Jack an&rsquo; Gill went up a hill&rsquo;&mdash;
+  &ldquo;Aw wish yor muther wad cum!&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;What weary toil,&rdquo; says he,
+  &ldquo;This nursin bairns mun be,
+  A bit on&rsquo;t&rsquo;s weel eneuf,
+  Ay, quite eneuf for me;
+  Te keep a crying bairn,
+  It may be grand te sum,
+  A day&rsquo;s wark&rsquo;s not as bad&mdash;
+  Aw wish yor muther wad cum.
+
+  &ldquo;Men seldom give a thowt
+  Te what thor wives indure,
+  Aw thowt she&rsquo;d nowt te de
+  But clean the hoose, aw&rsquo;s sure.
+  Or myek me dinner an&rsquo; tea&mdash;
+  It&rsquo;s startin&rsquo; te chow its thumb,
+  The poor thing wants its tit,
+  Aw wish yor muther wad cum.&rdquo;
+
+  What a selfish world this is,
+  Thor&rsquo;s nowt mair se than man;
+  He laffs at wummin&rsquo;s toil,
+  And winnet nurse his awn;&mdash;
+  It&rsquo;s startin&rsquo; te cry agyen,
+  Aw see tuts throo its gum,
+  Maw little bit pet, dinnet fret,&mdash;
+  Aw wish yor muther wad cum.
+
+  &ldquo;But kindness dis a vast.
+  It&rsquo;s ne use gettin&rsquo; vext.
+  It winnet please the bairn,
+  Or ease a mind perplext.
+  At last&mdash;its gyen te sleep,
+  Me wife&rsquo;ll not say aw&rsquo;s num,
+  She&rsquo;ll think aw&rsquo;s a real gud norse,
+  Aw wish yor muther wud cum!&rdquo;
+
+  <i>Joe Wilson</i>
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  THE AULD FISHER&rsquo;S LAST WISH
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  The morn is grey, and green the brae, the wind is frae the wast
+  Before the gale the snaw-white clouds are drivin&rsquo; light and fast;
+  The airly sun is glintin&rsquo; forth, owre hill, and dell, and plain,
+  And Coquet&rsquo;s streams are glitterin&rsquo;, as they run frae muir to main.
+
+  At Dewshill wood the mavis sings beside her birken nest,
+  At Halystane the laverock springs upon his breezy quest;
+  Wi&rsquo; eydent e&rsquo;e, aboon the craigs, the gled is high in air,
+  Beneath brent Brinkburn&rsquo;s shadowed cliff the fox lies in his lair.
+
+  There&rsquo;s joy at merry Thristlehaugh tie new-mown hay to win;
+  The busy bees at Todstead-shaw are bringing honey in;
+  The trouts they loup in ilka stream, the birds on ilka tree;
+  Auld Coquet-side is Coquet still&mdash;but there&rsquo;s nae place for me!
+
+  My sun is set, my eyne are wet, cauld poortith now is mine;
+  Nae mair I&rsquo;ll range by Coquet-side and thraw the gleesome line;
+  Nae mair I&rsquo;ll see her bonnie stream in spring-bright raiment drest,
+  Save in the dream that stirs the heart when the weary e&rsquo;e&rsquo;s at rest.
+
+  Oh! were my limbs as ance they were, to jink across the green.
+  And were my heart as light again as sometime it has been,
+  And could my fortunes blink again as erst when youth was sweet,
+  Then Coquet&mdash;hap what might beside&mdash;we&rsquo;d no be lang to meet&rsquo;
+
+  Or had I but the cushat&rsquo;s wing, where&rsquo;er I list to flee,
+  And wi&rsquo; a wish, might wend my way owre hill, and dale, and lea.
+  &rsquo;Tis there I&rsquo;d fauld that weary wing, there gaze my latest gaze.
+  Content to see thee ance again&mdash;then sleep beside thy braes!
+
+  &mdash;<i>Thomas Doublerday</i>.
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  A SONNET.
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  Go, take thine angle, and with practised line.
+    Light as the gossamer, the current sweep;
+    And if thou failest in the calm, still deep,
+  In the rough eddy may a prize be thine.
+  Say thou&rsquo;rt unlucky where the sunbeams shine;
+    Beneath the shadow, where the waters creep
+    Perchance the monarch of the brook shall leap&mdash;
+  For fate is ever better than design.
+
+  Still persevere; the giddiest breeze that blows,
+    For thee may blow with fame and fortune rife.
+  Be prosperous; and what reck if it arose
+    Out of some pebble with the stream at strife,
+  Or that the light wind dallied with the boughs?
+    Thou art successful.&mdash;Such is human life!
+
+  &mdash;<i>Thomas Doubleday</i>.
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  A VISION OF JOYOUS-GARDE.
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;And so sir Launcelot brought sir Tristan and La Beate Isoud unto
+  Joyous-gard, the which was his owne castle that hee had wonne with his
+  owne hands.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Malory</i>.
+
+  &ldquo;Bamburgh ... the great rock-fortress that was known to the Celts as
+  Dinguardi, and was to figure in Arthurian romance as Joyous Garde ...
+  &ldquo;&mdash;<i>C.J. Bates</i> (History of Northumberland).
+
+    I wandered under winter stars
+    The lone Northumbrian shore;
+  And night lay deep in silence on the sea.
+    Save where, unceasingly,
+    Among the pillared scaurs
+  Of perilous Farnes, wild waves for ever more
+    Breaking in foam,
+  Sounded as some far strife through the star-haunted gloam.
+
+    Before me, looming through the night,
+    Darker than night&rsquo;s sad heart,
+  King Ida&rsquo;s castle on the sheer crag set
+    Waked darker sorrow yet
+    Within me for the light,
+  Beauty, and might of old loves rent apart,
+    Time-broken, spent,
+  And strewn as old dead winds among the salt-sea bent.
+
+    Till, dreaming of the glittering days,
+    And eves with beauty starred,
+  Time fell from me as some night-cloud withdrawn,
+    And in enchanted dawn,
+    All in a golden haze,
+  I saw the gleaming towers of Joyous Garde
+    In splendour rise,
+  Tall, pinnacled, and white to my dream-laden eyes.
+
+    While thither, as in days of old,
+    Launcelot homeward came,
+  War-wearied, and yet wearier of the strife
+    Of love that tore his life;
+
+    Burning, beneath the cold
+  Armour of steel, a never-dying flame:
+    The fierce desire
+  Consuming honour&rsquo;s gold on the heart&rsquo;s altar fire!
+
+    And thither in great love he brought
+    The fugitives of love,
+  Isoud and Tristram fleeing from King Mark.
+    One day &rsquo;twixt dark and dark
+    These lovers, by fate caught
+  In love&rsquo;s bright web, dreamed with blue skies above
+    Of love no tide
+  Of wavering life may part, or death&rsquo;s swift sea divide.
+
+    But Launcelot, in their bliss forlorn,
+    Fled from the laughter clear
+  Of happy lovers, and love&rsquo;s silent noon;
+    All night beneath the moon
+    He strode, his spirit torn
+  For Guenevere! All night on Guenevere
+    He cried aloud
+  Unto the moonlit foam and every windy cloud.
+</pre>
+
+<hr />
+
+<pre>
+    Then faded, quivering, from my sight
+    The memory-woven dream.
+  The towers of Joyous Garde shall never more
+    Lighten that desolate shore;
+    No longe&rsquo;r through the night
+  Wrestling with love, beneath the pale moon gleam
+    That anguished form!&mdash;
+  But keen with snow and wind, and loud with gathering storm.
+
+  <i>&mdash;Wilfrid W. Gibson</i>.
+
+  (In &ldquo;The Northern Counties Magazine,&rdquo; March, 1901).
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  MY NORTH COUNTRIE.
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  O though here fair blows the rose, and the woodbine waves on high,
+  And oak, and elm, and bracken fronds enrich the rolling lea,
+  And winds, as if in Arcady, breathe joy as they go by,
+  Yet I yearn and I pine for my North Countrie!
+
+  I leave the drowsing South, and in thought I northward fly,
+  And walk the stretching moors that fringe the ever-calling sea,
+  And am gladdened as the gales that are so bitter-sweet rush by.
+  While grey clouds sweetly darken o&rsquo;er my North Countrie.
+
+  For there&rsquo;s music in the storms, and there&rsquo;s colour in the shades,
+  And joy e&rsquo;en in the grief so widely brooding o&rsquo;er the sea;
+  And larger thoughts have birth amid the moors and lonely glades
+  And reedy mounds and sands of my North Countrie!
+
+  &mdash;<i>Thomas Runciman</i>.
+</pre>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/257.jpg" width="170" height="298" alt="Illustration:
+Drawing" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">
+ANDREW REID &amp; COMPANY. LIMITED, PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS,
+NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus14"></a>
+<a href="images/map.jpg">
+<img src="images/map.jpg" width="432" height="600" alt="Illustration:
+SKETCH MAP OF NORTHUMBERLAND" /></a>
+<p class="caption"><b>SKETCH MAP OF NORTHUMBERLAND</b></p>
+</div>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11124 ***</div>
+</body>
+
+</html>
+
+
diff --git a/11124-h/images/001.jpg b/11124-h/images/001.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..278e9d7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11124-h/images/001.jpg
diff --git a/11124-h/images/010.jpg b/11124-h/images/010.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..32a6d24
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11124-h/images/010.jpg
diff --git a/11124-h/images/043.jpg b/11124-h/images/043.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..25e75f4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11124-h/images/043.jpg
diff --git a/11124-h/images/043.png b/11124-h/images/043.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..674d86a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11124-h/images/043.png
diff --git a/11124-h/images/066.jpg b/11124-h/images/066.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..26f59cf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11124-h/images/066.jpg
diff --git a/11124-h/images/092.jpg b/11124-h/images/092.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..851106c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11124-h/images/092.jpg
diff --git a/11124-h/images/092.png b/11124-h/images/092.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1162ec7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11124-h/images/092.png
diff --git a/11124-h/images/098.jpg b/11124-h/images/098.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..44d4549
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11124-h/images/098.jpg
diff --git a/11124-h/images/098.png b/11124-h/images/098.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4e7928e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11124-h/images/098.png
diff --git a/11124-h/images/110.jpg b/11124-h/images/110.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d98e142
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11124-h/images/110.jpg
diff --git a/11124-h/images/120.jpg b/11124-h/images/120.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bfd373c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11124-h/images/120.jpg
diff --git a/11124-h/images/120.png b/11124-h/images/120.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f43713f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11124-h/images/120.png
diff --git a/11124-h/images/144.jpg b/11124-h/images/144.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..81436ae
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11124-h/images/144.jpg
diff --git a/11124-h/images/166.jpg b/11124-h/images/166.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8e9a214
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11124-h/images/166.jpg
diff --git a/11124-h/images/166.png b/11124-h/images/166.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..36b460d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11124-h/images/166.png
diff --git a/11124-h/images/178.jpg b/11124-h/images/178.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2cc3c94
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11124-h/images/178.jpg
diff --git a/11124-h/images/228.jpg b/11124-h/images/228.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c69ec81
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11124-h/images/228.jpg
diff --git a/11124-h/images/231.jpg b/11124-h/images/231.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cc8f58a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11124-h/images/231.jpg
diff --git a/11124-h/images/231.png b/11124-h/images/231.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7e3ace9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11124-h/images/231.png
diff --git a/11124-h/images/257.jpg b/11124-h/images/257.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a1168d6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11124-h/images/257.jpg
diff --git a/11124-h/images/257.png b/11124-h/images/257.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cf39552
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11124-h/images/257.png
diff --git a/11124-h/images/cover.jpg b/11124-h/images/cover.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..345d16d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11124-h/images/cover.jpg
diff --git a/11124-h/images/map.jpg b/11124-h/images/map.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c2a03b5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11124-h/images/map.jpg
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a29da3b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #11124 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11124)
diff --git a/old/11124-0.txt b/old/11124-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1b120a0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,7415 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Northumberland Yesterday and To-day, by Jean F. Terry
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: Northumberland Yesterday and To-day
+
+Author: Jean F. Terry
+
+Release Date: February 17, 2004 [EBook #11124]
+[Most recently updated: June 7, 2020]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORTHUMBERLAND YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Miranda van de Heijning, Margaret Macaskill
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Northumberland Yesterday and To-day
+
+by Jean F. Terry, L.L.A.
+
+
+(St. Andrews), 1913.
+
+_To Sir Francis Douglas Blake,
+this book is inscribed in admiration of
+an eminent Northumbrian._
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+ INTRODUCTORY.
+ NORTHUMBERLAND YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
+ CHAPTER I. The Coast of Northumberland
+ CHAPTER II. North and South Tyne
+ CHAPTER III. Down the Tyne
+ CHAPTER IV. Newcastle-upon-Tyne
+ CHAPTER V. Elswick and its Founder
+ CHAPTER VI. The Cheviots
+ CHAPTER VII. The Roman Wall
+ CHAPTER VIII. Some Northumbrian Streams
+ CHAPTER IX. Drum and Trumpet
+ CHAPTER X. Tales and Legends
+ CHAPTER XI. Ballads and Poems
+
+[Illustration: Bamburgh Castle.]
+
+List of Illustrations
+
+ Bamburgh Castle. _From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham_
+ The Priory, Tynemouth. _From photograph by T.H. Dickinson, Sheriff Hill_
+ Untitled
+ Hexham Abbey from North West. _From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham_
+ The River Tyne at Newcastle (showing Swing Bridge Open).
+ Untitled
+ Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
+ Untitled
+ North Gateway, Housesteads and Roman Wall. _From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham_
+ Untitled
+ Alnwick Castle. _From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham_
+ The Wreck of the “Forfarshire”. _From illustration kindly lent by B. Rowland Hill, Newcastle_
+ Drawing of boat
+ Sketch Map Of Northumberland. _From a Drawing by C.H. Abbey_
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+
+    The following book makes no pretensions to be a mine of deep
+    historical research or antiquarian lore; its object will have been
+    achieved, and its existence to some extent justified, if haply by
+    its aid some of the dwellers in this northern county of ours, with
+    its past so full of action, and its present so rich in the
+    memorials of those actions, may pass a pleasant hour in becoming
+    acquainted through its pages with the happenings which have taken
+    place in their own particular fields, their own streets, or by
+    their own riverside.
+
+    I am aware that many learned volumes on this subject, representing
+    an enormous amount of patient labour and careful research in their
+    compilation, are already in existence. To such this little book can
+    in no sense be a rival; but there must be many people who have not
+    a superabundance of time, to enable them to dig out the information
+    for which they wish, from these various sources; nor can they
+    always make these volumes their own, to be consulted at leisure.
+
+    Northumbrians have always been interested in the records of their
+    own county, and are now-a-days not less so than when, some
+    three-and-a-half centuries ago, Roger North found them “great
+    antiquarians within their own bounds.” If to such as these this
+    little book may perhaps bring in a more convenient form the
+    information they seek, and help them to become better acquainted
+    with the county which inspired Swinburne to write in stirring
+    phrases of “Northumberland,” and to address the home of his people
+    as
+  “Land beloved, where nought of legend’s dream Outshines the truth”—
+
+    I shall be more than satisfied. I would take this opportunity of
+    expressing my grateful thanks to the Rev. Canon Savage, of Hexham,
+    for information relating to the tomb of Alfwald the Just, in the
+    Abbey, given with courteous readiness; to the Rev. Canon Jeffery,
+    of Bywell, for similar kindness regarding Bywell St. Peter’s; to
+    R.O. Heslop, Esq., whose profound store of learning on the subject
+    of “Northumberland words” was in cases of uncertainty my final
+    court of appeal; to E.T. Nisbet, Esq., and J. Treble, Esq., to whom
+    I am greatly indebted for their goodness in reading my manuscript,
+    and for their generous encouragement following thereupon; to C.H.
+    Abbey, Esq., for his kindness in executing the map which
+    accompanies these pages; and to Mr. G.P. Dunn, of Corbridge, for
+    much helpful criticism, and many suggestions which only want of
+    space has prevented my adopting in their entirety.
+
+J.F.T.
+
+    _31st May_, 1913.
+
+
+
+
+NORTHUMBERLAND YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
+
+CHAPTER I. THE COAST OF NORTHUMBERLAND.
+
+
+  “We’ll see nae mair the sea banks fair, And the sweet grey gleaming
+  sky, And the lordly strand of Northumberland, And the goodly towers
+  thereby.”
+  —_A.C. Swinburne_.
+
+    Wild and bleak it may be, hard and cruel at times it undoubtedly
+    is, but, nevertheless, this north-east coast of ours is at all
+    times inspiring, whether half-hidden by storm-clouds, its cliffs
+    and hollows lashed by the “wild north-easter,” or seen calmly
+    brooding in the warm haze of a summer’s day, its grey-blue water
+    smiling beneath the grey-blue sky, and its stretches of sand and
+    bents edging the sea with a border of gold and silver.
+
+    In keeping with either mood of nature, the ancient Priory of
+    Tynemouth, standing on the sandstone cliffs on the northern bank of
+    the Tyne, rearing its grey and roofless walls above the harbour
+    mouth, strikes a note that is symbolic of the Northumbria of old
+    and the Northumberland of to-day—the note, that is, of the intimate
+    commingling of the romance of the warlike past and the romance of
+    the industrial present. Here, above the mouth of the river on which
+    so many of the most noteworthy advances in industrial science have
+    been made, and out of which sail the vessels which are often the
+    last word of the moment in marine engineering and construction,
+    stand calmly looking down upon them all the fragments of a building
+    which was a century old when John signed Magna Charta, and which
+    stands upon the site of another that had already braved the storms
+    of nearly five hundred years.
+
+    Looking upon the Priory of St. Mary and St. Oswin we are carried
+    back to the days when Edwin, the first king of Northumbria to
+    embrace Christianity, built a little church here, in which his
+    daughter took the veil. King Oswald had the first wooden structure
+    replaced by a stone one; and here, in 651, the body of another good
+    king—Oswyn—was brought for burial from Gilling, near Richmond in
+    Yorkshire, where, disbanding his army, he sacrificed his cause and
+    his life to Oswy of Bernicia, with whom he had been about to fight.
+
+[Illustration: The Priory, Tynemouth.]
+
+    When the pirate ships of the Danes swept down upon our coasts, the
+    Priory of St. Oswin, conspicuous on its bold headland, could not
+    hope to escape their ravages. It was destroyed by the fierce
+    invaders; but King Ecgfrith[1] of Northumbria restored the
+    shattered shrine. Again, in the year 865, it was sacked and burnt,
+    and the poor nuns of St. Hilda, who had already fled from
+    Hartlepool to Tynemouth hoping to find safety, were ruthlessly
+    slain and earned the crown of martyrdom. It was again restored;
+    but, five years later, the destroying hands of the invaders fell on
+    the place once more, and for two hundred years the Priory stood
+    roofless and tenantless. After the Norman Conquest, Waltheof, Earl
+    of Northumberland bestowed it upon the monks of Jarrow. The
+    rediscovery of the tomb of St. Oswyn in 1065, had gladdened the
+    hearts of the monks, and forthwith the monastery was reared anew
+    over the ashes of its former self.
+
+ [1] Pronounced “Edge-frith.”
+
+    Mowbray, the next Earl of Northumberland, re-endowed the building.
+    He had quarrelled with the Bishop of Durham, so in order to do him
+    a displeasure, he made Tynemouth Priory subordinate to St. Albans
+    instead of to Durham and brought monks from St. Albans to dwell
+    there. The new buildings were finished in 1110, and the bones of
+    St. Oswyn enshrined within them, the right of sanctuary being
+    extended for a mile around his resting-place. This right, however,
+    was already in existence, and had been appealed to in 1095 by
+    Mowbray himself, who fled here pursued by the followers of William
+    Rufus, against whom he had rebelled. The King’s men disregarded the
+    sanctuary right, captured Mowbray, and sent him prisoner to
+    Durham[2].
+
+ [2] See account of Bamburgh Castle.
+
+    In later days the queens of Edward I. and Edward II. visited
+    Tynemouth Priory; and it was from Tynemouth that the foolish King
+    Edward II. and his worthless favourite Piers Gaveston fled from the
+    angry barons to Scarborough. In the reign of Edward III., after the
+    battle of Neville’s Cross, David of Scotland was brought here by
+    his captors on his way to Bamburgh, from whence he was sent to the
+    Tower.
+
+    At the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. the Priory was
+    inhabited by eighteen monks with their Prior. They bowed to the
+    King’s decree and left the monastery; but the church continued to
+    be used as the parish church until the days of Charles II., when
+    Christ Church was built.
+
+    The Priory has many times formed the subject of pictures by famous
+    artists, the best known being that of no less a genius than J. M.
+    W. Turner; and its picturesque ruins are a well-known landmark to
+    the hundreds of voyagers who pass it on their journeys, outward or
+    homeward bound. Within the last few years the Priory has been in
+    some measure repaired and restored.
+
+    There is but little left of Tynemouth Castle, which was built as a
+    protection for the monastery against the attacks of the Danes. It
+    stands in a commanding position on a neighbouring cliff, and is now
+    used as barracks for garrison artillery corps. During the days when
+    Scotland harried the English borders, the Priors of Tynemouth
+    maintained a garrison here; and later, in Stuart days, Charles I.
+    visited the North, and the fortress was strengthened just before
+    the outbreak of the Civil War. It was captured, notwithstanding, by
+    Leslie, Earl of Leven, after he had left Newcastle. Colonel
+    Lilburn, left in charge as governor, shortly afterwards avowed
+    himself on the side of King Charles; but he speedily paid for his
+    change of allegiance, for the Castle was re-taken by a force from
+    Newcastle under Sir Arthur Hazelrigg, and Lilburn lost his life in
+    the fight. The Castle has long been used as a dep ôt for the
+    storage of arms and ammunition. Behind the Spanish Battery which
+    commands the entrance to the Tyne stands a statue of the famous
+    North-countryman, Admiral Collingwood.
+
+    Connected with Tynemouth, by the fact that a small chantry
+    belonging to the Priory once stood there, is St. Mary’s Island. One
+    may walk unhindered at low tide across the rocks to this favourite
+    place, but where the chantry stood there is now a lighthouse with a
+    powerful lantern, flashing its welcome light to the seafarers
+    nearing the mouth of the Tyne, and extending
+  “To each and all our equal lamp, at peril of the sea, The white
+  wall-sided war-ships, or the whalers of Dundee.”
+
+    Between Tynemouth and St. Mary’s Island lie Cullercoats, Whitley
+    Bay, and Monkseaton, and together these places make practically one
+    extended seaside town, stretching for three or four miles along the
+    sea-front, and joined by a fine parade which leads to open links at
+    Monkseaton. Of these places Cullercoats is most noteworthy. This
+    picturesque fishing village, with quaint old houses perched in
+    every conceivable position on the curve of its rocky bay, is,
+    needless to say, a favourite camping ground for artists. The
+    Cullercoats fishwife, with her cheerful weather-bronzed face, her
+    short jacket and ample skirts of blue flannel, and her heavily
+    laden “crees” of fish is not only appreciated by the brotherhood of
+    brush and pencil, but is one of the notable sights of the district.
+    At Cullercoats is struck a note of the most modern of modern
+    achievements—the Wireless Telegraphy Station (225 feet); and here,
+    too, is situated the Dove Marine Laboratory, looked after by
+    scientists on the staff of the Armstrong College at Newcastle.
+
+    In fine weather the crowds which pass and repass along the top of
+    the bold cliffs which overlook the fine stretch of sands between
+    Cullercoats and Monkseaton show how many hundreds of Northumbria’s
+    busy workers enjoy the fresh breezes from the sea on this pleasant
+    and bracing coast. Out at sea, opposite the Parade, vessels built
+    in the busy shipyards on the Tyne may be seen doing their speed
+    trials over the measured mile. The Peace of St. Oswyn may, in fact,
+    be said to brood over Tynemouth, even in these days, for it is an
+    increasing custom for those who can do so to remain in Newcastle
+    and other busy centres of toil only during business hours, and to
+    leave workshop and office every evening for their home by the sea:
+    while the tide of noisy, happy, boisterous excursionists has rolled
+    on to Whitley Bay, leaving Tynemouth to its old-time sleepy
+    content. Northward to Hartley and Seaton Sluice the cliffs are very
+    fine. Hartley, with its bright-looking red-tiled houses, once
+    belonged to Adam of Gesemuth (Jesmond) who lived in the reign of
+    King John. Coming down to modern times, about thirty years ago a
+    gallant Hartley man, Thomas Langley, rescued two successive
+    shipwrecked crews on the same day, in one case allowing himself to
+    be lowered over the cliffs at a terrible risk in the furious storm.
+
+    Seaton Sluice belongs to the ancient family of the Delavals, whose
+    house, Delaval Hall, may be seen not far away, peeping from amongst
+    the trees which surround it. Seaton Sluice owes its name to the
+    Delaval who placed the large sluice gates upon the burn, in order
+    to have a strong current which, in rushing down to the sea, would
+    be able to wash the mouth of the stream clear from the silt and mud
+    brought in by the incoming tide. A later baronet, Sir John Hussey
+    Delaval, made the cutting through the solid rock which is so
+    striking a feature of the harbour. It was ready for the entrance of
+    vessels in March, 1763.
+
+    Delaval Hall is now owned by Lord Hastings, the present
+    representative of the Delavals, which family became extinct in the
+    male line early in the nineteenth century. The last Delaval, a very
+    learned man, was buried in Westminster Abbey in 1814. The Hall was
+    built for Admiral Delaval in 1707 to the design of Sir J. Vanbrugh,
+    who also designed Blenheim Palace, given by the nation to the great
+    Duke of Marlborough about the same time.
+
+    Hartley Colliery, about half a mile away, has a sad interest as
+    being the scene of the terrible accident in 1862, when a number of
+    men and boys were imprisoned in the workings owing to the blocking
+    up of the only shaft by a mass of d ébris, caused by the fall of an
+    iron beam belonging to the pumping engine at the pit-head. Before
+    the shaft could be cleared and a way opened to the workings, all
+    the poor fellows had died, overcome by the deadly “choke-damp.”
+    Joseph Skipsey, the pitman poet, in a simple ballad, tells the
+    pathetic story.
+  “Oh, father! till the shaft is rid, Close, close beside me keep; My
+  eyelids are together glued, And I,—and I,—must sleep.”
+  “Sleep, darling, sleep, and I will keep Close by—heigh ho.”—To keep
+  Himself awake the father strives. But he—he, too—must sleep.
+  “Oh mother dear! wert, wert thou near Whilst—sleep!” The orphan
+  slept; And all night long, by the black pit-heap The mother a dumb
+  watch kept.
+
+    From here, northward, the coast is rather dull and uninteresting,
+    although the sands are fine, until we reach Blyth, at the mouth of
+    the little river of the same name. This town is growing rapidly in
+    size and importance; the export of coal has greatly increased since
+    the harbour was so much improved by Sir Matthew White Ridley, and
+    now totals some millions of tones a year. The river Wansbeck not
+    far north of the mouth of the Blyth, in the latter part of its
+    course flows through a district begrimed by all the necessary
+    accompaniments of the traffic in “black diamonds,” and reaches the
+    sea between the colliery villages of Cambois and North Seaton.
+
+    On the point at the northern curve of Newbiggin Bay stands
+    Newbiggin Church, and ancient building, whose steeple, “leaning all
+    awry,” is a well-known landmark for sailors. The site of this
+    church is in danger of being undermined by the waves, and, indeed,
+    part of the churchyard crumbled away many years ago; but such
+    defences as are possible have been built up around it,—and the
+    danger averted for a time. Newbiggin itself is a large fishing
+    village and an increasingly popular holiday resort, for it
+    possesses not only good sands but a wide moor near at hand which
+    provides one of the best of golf courses; and, also, a short
+    distance along the coast, are the attractive Fairy Rocks.
+
+    Newbiggin was a town of some importance in Plantagenet days, with a
+    busy harbour, and a pier; and in the reign of Edward II. it was
+    required to contribute a vessel towards the naval defence of the
+    Kingdom.
+
+    Northward from Newbiggin Point is the magnificent sweep of Druridge
+    Bay, stretching in a fine curve of ten miles or more to Hauxley
+    Haven. Here, the sands of a warm golden colour, the wind-swept
+    bents of silvery-grey, and the vivid green of the grassy cliff tops
+    edge the curve of the bay with a line of bright and delicate
+    colour, only thrown into greater relief by the brown reefs and
+    ridges which stretch out from the rocky shores, and by the deep
+    blue-green of the waves rolling inshore in long majestic lines, to
+    break into hissing foam on the sharp reefs, or slide smoothly up
+    the yellow sands in the centre of the bay. Above, beyond the grassy
+    tops of the cliffs, stretch deep woods, with the old pele-tower of
+    Cresswell looking out from amongst the trees, fields many-coloured
+    with their burden of varying crops, and wide lonely moors, where
+    one may walk for half a day without hearing any sound save the wild
+    screaming of sea-birds, or the whistle of the wind, with the low
+    boom of the waves below sounding a deep-toned accompaniment. The
+    bay is not always so peaceful, however, and many wild scenes and
+    terrible shipwrecks have taken place here, as everywhere along our
+    wild north-east coast. The Bondicar rocks, by Hauxley, and the
+    cruel spikes of the reef at Snab Point, near Cresswell, have
+    betrayed many a gallant little vessel to her doom. Not, however,
+    without bringing on many an occasion proof of the courage which is
+    shown as a matter of course by the fisher folk on our coasts. At
+    Newbiggin, and Cresswell, for instance, deeds have been done,
+    which, in their simple unassuming heroism, may be taken as typical
+    of the hardy race which could count Grace Darling among its
+    daughters.
+
+    About thirty years ago, a ship drove ashore off Cresswell one
+    bitter night in January, and the fisher folk crowded down to the
+    shore, watching with sorrowful eyes the hapless crew clinging to
+    their unfortunate vessel, which was slowly being broken up by the
+    waves. There was no lifeboat at Cresswell then, and all the men of
+    the village, except the old men who were past work, had gone
+    northward, when the oncoming storm prevented their return. The
+    women and girls heard the cries of the schooner’s crew, and mourned
+    to each other their inability to help. But one gallant-hearted
+    girl, named Peggy Brown, cried out, “If I thowt she could hing on a
+    bit, I wad be away for the lifeboat.” But between them and
+    Newbiggin, the nearest lifeboat station, the Lyne Burn runs into
+    the sea, and spreads widely out over the sands; and the older
+    people told Peggy she could never cross the burn in the dark. She
+    set off, however, the thought of the drowning men hastening her on.
+    For four miles she made her way in the storm and darkness, partly
+    along the shore, scrambling over rock’s, and wading waist-deep
+    through the Lyne Burn and one or two other places where the waves
+    had driven far up the sands, and partly across Newbiggin Moor,
+    where the icy wind tore at her in her drenched clothing. She
+    pressed on, however, and managed to reach the coxswain’s house and
+    give her message. The lifeboat was immediately run out, and the men
+    reached the wreck in time to save all the crew except one, who had
+    been washed overboard.
+
+    On another occasion one of the fishermen, named Tom Brown, was
+    preparing to go out, with the help of his two sons, in his own
+    fishing coble to the aid of a ship in distress on the reef. A
+    carter had come down to the beach, the better to watch the progress
+    of events, and, terrified by the thundering waves, his horse took
+    fright, and in its plunging drove the cart against the little boat,
+    making a hole clear through one side. “Big Tom,” as he was
+    generally called, merely took off his coat, rolled it into a bundle
+    and stuffed it against the hole. Then he beckoned to another
+    fisherman, saying to him “Sit on that.” The man clambered in, and
+    without the loss of another minute these four heroes set off to
+    save their fellow creatures’ lives, with a broken and leaking boat
+    in a heavy sea. And they did it, reaching the brig only just in
+    time, for it went to pieces a few minutes after the shivering crew
+    had been safely landed.
+
+    Incidents like these, which could be multiplied indefinitely, bring
+    a glow of pride to the heart, and a reassuring sense that the
+    degeneration of the race is not proceeding in such wholesale
+    fashion—in the country districts, at any rate—as the pessimists
+    would have us believe.
+
+    At the northern extremity of Druridge Bay is the little fishing
+    village of Hauxley, with the chimneys and pit-head engines of
+    Ratcliffe and Broomhill Collieries darkening the sky to the
+    south-west. Passing the Bondicar rocks and rounding the point we
+    enter the “fairway” for Warkworth Harbour and Amble, where a brisk
+    exportation of the coal of the neighbourhood is carried on.
+
+    Lying out at sea, opposite Amble coastguard station, the white
+    lighthouse on Coquet Island keeps watch over the entrance to the
+    harbour. Some of the walls of the monastery, which stood on the
+    island in Saxon days, can now be seen forming part of the dwelling
+    of the lighthouse keeper. For many generations, too, hermit after
+    hermit went to dwell on this tiny islet, and St. Cuthbert himself
+    is said to have inhabited the little cell at one time. The island
+    was captured by the Scots in the Civil Wars of King Charles’s
+    reign, and held by them for a time.
+
+    The situation of Amble, at the mouth of the Coquet, has been looked
+    upon as convenient from very early days, for there are signs which
+    tell us of a population here at an early period. Several
+    cist-vaens, or ancient stone coffins, have been found near the
+    town, and a broken Roman altar was unearthed in the neighbourhood.
+    The monastery which stood here, like that on Holy Island, was, in
+    later times, inhabited by Benedictine monks, who were under the
+    authority of the Prior of Tynemouth. William the Conqueror gave the
+    then Prior the right to collect the tithes of the little town.
+
+    A short distance from Amble, and practically encircled by the
+    Coquet which here makes a wide sweep, we come upon Warkworth,
+    prettiest of villages, combining the beauties of sea-shore and
+    river scenery, and rich in the possession of that romantic castle,
+    the ruins of which carry the mind back to Saxon times; for they
+    stand on the site of an older fortress erected by Ceolwulf, a Saxon
+    King of Northumbria. He was the patron of Bede, who dedicated his
+    “Ecclesiastical History” to his royal friend. Ceolwulf built both
+    the fortress and the earliest church at Warkworth, and a few stones
+    of this latter building are still to be seen. In 737, two years
+    after the death of Bede, this royal Saxon laid aside his kingly
+    state and became a monk on Lindisfarne,
+  “When he, for cowl and beads, laid down The Saxon battle-axe and
+  crown.”
+
+    It was when the castle was bestowed by Edward III. upon Lord Percy
+    of Alnwick that it became, for more than two hundred years, the
+    chief residence of that illustrious family; becoming in the next
+    reign of historical value as the home of that Hotspur whose valour
+    and gallantry made Henry IV. envy the Earl of Northumberland, in
+    that he “should be the father of so blest a son.” In Act II., Scene
+    3 of “Henry IV.,” Part II., Shakespeare has laid the scene at
+    Warkworth Castle, where Hotspur’s wife, troubled by her lord’s
+    moody abstraction, tries to win from him the reason of his secret
+    care. And after the battle of Shrewsbury, Rumour, flying with the
+    news of Hotspur’s death, says:—
+  “Thus have I rumoured through the peasant towns, Between the royal
+  field of Shrewsbury And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone, Where
+  Hotspur’s father, old Northumberland, Lies crafty-sick.”
+
+    Two years after this, the castle was besieged by Henry IV. himself,
+    and surrendered to him after a brief bombardment by the newly
+    invented cannon. The keep was re-built by Hotspur’s son, after the
+    family possessions had been restored to him by Henry V., and it is
+    now the only remaining part of the castle which is almost perfect.
+    One of the half-ruinous towers remaining is called the Lion Tower,
+    from the sculptured lion on its walls; while another rejoices in
+    the curious name of Cradyfargus. A strange story is told of a blue
+    stone to be seen in the courtyard of the castle. Many years ago, so
+    runs the tale, one of the custodians of Warkworth Castle dreamed
+    three nights in succession that a large treasure was concealed
+    beneath a blue stone in a certain part of the castle grounds. He
+    told this dream to a neighbour, and after allowing two or three
+    days to pass, finding the dream constantly recurring to his mind,
+    he thought he would go to the place indicated, and see what he
+    could find. To his disappointment, however, he discovered that some
+    one had been there before him; a large hole had been dug, and on
+    the edge of it lay the blue stone.
+
+    Needless to say, the hole was empty, nor could the keeper discover
+    anything about the treasure in the neighbourhood. It is said that a
+    certain family in the village became suddenly rich; and, many years
+    afterwards, a large and ancient pot, supposed to have been that in
+    which the buried treasure had been contained, was found in the
+    Coquet.
+
+    The main street of Warkworth leads straight up to the postern gate
+    of the castle, and many stirring sights have the successive
+    inhabitants of the little village looked upon, as the fortunes of
+    the owners of the castle waxed and waned throughout the many
+    centuries in which the lords of Warkworth played a notable part in
+    the history of England. They saw Henry Percy, entrusted with a
+    share in the safe keeping of the country, set out from Warkworth
+    for Durham, to help in winning the victory of Neville’s Cross.
+
+    They saw Hotspur’s force set out for the Cheviots to intercept
+    Douglas and his followers, which they did at Homildon Hill, near
+    Wooler; and it was the quarrel in connection with the prisoners
+    taken on that day which led Hotspur and his father openly to throw
+    off their allegiance to Henry IV., so that a few months later the
+    peasants of Warkworth saw their idolised young lord set out for
+    what was to prove the fatal field of Shrewsbury. They saw Hotspur’s
+    father, the first Henry Percy to receive the title of Earl, (a
+    title which had been given him at the coronation of Richard II.)
+    set out with a brave force after Hotspur’s departure; and they saw
+    his return, almost alone, dejected and broken in spirit, having
+    learnt that the help so tardily given had come too late, and the
+    life of his gallant son was ended.
+
+    They saw the siege train of Henry Bolingbroke laid against the
+    castle, directed by Henry in person, provoked into these active
+    measures by the open rebellion of father and son, though
+    Northumberland had tried to make it appear that he was innocent of
+    any treasonable act. After capturing the castle, Bolingbroke
+    bestowed it on his third son, John of Lancaster, and the villagers
+    saw the young prince riding in and out among them daily so long as
+    he made the castle his home.
+
+    Then, in the next reign, they welcomed the return of Hotspur’s son,
+    Henry, to the home of his fathers, restored to him by Henry V.;
+    and, within a short time, saw him bring home his bride, Eleanor
+    Neville, daughter of his friend and neighbour, the Earl of
+    Westmoreland.
+
+    In the Wars of the Roses, Warkworth Castle saw many changes of
+    fortune, as the tide of victory flowed this way and that. The
+    Percies were all Lancastrians, though Sir Ralph Percy changed sides
+    twice. The castle fell into the hands of the Yorkists, and the
+    great Earl of Warwick, the “King-maker” himself, made it his
+    headquarters for a time, while he superintended the sieges of
+    Alnwick, Dunstanborough, and Bamburgh, which were all invested at
+    the same time. Eventually, after the Wars of the Roses concluded,
+    Warkworth was restored, along with the other Percy estates, to its
+    original owners.
+
+    Finally, the inhabitants of the little village saw the church
+    entered by the Jacobites in 1715, when Mr. Buxton, chaplain of the
+    little force, prayed for James III. and Mary the Queen-mother; and
+    General Forster, dressed as a trumpeter, proclaimed King James III.
+    at the village cross.
+
+    A few miles north from the mouth of the Coquet, the little Aln
+    spreads over the sandy flats near Alnmouth, and reaches the sea. It
+    has changed its course, for at one time it flowed to the south of
+    Church Hill, instead of to the north as at present. The town of
+    Alnmouth, viewed from the train just before entering Alnmouth
+    Station, looks very picturesque, especially if the rare sunshine of
+    an English summer should be lighting up the bay, bringing out the
+    vivid red of the tiled roofs against the grassy hills fringing the
+    links which lie on their seaward side, and lighting up, also, the
+    yellow sands and long lines of sparkling wavelets edged with white.
+
+    Alnmouth depends for its living on a fleet of fishing boats, and on
+    the numbers of visitors who seek its fresh breezes and inviting
+    shores each summer. Golfers, indeed, find it pleasant all the year
+    round, as there is only a scarcely appreciable interval in the
+    winter months when their favourite pastime cannot be followed on
+    the breezy links. On Church Hill, now crowned by a few old stones,
+    once stood a Norman church, dedicated to St. Valery, which, in its
+    turn, occupied the site of an older Saxon building, supposed to
+    have been the church which Bede refers to as being at Twyford,
+    where a great synod of clergy was held in the year 684, and
+    Cuthbert appointed Bishop of Lindisfarne. It is a matter of dispute
+    whether this Twyford was Alnmouth or Whittingham, but the two fords
+    at Alnmouth seem to point to a decision in favour of that place.
+    The old Norman church, which fell into ruin at the beginning of
+    last century, was fired at by the famous pirate Paul Jones; the
+    cannon shot, weighing 68 pounds, missed the church, but struck a
+    neighbouring farm house, doing great damage.
+
+    The coast north of Alnmouth becomes rocky and wild, and very
+    picturesque, and the villages along the coast are being sought out
+    by holiday makers in increasing numbers, year by year. Boulmer, one
+    of these villages, was a famous place for smuggling in the old
+    days, and many an exciting scene and sharp encounter took place
+    between the smugglers and the King’s men. Not far away is Howick
+    Dene, a lovely little glen leading down to the sea from Howick
+    Hall, the home of Earl Grey.
+
+    Cullernose Point, a striking crag, is formed by the outcrop of a
+    portion of the Great Whin Sill, which from here can be traced to
+    the south-west, and thence right across the county.
+
+    At Craster, another fishing village and a favourite holiday haunt,
+    is Craster Tower, which has been the home of the family of Craster
+    since before the Conquest. Not far to the north is the famous
+    Rumble Churn in the rocks below Dunstanborough Castle, where the
+    waves roll in and out of the caves and chasms with weird and hollow
+    rumblings. There is another Rumbling Churn in the cliffs near
+    Howick.
+
+    The famous divine of the Middle Ages, John Duns Scotus, was born in
+    this parish—that of Embleton; the group of buildings known as
+    Dunston Hall, or Proctor’s Steads, is supposed to have been his
+    birthplace, and a portrait of the learned doctor is to be seen
+    there.
+
+    Dunstanborough Castle stands in lonely grandeur on great whinstone
+    crags, close to the very edge of the sea, and on the first sight of
+    it, Keats’ wonderful lines spring involuntarily to the lips:—
+  “Magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery
+  lands forlorn.”
+
+    Forlorn, indeed, though not in exactly the sense conveyed by the
+    poem, is this huge fortress now; it abides, says Freeman, “as a
+    castle should abide, in all the majesty of a shattered ruin.” The
+    primitive cannon of the days of the Wars of the Roses began to
+    shatter those mighty walls, and, unlike Bamborough, it has never
+    been strengthened since. Simon de Montford once owned this estate,
+    and the next lord of Dunstanborough was a son of Henry III., to
+    whom Earl Simon’s forfeited estate was given. His eldest son,
+    Thomas of Lancaster, took part with the barons in bringing the
+    unworthy favourite of Edward II., Piers Gaveston, to his death.
+    Under the King’s anger, Lancaster went away to his Northumbrian
+    estate, and began to build this mighty fortress, though he already
+    owned the castles of Kenilworth and Pontefract. In the Wars of the
+    Roses, Dunstanborough Castle was taken and retaken no less than
+    five times, and Queen Margaret found refuge here, as well as at
+    Bamburgh; but apart from these occasions, Dunstanborough has not
+    taken nearly so great a part in either local or national history as
+    the other Northumbrian castles of Bamburgh, Warkworth, and Alnwick,
+    though greater in extent than any of them. In 1538 an official
+    report describes “Dunstunburht” as “a very reuynous howse”; and the
+    process of dilapidation was soon aided by enterprising dwellers in
+    the neighbourhood using the stones of the forsaken castle to build
+    their own homesteads.
+
+    From the castle northward curves Embleton Bay, in which, after
+    having been buried in the sand for ages, a sandstone rock was
+    uncovered by the tide, having on its surface, chiselled in rough
+    but distinct lettering, the name “Andra Barton.” Sir Andrew Barton,
+    daring Scottish sea-captain and fearless freebooter, was slain in a
+    sea-fight off this part of the coast, in the days of Henry VIII.,
+    by the sons of Surrey, one of whom, Sir Thomas Howard, was Lord
+    Admiral at the time, and so, in a measure, responsible for the
+    defence of the English coast. The loss of his brave sea-captain and
+    his “goodly ships” was one of the grievances in the long list which
+    led King James IV. to declare war against England, and led to the
+    fatal field of Flodden, in which Admiral Sir Thomas Howard and his
+    brother took part under the command of their father, the Earl of
+    Surrey.
+
+    The wide sweep of grassy common beyond the sands in Embleton Bay
+    is, in summer time, covered with a profusion of wild flowers, chief
+    amongst them being the wild geranium, or meadow cranes-bill, whose
+    reddish-purple blossoms grow in such abundance as to arrest the
+    attention of every visitor. A little way back from the sea-shore,
+    in the middle of this wide space, lies the village of Embleton,
+    which possesses an ancient and interesting church, and a vicarage,
+    part of which is formed by an old pele-tower. Embleton would seem
+    to have a reputation to keep up in the way of famous churchmen.
+    Duns Scotus has been already mentioned; and one of the vicars here
+    was a cousin of Richard Steele, the essayist and friend of Addison;
+    and he described the country squires of his day in a paper which he
+    contributed to the “Spectator” of that date, 1712.
+
+    Another Vicar of Embleton, who lived here from 1874 to 1884, was
+    Dr. Mandell Creighton, the learned historian, who became Bishop of
+    London.
+
+    The well-known journalist, W.T. Stead, was born in the parish of
+    Embleton, though his childhood was passed in very different
+    surroundings, in the narrow streets and grimy atmosphere of
+    Howdon-on-Tyne. His recent death on the ill-fated _Titanic_ will be
+    fresh in the minds of all.
+
+    Newton-by-the-Sea is reached by a pleasant walk along the
+    sea-shore. (It is to be understood that in this journey along the
+    coast we are moving northward always). There is here a
+    cheery-looking white-washed coastguard station standing on the bold
+    headland of Newton Point.
+
+    Past this point is Beadnell Bay, with green and grassy Beadnell
+    just beyond Little Rock. The small fishing harbour at Beadnell has
+    the unique distinction of being the only harbour on the east coast
+    whose mouth faces west, and the short pier, running _inland_ from
+    rocks to shore, acts as a breakwater against the heavy easterly or
+    southeasterly seas and makes the harbour a safe anchorage for
+    fishing craft or small yachts. The rocks around this bay are very
+    interesting, showing the various strata very plainly, and
+    containing many fossils. The striking cliff called Ebbe’s Nook is
+    supposed to have been named after the Saxon princess Ebba, sister
+    to King Oswald, and the ruins which were discovered on the
+    headland, to be all that is left of a chapel erected to her memory.
+
+    At Seahouses is an extensive fish-curing establishment, a fact
+    which proclaims itself unmistakably as you near the village,
+    especially if the day chance to be at all warm. A little distance
+    from the shore is another fishing village, North Sunderland, and
+    northward from Seahouses is the inn called The Monkshouse, from the
+    fact that it once belonged to the community on Lindisfarne.
+
+    Bamburgh Castle, magnificently placed on a lofty crag rising
+    perpendicularly from the greensward on the west or landward side,
+    and almost as steeply from the sea which washes the north and east
+    sides, lies like a majestic lion on its mighty rock “brooding on
+    ancient fame.” The voices of children at play on the sands below
+    sound faint and far in the still air; the sea birds, with the
+    summer sunshine flashing on their outspread wings, sweep round and
+    round; in the far distance a trail of smoke low down on the horizon
+    marks the track of a passing steamer; and near at hand, southward a
+    little way from the castle cliff, the rocky islets of the Farne
+    group lie drowsily asleep on the gently-heaving swell of the
+    grey-blue waters. Behind the castle lies the pretty old-fashioned
+    village with its quaint hostelries and grove of trees; and from the
+    higher parts of the new golf-links the player may look round on a
+    view which would be difficult to match, comprising as it does, the
+    Farne Islands and Dunstanborough to the south, and northward, Holy
+    Island, with its castle and abbey and the bluish haze of smoke
+    lying over Berwick; while, on the western skyline, on a clear day,
+    may be seen the rounded caps of the Cheviots.
+
+    The beginnings of Bamburgh take us back more than a thousand years,
+    to that long-ago summer of 547, when the _cyuls_ (keels) of the
+    marauding Bernician chieftain Ida and his followers grounded on the
+    shore of our Northland, and the work of conquest began. Ida was not
+    slow to grasp the importance of such a commanding site as this
+    isolated mass of basaltic crag, and the rude stronghold which
+    crowned it. It became in time a formidable fortress, and remained
+    for centuries the headquarters of the kings of the North.
+
+    Here reigned Ida and his sons—six of them—for more or less short
+    and stormy periods, and Ethelric of Bernicia, who vanquished the
+    neighbouring prince of Deira, and thus reigned as the first king of
+    Northumbria as Northumbria. The Celtic name of the fortress was
+    Dinguardi, or Dinguvardy; and tradition has it that this was Sir
+    Lancelot’s castle of Joyeuse Garde, where he had often feasted the
+    Knights of the Round Table, and where he, at last, came home to
+    die. The fact that Bamburgh is the only pre-Conquest castle in
+    Northumberland disposes of the claim of Alnwick.
+
+    “My fair lords,” said sir Launcelot, “wit ye well, my careful body
+    will into the earth; I have warning more than I will now say;
+    therefore, I pray you, give me my rights.” So when he was houseled
+    and eneled, and had all that a Christian man ought to have, he
+    prayed the bishop that his fellows might bear his body unto Joyous
+    Gard.
+
+    Some men say Anwick, and some men say to Bamborow; “how-beit,” said
+    sir Launcelot, “me repenteth sore; but I made mine avow aforetime,
+    that in Joyous Gard I would be buried; and because of breaking of
+    mine vow, I pray you all lead me thither.” Then was there weeping
+    and wringing of hands among all his fellows.
+
+    And so, within fifteen days, they came to Joyous Gard, and there
+    they laid his corpse in the body of the quire, and read many
+    psalters and prayers over him and about him.... And right thus, as
+    they were at their service, there came sir Ector de Maris, that had
+    sought seven years all England, Scotland and Wales, seeking his
+    brother sir Launcelot.... Then went sir Bors unto sir Ector, and
+    told him how there lay his brother sir Launcelot dead.
+
+    And then sir Ector threw his shield, his sword, and his helm from
+    him; and when he beheld sir Launcelot’s visage, he fell down in a
+    swoon; and when he awoke, it were hard for any tongue to tell the
+    doleful complaints that he made for his brother. “Ah! sir
+    Launcelot,” said he, “thou wert head of all Christian knights!”
+    “And now, I dare say,” said sir Bors, “that sir Launcelot, there
+    thou liest, thou wert never matched of none earthly knight’s hands;
+    and thou wert the courtliest knight that ever bare a shield; and
+    thou wert the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrod horse;
+    and thou wert the truest lover of a sinful man that ever loved
+    woman; and thou wert the kindest man that ever stroke with sword;
+    and thou wert the goodliest person that ever came among press of
+    knights; and thou wert the meekest man, and the gentlest, that ever
+    eat in hall among ladies; and thou wert the sternest knight to thy
+    mortal foe, that ever put spear in the rest.”
+
+    Then there was weeping and dolor out of measure.
+  —_Malory’s Morte d’Arthur_.
+
+    Ethelfrith, who succeeded Ethelric, gave the fort to his second
+    wife, Bebba, after whom it was named Bebbanburgh, which soon became
+    Bamburgh.
+
+    In the days of King Edwin, who succeeded Ethelfrith, Bamburgh was
+    the centre of a kingdom which extended from the Humber to the
+    Forth, and as Northumbria was at that time the most important
+    division of England, the royal city of Bernicia was practically the
+    capital of the country. The reign of King Oswald, though shorter
+    than that of Edwin, was equally noteworthy from the fact that in
+    his days the gentle Aidan settled in Northumbria, and king and monk
+    worked together for the good of their people, and Bamburgh became
+    not only the seat of temporal power but the safeguard and bulwark
+    of the spiritual movement centred on the little isle of
+    Lindisfarne. On the accession of Edwin, Oswald, son of Ethelfrith,
+    had fled from Bernicia and taken refuge with the monks of Iona,
+    living with them till the time came for him to rule Northumbria in
+    his turn. As soon as possible after the inevitable fighting for his
+    political existence was over, he sent to Iona for a teacher to come
+    and instruct his people in the truths he had learned; and a monk
+    named Corman was sent. He, however, was unable to make any
+    impression on the wild and warlike Saxons of the northern kingdom,
+    and he soon returned to Iona with the report that it was useless to
+    try to teach such obstinate and barbarous people. One of the
+    brethren, listening to his account, ventured to ask him if he were
+    sure that all the fault lay with the people. “Did you remember,”
+    said he, “that we are commanded to give them the milk first? Did
+    you not rather try them with the strong meat?” With one accord the
+    brethren declared that he who had spoken such wise words was the
+    man best fitted for the task, and the gentle Aidan was sent to
+    Oswald’s help. In such a fashion came the Gospel to Northumbria,
+    and Aidan became the first of the long roll of saints whose deeds
+    and lives had such incalculable influence on Northumbrian history.
+    From Aidan’s arrival in 635 until the death of Oswald the relations
+    between the king and the monk who had settled on Medcaud or
+    Medcaut, soon to be known as Lindisfarne, and later as Holy Island,
+    were those of friend to friend and fellow-worker, rather than those
+    of king and subject.
+
+    After the death of Oswald, his conqueror Penda, the fierce King of
+    the Mercians, harried Northumbria, and appearing before the walls
+    of Bamburgh prepared to burn it down. Piles of logs and brushwood
+    were laid against the city and the fire was applied. Aidan, in his
+    little cell on Farne Island, to which he had retired, saw the
+    clouds of flame and smoke rolling over the home of his beloved
+    patron. Raising his hands to Heaven, he exclaimed, “See, Lord, what
+    ill Penda is doing!” Scarcely had he uttered the words, when the
+    wind changed, and drove the flames away from Bamburgh, blowing them
+    against Penda’s host, who thereupon ceased all further attempts
+    against the city.
+
+    Not long after this, Aidan was at Bamburgh, when he was seized with
+    sudden illness, and died with his head resting against one of the
+    wooden stays of the little church. Penda came again the next year,
+    and this time both village and church were burnt, all except, says
+    tradition, the beam of wood against which Aidan had rested in his
+    last moments.
+
+    When the Danish ships appeared off our shores, in the two centuries
+    following, Bamburgh was attacked and plundered several times. In
+    the days of William Rufus, as we have seen, Robert de Mowbray, Earl
+    of Northumberland, rebelled against the Red King, in company with
+    his uncle the Bishop of Coutances, Robert of Normandy, and William
+    of St. Carileph, Bishop of Durham. Rufus marched into
+    Northumberland, but the quarrel was adjusted for the time; though
+    private strife between the two Bishops led to Mowbray’s driving the
+    monks of Durham from the Priory at Tynemouth and replacing them by
+    monks from St. Albans.
+
+    Later, however, Mowbray disobeyed a summons from the Red King, who
+    once more marched into Northumberland. He reached Bamburgh, and
+    invested it, but failed to make any impression on that impregnable
+    stronghold, within whose walls were Mowbray and his young wife, the
+    Countess Matilda, and his nephew, who was Sheriff of
+    Northumberland. Rufus, finding all attempts to carry the fortress
+    useless, began to build a wooden fort, called a _Malvoisin_, or
+    “Bad neighbour”; and so anxious was he to have it speedily erected
+    that he made knights and nobles as well as his men-at-arms take
+    part in the work.
+
+    Mowbray, from the battlements, called out to many of these by name,
+    openly taunting those who had secretly promised to join him, or had
+    expressed themselves as in sympathy with his disobedience. His
+    words gave great amusement to Rufus and the nobles who were truly
+    loyal, and much mortification and vexation to those whom he so
+    ruthlessly exposed. Rufus left the “Bad neighbour” to continue the
+    siege and went southward.
+
+    Mowbray, led to believe that Newcastle would receive him, and take
+    his part, stole away from Bamburgh by sea, and reached Tynemouth.
+    On proceeding to Newcastle, however, he found he had been mistaken,
+    and hurriedly fled hack to Tynemouth, pursued by his enemies. He
+    held out against them for a day or two, but was then captured and
+    taken to Durham. Meanwhile the high-spirited Countess held Bamburgh
+    against all assailants; but Mowbray’s capture gave Rufus an
+    advantage he was not slow to use. Returning to the North, he
+    ordered Mowbray to be brought before the walls of Bamburgh, and
+    threatened to put his eyes out if the Countess did not immediately
+    surrender. Needless to say, she preferred to give up the castle,
+    and Mowbray’s reign as Earl of Northumberland was over.
+
+    Thereafter Bamburgh was visited by various sovereigns in turn, when
+    their affairs brought them to the northerly parts of their kingdom.
+    When Balliol, tired of long years of conflict, surrendered most of
+    his rights to Edward III., it was at Bamburgh that the convention
+    was concluded. In this reign the castle was greatly strengthened.
+
+    In the Wars of the Roses, Bamburgh was held for the queen by the
+    Lancastrian nobles of the north country—Percy and Ros—with the Earl
+    of Pembroke and Duke of Somerset; but was obliged on Christmas Eve,
+    1462, to capitulate to a superior force. The next year the Scots
+    and the queen’s French allies surprised it, and re-captured it for
+    Henry VI. and his courageous queen; but Warwick, “the King-maker,”
+    came upon the scene, and after a stout resistance the garrison
+    surrendered.
+
+    When the Union of the Crowns took place in 1603, Bamburgh was no
+    longer necessary as a defence against the Scots, and its defences
+    were neglected. The Forsters, into whose hands it passed in the
+    days of James I., were a spendthrift family, and gradually wasted
+    their rich estate, until in 1704 it had to be sold, and was bought
+    by Lord Crewe. He was Bishop of Durham at the time, having been
+    promoted to that position by Charles II., who liked his handsome
+    figure and pleasing manners. When at the age of fifty-eight, he
+    wished to marry Dorothea Forster, daughter of Sir William Forster,
+    of Bamburgh, the lady, who was many years younger, refused him at
+    first; but some years later he renewed his suit, and this time was
+    accepted. When the Forster estates were sold and their debts paid,
+    there was scarcely anything left for the heirs—Lady Crewe and her
+    nephew, Thomas Forster, who afterwards became the General of the
+    ill-fated Jacobite rising in 1715, and whose escape after his
+    capture was contrived by his high-spirited sister, Dorothy Forster
+    the second.
+
+    Lord Crewe, in his will, left a great part of his fortune to found
+    the Bamburgh Trust, for which his name will ever be remembered. The
+    most notable of the trustees, Archdeacon Sharp, administered the
+    moneys in so wise and beneficent a manner that to him most of the
+    credit is due for the real usefulness of the Crewe charities. These
+    include a surgery and dispensary; schools; the relief of persons in
+    distress; the clothing and educating of a certain number of girls;
+    the maintenance of a lifeboat, life-saving apparatus, and
+    everything necessary for the relief of ship-wrecked persons. A
+    lifeboat, kept in the harbour at Holy Island, is always ready to go
+    out on a signal from Bamburgh Castle.
+
+    The castle was extensively restored and repaired by the late Lord
+    Armstrong; but, sad to say, since his death it has been stripped of
+    many of its treasures. The church, dedicated to St. Aidan, stands
+    at the west end of the village; but there is no vestige remaining
+    of the one built in Saxon times, the present building having been
+    erected when Henry II. was king. In the churchyard is the grave of
+    Grace Darling, and many hundreds come to look on the last resting
+    place of the gentle girl who was yet so heroic, when her
+    compassionate heart nerved her girlish frame to the gallant effort
+    on behalf of her fellow-creatures in dire peril, when she
+  “.... rode the waves none else durst ride, None save her sire.”
+
+    The beautiful monument over her grave is by Raymond Smith, and is
+    an exact duplicate of the original one, also by him, which was
+    being injured so much by the weather that it was removed to a
+    position inside the church. The duplicate was commissioned by Lord
+    (then Sir William) Armstrong.
+
+    The island on which yet stands the lighthouse which was Grace’s
+    home is the Longstone, almost the farthest seaward of the rocky
+    group of the Farnes, lying almost opposite Bamburgh. The Longstone
+    is only about four feet above high-water mark, so that in stormy
+    weather the lighthouse is fiercely assailed by the heavy seas, and
+    the keepers are often driven for refuge to the upper chambers. To
+    the Longstone might with truth be attributed the opening lines of
+    Kipling’s poem, “The Coastwise Lights”:—
+  “Our brows are bound with spindrift, and the weed is on our knees,
+  Our loins are battered ’neath us by the swinging, smoking seas; From
+  reef, and rock, and skerry, over headland, ness, and voe, The
+  coastwise lights of England watch the ships of England go.”
+
+    There are about twenty of these little islets to be seen at low
+    tide, and very curious are some of their names—The Megstone, The
+    Crumstone, The Navestone, The Harcars, The Wedums, The Noxes
+    (Knokys), and The Wawmses. The largest, Farne Island, is the
+    nearest to the coast, and is the one to which St. Aidan retired,
+    and on which St. Cuthbert made himself a cell, and where he lived
+    for some years, leaving Lindisfarne (Holy Island) very often for
+    months together, to dwell alone on this almost bare rock and devote
+    himself to holy meditation and prayer.
+
+    To this island came King Ecgfrith of Northumbria with Archbishop
+    Trumwine and other representatives of the Synod to beg the hermit
+    to accept the Bishopric of Hexham; and it was on this island that
+    St. Cuthbert died, the monks who had gone to look after him
+    signalling the news of his death to his brethren at Lindisfarne by
+    means of torches. The island is rocky and precipitous, with deep
+    chasms between the high cliffs; and when a north wind blows, the
+    columns of foam and spray, from the waters dashing into the chasms
+    and over the tops of the cliffs, may be seen from the mainland
+    rising high into the air.
+
+    Before the first lighthouse was built on Farne Island, in 1766, a
+    coal fire was kindled every night on the top of the tower-like
+    building used as a fort. This method of warning passing vessels had
+    been used continuously since the days of Charles II. In great
+    contrast to this is the modern lighthouse, with its acetylene gas
+    lights and its automatic flash apparatus.
+
+    Close to Stapel Island are the three high basaltic pillars, of rock
+    called the Pinnacles. On all these islands sea-birds breed, but
+    especially on the Pinnacles, the Big and Little Harcar, and the
+    islet called the Brownsman.
+
+    Thousands and thousands of them perch and chatter on the rocks and
+    fly screaming in the air, amongst them being guillemots,
+    kittiwakes, gulls, terns, cormorants, puffins, and eider-ducks, for
+    which latter St. Cuthbert is said to have had great affection;
+    certainly they are the gentlest of these wild sea-fowl.
+
+    Bidding farewell to the rocky Farnes, we sail past Budle Bay, into
+    which runs the Warenburn and the Elwick burn, and underneath whose
+    sandy flats is the buried town of Warnmouth, once a busy seaport,
+    to which Henry III. granted a charter. Approaching Lindisfarne,
+    “Our isle of Saints, low-lying on the blue breast of the curling
+    waters, is hushed and silent in the lightly-purple mists of
+    morning, like the wide aisles of a great cathedral at daybreak,
+    before the feet and tongues of sightseers disturb the solemn
+    stillness. The tideway is covered with water, and the footprints of
+    the pilgrims who came yesterday to the shrine of St. Cuthbert have
+    passed into oblivion like footmarks on the sands of time.”
+    (_Galloway Kyle_.) The modern pilgrim to Holy Island generally
+    takes train to Beal station, and from there walks to the seashore,
+    and crosses the long stretch of sand between Holy Island and the
+    mainland. The governing factor in the possibility or otherwise of
+    making the journey is the state of the tide, for these sands are
+    entirely covered by the sea twice a day, so that Holy Island can
+    only be said to be an island at high tide.
+  “For with the flow and ebb, its style Varies from continent to isle;
+  Dry-shod, o’er sands, twice every day The pilgrims to the shrine find
+  way; Twice every day the waves efface Of staves and sandall’d feet
+  the trace.”
+
+    There are dangerous quicksands on the way, too, and a row of stakes
+    points out the proper course to be taken.
+
+    We have already seen that St. Aidan settled on Lindisfarne and have
+    treated of him in connection with Bamburgh. After his death another
+    monk of Iona, Finan, succeeded him and carried on his work; and
+    after Finan came Colman, who resigned after the Synod of Whitby had
+    decided to keep Easter according to southern instead of northern
+    usage. St. Cuthbert was Prior of Lindisfarne at this time. Later,
+    the seat of the bishopric was removed from Lindisfarne to York,
+    when it was held by that restless and able prelate, Wilfrid, for a
+    time. Then the bishopric was divided and a see of Hexham formed, as
+    well as that of Lindisfarne, which included Carlisle, out of the
+    northern portion of the diocese of York.
+
+    St. Cuthbert was bishop of Lindisfarne for two years, having
+    exchanged sees with bishop Eata, who went to Hexham. The stone
+    coffin in which St. Cuthbert’s body was pieced, after his death on
+    Farne Island, was buried on the right side of the altar in the
+    Abbey of Lindisfarne, which by this time had arisen on the little
+    island. A later bishop, Edfrid, executed a wonderful copy of the
+    Gospels, which was illuminated by his successor, Ethelwald. Another
+    bishop enclosed it in a cover of gold and silver, adorning it with
+    jewels; and, later, a priest of Lindisfarne, Aldred, wrote between
+    the lines a translation into the vernacular, and added marginal
+    notes. This precious manuscript, a wonderful example of the
+    beautiful work done in monastic houses in the north so many
+    centuries ago, is now in the British Museum, where it is known as
+    the “Durham Manuscript.”
+
+    When the pirate keels of the Danes appeared off our coasts about
+    the end of the eighth century, Lindisfarne Abbey was one of the
+    first points of attack; and in 793 it was plundered of most of its
+    wealth, and many of the monks were slain. For nearly a century
+    afterwards it was left in peace, but in 875 the Danish ships
+    appeared again approaching from the south, where they had just
+    sacked Tynemouth Priory. The bishop, Eardulph, last of the
+    Lindisfarne prelates, and the brethren hastily collected their most
+    treasured possessions, and with the body of St. Cuthbert, the bones
+    of St. Aidan, and other precious relics, they fled from their
+    island home, and journeyed north, west, and south for many years
+    before they found a resting place at Chester-le-Street near Durham.
+    For seven years they carried with them the body of St. Cuthbert;
+    and it is said that the final choice of a resting place for the
+    body of their beloved saint was indicated to them by supernatural
+    means as they approached Durham.
+
+    In 1069 William the Conqueror marched northward to visit with
+    sternest punishment the hardy north-men, who were so long in
+    submitting to his authority; and the monks of Durham fled before
+    the advance of the relentless Norman, carrying with them, as
+    before, the body of St. Cuthbert. They reached Lindisfarne in
+    safety to find the Abbey in the ruinous state in which it had been
+    left by the Danes two centuries earlier. Thus, once again, the body
+    of St. Cuthbert rested on the little island where so many years of
+    his life had been spent.
+
+    In 1070 the brethren returned to Durham and in 1093 the building
+    was begun, almost simultaneously, of the present glorious Cathedral
+    of Durham and a new Priory and Church on Lindisfarne, and a strong
+    resemblance may be traced between the two buildings The Abbey was
+    deserted on the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII., and
+    gradually fell into ruins.
+
+    The Castle, which stands on a lofty whinstone rock at the
+    south-east corner of the island, is a conspicuous object for many
+    miles, whether viewed by land or sea. It is supposed to have been
+    built in the reign of Henry VIII., at a time when defences were
+    commanded to be made to all harbours. If the Castle has had any
+    appreciable share of romantic incidents in its history, the records
+    thereof seem to be unknown; but one which has come down to us is
+    the account of its daring capture by an ardent North-country
+    Jacobite, Lancelot Errington, in 1715. The garrison consisted of
+    seven men, five of whom were absent. Errington, who was master of a
+    small vessel lying in the harbour, discovered this, and immediately
+    made his way to the Castle accompanied by his nephew, and
+    overpowered the two men who were left in charge, turning them out
+    of the Castle. He then signalled to the mainland for
+    reinforcements, but none were forthcoming. A company of King’s men
+    came instead and re-occupied the place, Errington and his nephew
+    escaping, to wander about in the neighbourhood for several days,
+    hiding from pursuit, before they got clear away. The Castle was for
+    many years the home of the coastguardsmen, who must have found it a
+    most advantageous position for their purpose, as they had an
+    uninterrupted view of miles of coast line.
+
+    Northward from Holy Island, but on the mainland, lies Goswick, from
+    whose red sandstone quarries came the material for building the
+    Abbey of Lindisfarne. Further north we come in sight of the coal
+    pits and smoke of Scremerston, while beyond it, Spittal and
+    Tweedmouth bring us right up to Berwick-on-Tweed itself, that grey
+    old Border town which has seen so many turns of fortune, and been
+    harried again and again, only to draw breath after each wild and
+    cruel interlude, and go calmly on its quiet way until it was once
+    more called upon to fight for its very existence.
+
+    Though definitely forming part of English soil since 1482, it is
+    not included in any English county, but, with about eight square
+    miles around it, forms a county by itself. Hence the addition, to
+    any Royal proclamation, of the well-known words “And in our Town of
+    Berwick-upon-Tweed.”
+
+    Sir Walter Scott’s description of the Northumbrian coast, in his
+    poem of Marmion may well be recalled here. It will be remembered
+    that the Abbess of Whitby, with some of her nuns, was voyaging to
+    Holy Island, and we take up the description when
+  “.... the vessel skirts the strand Of mountainous Northumberland;
+  Towns, towers, and halls successive rise, And catch the nuns’
+  delighted eyes. Monkwearmouth soon behind them lay, And Tynemouth’s
+  Priory and bay. They marked, amid her trees, the hall Of lofty Seaton
+  Delaval; They saw the Blyth and Wansbeck floods Rush to the sea
+  through sounding woods; They passed the tower of Widdrington, Mother
+  of many a valiant son; At Coquet-isle their beads they tell To the
+  good saint who owned the cell. Then did the Alne attention claim, And
+  Warkworth, proud of Percy’s name; And next they crossed themselves,
+  to hear The whitening breakers sound so near, Where, boiling through
+  the rocks, they roar On Dunstanborough’s caverned shore. Thy tower,
+  proud Bamburgh, marked they there, King Ida’s castle, huge and
+  square, From its tall rock look grimly down And on the swelling ocean
+  frown. Then from the coast they bore away And reached the Holy
+  Island’s bay.
+
+
+  As to the port the galley flew, Higher and higher rose to view The
+  castle with its battled walls, The ancient monastery’s halls, A
+  solemn, huge, and dark-red pile Placed on the margin of the isle.
+  In Saxon strength that abbey frowned, With massive arches, broad and
+  round.
+
+
+  On the deep walls, the heathen Dane Had poured his impious rage in
+  vain; And needful was such strength to these, Exposed to the
+  tempestuous seas, Scourged by the winds’ eternal sway, Open to rovers
+  fierce as they. Which could twelve hundred years withstand Winds,
+  waves, and northern pirates’ hand.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. NORTH AND SOUTH TYNE.
+
+
+  “On Kielder-side the wind blaws wide; There sounds nae hunting horn
+  That rings sae sweet as the winds that beat Round banks where Tyne is
+  born.” —_A.C. Swinburne_.
+
+    Between Peel Fell and Mid Fell, almost the farthest western heights
+    of the Cheviot Hills, a little mountain stream takes its rise, and
+    flows to the south and east. This little burn is the North Tyne,
+    the beginnings of that stream which, deep, dark, and swift at its
+    mouth, bears the mighty battleships there built to carry the
+    war-flags of the nations round the world. In the wild and lovely
+    district where the North Tyne takes its rise, is Kielder Castle, a
+    shooting box belonging to the Duke of Northumberland.
+
+    This neighbourhood is the scene of two romantic ballads; that of
+    the “Cowt (colt) of Kielder” and the Ettrick Shepherd’s ballad of
+    “Sir David Graeme.” The deadly enemy of the young “Cowt,” so called
+    from his great strength, is Lord Soulis of Hermitage Castle, on the
+    Scottish side of the border. The Cowt, with his followers, was
+    enticed into the Castle, where Lord Soulis purposed his death; but
+    the gigantic youth burst through the circle of his foes and
+    escaped. The evil Brownie of the moorland, however, gave to Lord
+    Soulis the secret which safeguarded the young Cowt. His coat of
+    mail was sword-proof by a spell of enchantment, and he wore in his
+    helmet rowan and holly leaves; but these would all be of no avail
+    against the power of running water. The Cowt was pursued until, in
+    crossing a burn, he stumbled and lost his helmet, and ere he
+    recovered, his enemies were upon him, and they held him under water
+    until he was drowned.
+
+    Not far from the mouth of the Bell Burn, which here runs into the
+    Tyne, a circle of stones outside an ancient burial ground is known
+    as the Cowt’s Grave.
+  “This is the bonny brae, the green, Yet sacred to the brave, Where
+  still, of ancient size, is seen Gigantic Kieldar’s grave.
+
+  Where weeps the birch with branches green Without the holy ground,
+  Between two old grey stones is seen The warrior’s ridgey mound.
+  And the hunters bold of Kieldar’s train, Within yon castle’s wall, In
+  a deadly sleep must aye remain Till the ruined towers down fall.”
+
+    In the ballad of “Sir David Graeme,” by James Hogg, the lady of the
+    story watched out of her window in vain for the coming of her
+    “noble Graeme,” who had vowed that the hate of her father and
+    brothers would not keep him from coming to carry off his fair lady
+    on St. Lambert’s night.
+  “The sun had drunk frae Kieldar Fell His beverage o’ the morning dew;
+  The deer had crouched her in the dell, The heather oped its bells o’
+  blue.
+
+  The lady to her window hied, And it opened o’er the banks o’ Tyne;
+  An’ “O! alack,” she said, and sighed, “Sure ilka breast is blythe but
+  mine?”
+
+    Her forebodings prove only too true, for her lover’s faithful hound
+    seeks her out, and with mournful looks induces her to follow him
+    over Deadwater Fell, and guides her to a lonely spot where the body
+    of the gallant Graeme, slain by her brothers, is lying.
+
+    In the neighbourhood of these desolate Fells are to be found many
+    traces of ancient British Camps.
+
+    The little mountain streams which here help to swell the stream of
+    the North Tyne are, on the south side, the Lewis and Whickhope
+    Burns, and on the north, the Plashetts and Hawkhope Burns. On both
+    sides of the Tyne, near the Whickhope and the Hawkhope Burns are
+    many remains of an ancient pre-historic forest, the largest being
+    near the Whickhope Burn where the abnormally thick stems of trees
+    may be seen.
+
+    The little village of Falstone is set amongst trees, in the midst
+    of pleasant meadows, a welcome relief from the bare fells and
+    moorlands around it; yet this wild scenery has a distinct
+    fascination of its own, and adds not a little to the charm of the
+    varied landscape within the bounds of our northern county. At
+    Falstone a fragment of an ancient cross was discovered, with an
+    inscription carved upon it—in Roman letters on one side and in the
+    Runes of the Anglo-Saxons on the other. The inscription states that
+    a certain Eamer set up the cross in memory of his uncle Hroethbert,
+    and asks for prayers for his soul. The existence of a similarly
+    inscribed cross is not known, so that the Society of Antiquaries,
+    in whose keeping this cross rests, has in it probably a unique
+    treasure.
+
+    The Tarset Burn, upon which stands the village of Thorneyburn, runs
+    into the Tyne not far from Falstone, and reminds us of the old
+    Border-riding days, when the rallying-cry of the men of the
+    district in many a feud with neighbouring clans was—“Tarset and
+    Tarret Burn, Hard and heather-bred, yet-yet-yet.” Near the spot
+    where the Tarset Burn joins the Tyne is a grassy hill on which once
+    stood Tarset Castle, a stronghold of that Red Comyn whom Bruce slew
+    in the little chapel at Dumfries, and of whose death Bruce’s friend
+    Kirkpatrick said he would “mak’ siccar”!
+
+    The village of Charlton, on the north bank of the Tyne, and the
+    mansion of Hesleyside on the other, carry the mind back to the old
+    reiving plundering days, for it was at Hesleyside that the incident
+    of the ancient spur of the Charlton’s took place, doubtless many a
+    time and oft, when the good lady of Hesleyside served up the spur
+    at dinner as a gentle hint that the larder was empty, and it
+    behoved her lord to mount and away to replenish the same,
+    preferably with stock from the Scottish side of the border, or if
+    not, a neighbour’s cattle would serve equally well.
+
+    The Charltons, Robsons (possibly the lineal descendants of
+    “Hroethbert” of the ancient cross) and Armstrongs, held almost
+    undisputed sway over this region, and the district teems with
+    reminders of their prowess and traditions of their exploits. The
+    men of Tynedale (the North Tyne) and Redesdale were known as the
+    fiercest and most lawless in all that wild district. Redesdale is a
+    district of monotonous, almost dreary, moorlands, and wild, bare
+    fells, where sheep graze on what scanty provender the bleak hills
+    afford, finding better fare, however, in the valleys near the river
+    banks, where the pasture is fresh and green.
+
+    Bellingham is to-day the most considerable village of the
+    neighbourhood; it stands conveniently at the foot of the hills
+    where the little Belling Burn, or Hareshaw Burn, joins the main
+    stream. In Hareshaw woods is the beautiful Hareshaw Linn, where the
+    stream falls down through a break in the sandstone cliffs, and
+    forms a picturesque waterfall, fringed with ferns and trees and
+    cool mosses. It well repays one for the walk of a mile or so
+    through tangled underwoods by the side of the burn. Bellingham
+    gives its mime to the family of de Bellingham, whose chief seat,
+    however, is now in Ireland and no longer in the little
+    north-country town.
+
+    The massive church here, with its roof of stone, bears eloquent
+    testimony to the need for fireproof buildings in a village so near
+    to Scotland in the days of Border warfare. Outside the churchyard
+    wall is the well of St. Cuthbert, or “Cuddy’s Well,” which was
+    greatly venerated in early days, and many stories are told of the
+    miraculous power of its waters. Inside the churchyard a grave is
+    pointed out as the burial place of the robber whose tragic end was
+    told by James Hogg in his gruesome story of “The Long Pack.”
+
+    The village itself is plain and bare, as might be expected from a
+    settlement which would probably find that unattractiveness in
+    either wealth or appearance was a tolerable safeguard.
+
+    Below Bellingham the North Tyne is joined by its longest and most
+    noted tributary, the Rede Water, which also rises in the Cheviots.
+    Rising in the hills north of Carter Fell, it flows south-east,
+    through a wild region, passing, while still high up amongst the
+    hills, the little village of Byrness, and the new reservoir at
+    Catcleugh, where a supply of pure water is stored for the use of
+    the dwellers in distant Newcastle. On its way to the Tyne, it
+    passes many an old pele-tower, and the Roman stations of Bremenium
+    (Rochester) and Habitancum, near Woodburn. The ancient Roman road
+    of Watling Street crosses the Rede at Woodburn, leading from
+    Habitancum to Bremenium.
+
+    Many mountain streams, clear and sparkling, or peaty and brown,
+    join the Rede Water on its way, amongst others the little Otter
+    Burn, by whose banks took place that stirring episode in the
+    constant quarrels between the Douglases and Percies known as “Chevy
+    Chase,” from which the fierce battle-cries ring down the five
+    centuries that have passed since that time, with sounds that echo
+    still.
+
+    The pretty village of Redesmouth (or Reedsmouth) stands where the
+    Rede Water enters the North Tyne, and a few miles further on the
+    rapid little Houxty Burn pours its peaty waters into the main
+    stream.
+
+    On the right bank of the Tyne stands Wark, conveniently placed at
+    one of the most important fords of the Tyne in former days. Like
+    other towns and villages so placed on different streams throughout
+    the country, the advantages of its situation have evidently been
+    appreciated by the successive inhabitants of the land, for there
+    are traces of its occupation by Celt, Roman, and Saxon; and, later,
+    the town was the most considerable in Upper Tynedale. During the
+    time that this part of England was ceded to the Scottish Kings,
+    David and Alexander, it was at Wark that the Scottish law courts
+    for Tynedale held their sittings. The mound called the Mote Hill,
+    near the river, marks the spot where, in all probability, the
+    ancient Celtic inhabitants met together to administer the rude
+    justice of prehistoric times, and to make the laws of their little
+    settlement, which grew to much greater proportions in later years.
+    In fact, it is supposed that the Kirkfield marks the site of a
+    church which stood in the midst of the once extensive town.
+
+    A little way up the Wark Burn, above the bridge, there may be seen
+    some upright stems of Sigillaria in the exposed face of the cliffs.
+    On the opposite side of the river from Wark is Chipchase Castle,
+    one of the finest mansions in Northumberland, standing in the midst
+    of the beautifully wooded and picturesque scenery which, from this
+    point onwards is characteristic of the North Tyne. Of the former
+    village of Chipchase scarcely a trace remains, though its name, if
+    nothing else, shows that here has been a village or small town,
+    important enough to have its well-known, market; for “Chip,” like
+    the various “Chippings” throughout England is derived from the
+    Anglo-Saxon _ciepan_—to buy and sell, to traffic. In the reign of
+    Henry II., Chipchase was the property of the Umfravilles of
+    Prudhoe; but later it passed into the hands of the well-known
+    Northumbrian family of Heron.
+
+    Not far from Chipchase Castle are the famous Gunnerton Crags,
+    formed by an out-crop of the Great Whin Sill. These lofty cliffs
+    have been the site of a considerable settlement of the ancient
+    British tribes who dwelt in the district in such numbers, as is
+    evident from the scores of camps, which may be traced all over this
+    part of Northumberland. The naturally strong position on the
+    Gunnerton Crags, would be certain to commend itself to a people,
+    the first requisite of whose dwelling places was strength and
+    consequent safety.
+
+    At Barrasford the making of the railway cutting led to the opening
+    up of a large barrow, or burial place, of the ancient Britons; and
+    a single “menhir,” supposed to be the solitary survivor of a large
+    group of these huge stones, stood near the village school some
+    years ago.
+
+    Passing Chollerton and Humshaugh, embowered amongst spreading
+    trees, we arrive at Chollerford, the prettiest village of North
+    Tyne, lying near the river where it was crossed by the Roman Wall.
+    From the bridge which spans the Tyne at Chollerford one of the
+    finest views of the river, both up and down the stream, is to be
+    seen; and to watch the swift brown stream, after a flood or a
+    freshet, foaming through the arches is an exhilarating sight. The
+    bridge itself is a modern one, for we know that all the bridges on
+    the Tyne, except that of Corbridge, were swept away by the great
+    flood of 1771.
+
+    In 1394, that prince of bridge-builders, Bishop Walter de Skirlaw
+    of Durham, granted thirteen days’ indulgence to all who should
+    assist in rebuilding the bridge at Chollerford; so that already
+    there was one here which had evidently fallen into disrepair. Yet,
+    in the ballad of “Jock o’ the Side,” the rescuers, with Jock in
+    their midst, reach Chollerford, and, after some anxious questioning
+    of an old man as to whether the “water will ride,” are compelled to
+    swim the Tyne in flood, which their pursuers, coming up, will not
+    attempt to do. Now Bishop Skirlaw’s bridges did not usually
+    disappear; those of Yarm, Shincliffe, and Auckland have stood until
+    to-day, with occasional repairs. Are we then reluctantly to
+    question the truth of “Jock o’ the Side”? Surely, if the choice
+    remain of the accuracy of the ballad or the fact of the bridge, it
+    is the duty of all leal North-country people to swear by the
+    ballad. Perhaps the good Bishop did not personally oversee the
+    rebuilding of Chollerford Bridge: more probably the Wear and Tees
+    do not come down with the angry impetuosity of the Tyne in flood!
+
+    The remains of the great Roman camp of Cilurnum (The Chesters) may
+    be seen here within Mrs. Clayton’s park. This was the largest
+    military station in Northumberland, Corstopitum, which is very much
+    larger, being more of a civil settlement. At some little distance
+    below the present bridge some of the piers of the old Roman bridge
+    are still to be seen when the river is low.
+
+    Eastward from Chollerford is the little church of St. Oswald,
+    standing where the battle of Heavenfield took place. When Penda of
+    Mercia, and the British Prince Cadwallon, were warring against
+    Northumbria, the greatest Northumbrian King, Edwin, was defeated
+    and slain by them; and on their return to the attack, Ethelfrith’s
+    eldest son, called back from exile to take the vacant throne, and
+    rule in his father’s seat of Bamburgh, also fell before their
+    fierce onslaught. His brother Oswald now took command of the
+    Bernicians and prepared to lead them against the foe. Oswald posted
+    his men in a strong position on the north side of the great Wall;
+    and, setting up a huge cross of wood, called upon all his followers
+    to bow before the God of whom he had learnt during his exile in
+    Iona, and to pray to Him for victory. His army obeyed, and, in the
+    battle which followed, Oswald’s forces were completely victorious.
+    The Mercians, and their allies, the western Britons, were routed,
+    and driven out of Bernicia, and Cadwallon was pursued as far as the
+    Denise Burn, and there slain. The Denise Burn is supposed to have
+    been the Rowley Burn, which flows into the Devil’s Water, on whose
+    banks stands Dilsten Castle. Some time later, on the spot where
+    Oswald’s Cross had stood, a church was erected and dedicated to the
+    royal Saint. It was served from Hexham Abbey.
+
+    After passing Wall, which, however, is not quite so near the Roman
+    Wall as Chollerford is, we come to the pretty village of Warden,
+    nestling beneath the woods of Warden Hill; and here, just above
+    Hexham, the North Tyne unites with its sister river in the rich
+    meadow lands which lie near the old town.
+
+    The South Tyne has journeyed from Cross Fell, where it takes its
+    rise, northward through a corner of Cumberland, past Garrygill and
+    Alston, until it enters Northumberland where the Ayle Burn on the
+    one hand, and the Gilderdale Burn on the other, flow into it. Here
+    is Whitley Castle, where was a small Roman station called Alio, and
+    Kirkhaugh Church, charmingly placed on the bank of the river, which
+    continues its course northward past Slaggyford, Knaresdale, Eals,
+    and Lambley, till it flows past the fine Castle of Featherstone,
+    and the ruins of Bellister, where it turns eastward to Haltwhistle.
+
+    The little streams which enter the South Tyne up to this point flow
+    through wild and romantic glens, two of them owning the Celtic
+    names of _Glen Cune_ and _Glen Dhu_.
+
+    The family of Featherstonehaugh is one of the oldest in the North;
+    and it was concerning the death of one of this family—Sir Albany
+    Featherstonehaugh, who was High Sheriff of Northumberland in the
+    days of Henry VIII.—that Mr. Surtees, the antiquary, wrote the
+    well-known ballad, which, when Surtees gave it him, deceived even
+    Sir Walter Scott into thinking it genuinely ancient. The first
+    verse of the ballad shows with what a verve and swing the lines go.
+  “Hoot awa’, lads, hoot awa’ Ha’ ye heard how the Ridleys, an’
+  Thirlwalls, an’ a’ Ha’ set upon Albany Featherstonehaugh; And taken
+  his life at the Deadmanshaw? There was Willimoteswick, And
+  Hard-riding Dick, An’ Hughie o’ Hawdon, an’ Will o’ the Wa’ I canno’
+  tell a’, I canno’ tell a’ And mony a mair that the de’il may knaw.”
+
+    The ruins of Bellister Castle stand against a sombre background of
+    woods, only a little way from Haltwhistle. The Castle once belonged
+    to the Blenkinsopp family, who also owned Blenkinsopp Castle, about
+    two miles away. The name was formerly spelt Blencan’s-hope—the hope
+    being valley or hollow—and the Castle, like many other places, has
+    its legendary “White Lady.”
+
+    Haltwhistle is a little straggling town lying on both sides of the
+    main road above the South Tyne, where it is joined by the
+    Haltwhistle Burn. By going up the valley of this pretty little
+    stream we shall arrive near the Roman station of AEsica, on the
+    Wall. The town of Haltwhistle is peaceful enough now, but it had a
+    stirring existence in the days when Ridleys, Armstrongs, and
+    Charltons, to say nothing of the men of Liddesdale and Teviotdale,
+    had so strong a partiality for a neighbour’s live-stock and so
+    ready a hand with arrow and spear. In the old ballad of “The Fray
+    of Hautwessel,” we are told that
+  “The limmer thieves o’ Liddesdale Wadna leave a kye in the haill
+  countrie, But an[3] we gi’e them the cauld steel, Our gear they’ll
+  reive it a’ awaye, Sae pert they stealis, I you saye. O’ late they
+  came to Hautwessel, And thowt they there wad drive a fray. But Alec
+  Ridley shot too well.”
+
+ [3] But an = unless.
+
+    The most notable feature of present-day Haltwhistle is the finely
+    placed parish church, of which the chancel is the oldest part,
+    having been built in the twelfth century, so that it was already an
+    old church when Edward I. rested here for a night in 1306, on his
+    way to Scotland for the last time. When William the Lion of
+    Scotland returned from his captivity, after being taken prisoner at
+    Alnwick in 1174, he founded the monastery of Arbroath in
+    thanksgiving for his freedom, and bestowed on the monks the church
+    of Haltwhistle.
+
+    All that remains of the old Castle, or “Haut-wysill Tower,” is the
+    building standing near the Castle Hill, which latter has been
+    fortified by earthworks. The Red Lion Hotel is a modernised
+    pele-tower. The general aspect of the place is singularly bare and
+    bleak; but from several points in the town, notably from the
+    churchyard terrace, fine views of the river valley may be obtained.
+
+    Henshaw (Hethinga’s-haugh) is a little village which King David of
+    Scotland, when he was Lord of Tynedale, gave to Richard Cumin and
+    his wife, who afterwards bestowed it on the Cathedral of Durham. It
+    lies by the side of the main road to Bardon Mill, which is the most
+    convenient station for travellers to alight at who wish to visit
+    the Roman Wall and the Roman city of Borcovicus, and the
+    Northumberland lakes. Some little distance up the hill from Bardon
+    Mill station is a very pretty little village whose name speaks
+    eloquently of other invaders than the Romans—the village of
+    Thorngrafton (the “ton” or settlement on Thor’s “graf” or dyke).
+    Near at hand there are quarries from which the Romans obtained much
+    building material for the Wall; and in one of these old quarries
+    some workmen discovered a bronze vessel full of Roman coins, a few
+    of gold, but most of silver. This was known as the “Thorngrafton
+    Find,” and the interesting story of it is told by Dr. Bruce.
+
+    On the opposite side of the South Tyne from Henshaw, Willimoteswick
+    Castle stands on the level plains which are as characteristic of
+    the south bank of the river as are the steep slopes of the north
+    bank. One of the towers of this old Castle yet remains, and forms
+    part of the more modern farm-house which stands there.
+    Willimoteswick was long in the possession of the Ridleys, and it is
+    generally accepted as having been the birthplace of Bishop Ridley,
+    though Unthank Hall, nearer to Haltwhistle, and also a home of that
+    family, disputes the honour. The Bishop, who suffered death at the
+    stake in the troublous times of Queen Mary, in touching letters
+    bids farewell to his Cousin at Willimoteswick and his sister and
+    her children at Unthank.
+
+    On the same side of the Tyne is Beltingham Church, with some
+    wonderful old trees in the churchyard, and Ridley Hall, which takes
+    its name from that family, although not now occupied by them. Here
+    the Allen flows into the South Tyne, and nowhere in the whole of
+    the county is there a more beautiful and romantic scene. By the
+    side of the stream the Ridley woods stretch for a mile or two, and
+    the delightful mingling of graceful ferns, overhanging trees, tall,
+    rugged cliffs, flowering plants, and sparkling waters forms a
+    succession of lovely scenes throughout their length, which, with
+    the play of lights and shadows on the dimpled surface of the
+    stream, and frequent glimpses of grassy glades and cool green
+    alleys, make a walk through these enchanting woods an unforgettable
+    delight.
+
+    The Allen Burn, which gives its name to the beautiful district of
+    Allendale, is, like the Tyne, formed by the junction of two
+    streams, the East and West Allen, which rise near each other in
+    hills on the border of Northumberland and Durham, down the opposite
+    slopes of which run the little streams which feed the Wear. After
+    flowing apart for some miles, the East and West Allen unite not far
+    from Staward railway station. Both rivers flow, for the first part
+    of their course, through a wild and hilly region, rich, however, in
+    minerals. On the East Allen are the towns of Allenheads, formerly a
+    busy centre of the lead-mining industry, and Allendale Town, which
+    lies about 1,400 feet above the sea-level.
+
+    As the lead-mining industry has decreased, Allendale has turned its
+    attention to other methods of living, and now caters for the army
+    of visitors who, each summer, climb its hills and wander through
+    its woods and lanes, and by its riverside, as did the Allendale
+    maid whose memory is perpetuated in the simple lines of the little
+    poem, “Lucy Gray of Allendale.”
+  “Say, have you seen the blushing rose, The blooming pink, or lily
+  pale? Fairer than any flower that blows Was Lucy Gray of Allendale.
+  Pensive at eve, down by the burn, Where oft the maid they used to
+  hail, The shepherds now are heard to mourn For Lucy Gray of
+  Allendale.”
+
+    Not far from the village of Catton, the name of “Rebel Hils”
+    reminds us that it was a vicar of Allendale, Mr. Patten, who joined
+    young Derwentwater in the rising of “The Fifteen,” and was
+    appointed chaplain of the little army. He met some half-dozen men
+    of the neighbourhood at this hill, when they set off together to
+    join the rest of the forces at Wooler.
+
+    On the West Allen is the lonely little hamlet of Ninebanks, with
+    Ninebanks Tower, concerning which little is known with certainty;
+    and on this stream also are two of the most strikingly beautiful
+    places in Northumberland—the delightfully picturesque village of
+    Whitfield, and the well-known Staward-le-Peel.
+
+    The ruins of the “Pele” tower stand on a high grassy platform,
+    safeguarded on three sides by tall cliffs and tumbled boulders; the
+    remains of a ditch may also be traced. From this point a splendid
+    view of the river valley, with its steep precipices, overhanging
+    pinewoods intermingled with trees of less sombre hue, and the
+    bright course of the river, may be obtained. At a point a little
+    higher up the valley, where the waters of the stream are held back
+    by some huge rocks, they form a deep pool, and then flow onwards
+    through a narrow gorge called Cyper’s Linn. Following the stream
+    now until it has merged its waters in those of the South Tyne, we
+    turn eastward with the main stream and come to Haydon Bridge.
+
+    This considerable village, gradually growing to the proportions of
+    a small town, lies on both sides of the river, which is here
+    crossed by the substantial bridge from which the village takes its
+    name; for the original village of Haydon stood at some distance up
+    the hill on the north side of the stream. On the hillside may still
+    be seen the ruins of the old church, in which services are
+    occasionally held in the summer time. The chancel, apparently
+    dating from the twelfth century, and a later little chapel to the
+    south of it, are all that are left of the building. Some very
+    quaint inscriptions are to be seen in the churchyard, and there are
+    many sculptured grave-covers within the church. Many of the stones
+    used in the building have evidently been brought from the great
+    Wall, or probably from the Roman station of Borcovicus, some six or
+    seven miles to the north; and what a rush of bewildering fancies
+    crowds upon one’s mind on first discovering that the font was
+    originally a Roman altar!
+
+    The old church must have looked down on many a wild and curious
+    scene in the days when Scot and Englishman sought only
+    opportunities to do each other an injury, and the river-valleys
+    were the natural passes through which the tide of invasion, raid,
+    and reprisal flowed.
+
+    In the beginning of the reign of Edward III., about 24,000 Scots,
+    under Douglas and Murray, crossed the Tyne near Haydon Bridge, and
+    rode on to plunder the richer lands that lay to the south and west.
+    They reached Stanhope and encamped there for a time. The young king
+    set out northwards with a great army to punish these marauders, and
+    he was told by his scouts that they had hastily left Stanhope on
+    his approach. He and his army pushed on quickly until they reached
+    Bardon Mill; and, crossing the Tyne, marched down to Haydon Bridge,
+    expecting the Scots to return by the way they went. It was
+    miserable weather, and the feeding of so many thousands of men was
+    no little problem. They scoured all the country round for
+    provisions, getting the most from the Hexham Abbey lands. Meanwhile
+    it rained and rained, and no Scots appeared. After a week of
+    waiting, Edward, in great disappointment, went to Haltwhistle,
+    while his followers reconnoitered in all directions. Finally, he
+    had the mortification of learning that the Scots were still at
+    Stanhope, but before anything more could be done, they betook
+    themselves back to Scotland by a different route, and there was
+    nothing left for Edward but to give up the expedition in despair.
+
+    The bridge at Haydon appears to have been the only one for some
+    distance up and down the river in the sixteenth century, for we
+    read of its being barred and chained, on various occasions of
+    marauding troubles in Tynedale, to prevent the free-booters
+    re-crossing the river.
+
+    In the days of Charles I. Colonel Lilburn marched to Haydon Bridge
+    in command of some troops of the Roundheads, on his way to join
+    their comrades at Hexham as a counter-move to the operations of the
+    Royalist troops in the North. Little more than thirty years after
+    this, when the days of Cromwell’s power had come and gone, and
+    Charles II. ruled at Whitehall, the old Grammar School was founded
+    at Haydon Bridge in 1685 by a clergyman, the Rev. John Shafto.
+    Various changes have taken place in the school from time to time,
+    necessitated by the gradual changes and educational needs of the
+    passing years; and now, like the Grammar School of Queen Elizabeth
+    at Hexham, it has been entirely re-constituted to meet modern
+    requirements. John Martin, the famous painter of “The Plains of
+    Heaven,” received the beginnings of his education at this school.
+    He was born at East Land Ends farm in 1789. In after years the
+    authorities of Haydon Bridge Reading Room, wishing no doubt to
+    afford a perfect example to future generations of the truth of the
+    proverb concerning a prophet and his own country, refused some of
+    Martin’s pictures, which the gifted painter himself offered to
+    them—an act which their successors have doubtless regretted.
+
+    At a little distance along the Langley Road, which leads past the
+    school, a memorial cross is standing. It was erected in 1883 by the
+    late Mr. C.J. Bates, the historian of Northumberland, to the memory
+    of the last of the Derwentwater family, whose castle of Langley he
+    purchased. The inscription on the cross reads:—“To the memory of
+    James and Charles, Viscounts Langley, Earls of Derwentwater,
+    beheaded on Tower Hill, London, 24th February, 1716, and 8th
+    December, 1746, for loyalty to their lawful sovereign.”
+
+    A striking testimony, this, to the fact that freedom in England is
+    a reality, and not merely a name. In what other land would an
+    inscription such as this have been allowed to remain for more than
+    twenty-four hours?
+
+    A couple of miles or more down the South Tyne is Fourstones, so
+    called because of four stones, said to have been Roman altars,
+    having been used to mark its boundaries. A romantic use was made of
+    one of these stones in the early days of “The Fifteen.” Every
+    evening, as dusk fell, a little figure, clad in green, stole up to
+    the ancient altar, which had been slightly hollowed out, and,
+    taking out a packet, laid another in its place. The mysterious
+    packets, placed there so secretly, were letters from the Jacobites
+    of the neighbourhood to each other; and the little figure in green
+    was a boy who acted as messenger for them. No wonder that the
+    people of the district gave this altar the name of the “Fairy
+    Stone.”
+
+    Between Haydon Bridge and Fourstones are both freestone and
+    limestone quarries, which latter have supplied many fossils to
+    visitors of geological tastes. Halfway between Fourstones and
+    Hexham, the two streams of North and South Tyne unite, and flow
+    together down to the old town of Hexham, with its quaintly
+    irregular buildings clustering in picturesque confusion round its
+    ancient Abbey, which dominates the landscape from whatever point we
+    approach.
+
+    Warden Village, already mentioned, lies in the angle formed by the
+    meeting of the two streams, and has an ancient church which,
+    however, has been largely rebuilt. From High Warden, near at hand,
+    a delightful view may be obtained for a long distance up the
+    valleys of North and South Tyne. On the summit of this hill there
+    are the remains of a considerable British camp, showing that they
+    had seized upon this point of vantage, and though the ancient
+    British name has not come down to us, it is evident from the Saxon
+    name of Warden (_weardian_) that Saxons as well as Britons were
+    fully alive to the merits of the situation, “guarding” the valley
+    at such a commanding point.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. DOWN THE TYNE.
+
+
+    The town of Hexham, standing on hilly ground overlooking the Tyne,
+    immediately below the point at which the North and South Tyne
+    unite, and spreading from thence down to the levels all round, is
+    one of the most ancient in the kingdom. To write of Hexham with any
+    measure of fulness would require much more space than can be given
+    to it within the limits of a small book; only a mere summary can be
+    offered here. Britons, Romans, and Saxons, in turn, have dwelt on
+    and around the hill which, in Saxon days, was to be crowned with
+    Wilfrid’s beautiful Abbey, which, we read, surpassed all others in
+    England at that time for beauty and excellence of design and
+    workmanship; nor was there another to equal it anywhere on this
+    side of the Alps.
+
+    The name of Hexham is generally understood to be derived from the
+    names of two little streams, the Hextol and the Halgut, now the
+    Cowgarth and the Cockshaw Burns, which here flow into the Tyne; or,
+    as Mr. Bates suggests, it may have been the “ham” of “some
+    forgotten Hagustald,” which the name perpetuates. In any case its
+    name was Hagustaldesham when King Ecgfrith (or Egfrid) of
+    Northumbria gave it to his queen, Etheldreda, who wished to take
+    the veil. Queen Etheldreda, however, preferred to go to East
+    Anglia, which was her home; she retired to a convent at Ely, and
+    bestowed the land at Hagustaldesham on Wilfrid, a monk of
+    Lindisfarne, clever, ambitious and hardworking, who had become
+    Bishop of York, which meant Bishop of all Northumbria.
+
+    Wilfrid had been to Rome, and seen the churches of that city and of
+    the lands through which he travelled; and, on his appointment to
+    power, he set himself to make the churches of his diocese worthy to
+    compare with those of older civilizations. He did much to the
+    cathedral of York, and built that of Ripon; but the Abbey of Hexham
+    was his masterpiece. He built a monastery and church, dedicating
+    the latter to St. Andrew, for it was in the church of St. Andrew at
+    Rome that, kneeling, he felt himself fired with enthusiasm for his
+    work, in the same church from which Augustine had set out on his
+    journey to Britain some fifty years before. The year 674 is
+    generally accepted as the date on which this noble Abbey was
+    founded.
+
+    Wilfrid lived in great splendour at York, and ruled his immense
+    diocese with a firm hand; in fact, he was the first of that line of
+    great ecclesiastics who have moved with such proud, and oft-times
+    turbulent, progress through the pages of English history. King
+    Ecgfrith’s second wife, Ermenburga, was jealous of the great power
+    and magnificence of the Northumbrian prelate, and through her
+    influence, Archbishop Theodore was induced to divide the huge
+    diocese of Northumbria into four portions—York, Hexham, Ripon and
+    Withern in Galloway. Wilfrid, naturally indignant, found all his
+    protests disregarded, and immediately set out for Rome, to obtain a
+    decree of restitution from the Pope. It was given to him, but
+    little cared the Northumbrians for that. Wilfrid was imprisoned for
+    nine months, and then banished from Northumbria.
+
+    He went southwards and dwelt in Sussex, where his genius for hard
+    work found scope in a mission to the Saxons of the south lands, and
+    where he built and founded more churches and monasteries. Readers
+    of “Rewards and Fairies” will have made acquaintance with Wilfrid
+    in his Sussex wanderings and hardships. On his recall to the North
+    by King Aldfrith, he returned to Hexham. On the death of Aldfrith,
+    the new King, Edwulf, banished Wilfrid once more, ordering him to
+    leave the kingdom within six days; but the friends of Aldfrith’s
+    young son, whom Edwulf had dispossessed, obtained the ascendancy,
+    and Wilfrid was re-instated in his Abbeys of Hexham and Ripon.
+
+    While on his way back from Rome, on his last visit, Wilfrid had a
+    severe illness, but was granted a vision in which he was told that
+    he had four years more to live, and that he must build a church to
+    the honour of the Blessed Virgin. The little church of St. Mary,
+    which stood close to the walls of the great Abbey of Hexham, was
+    erected in fulfilment of this command.
+
+    In the Abbey church itself, all that was known for centuries of the
+    original work of Wilfrid was the famous crypt, which is almost
+    unique, that of Ripon, also the work of Wilfrid, being the only one
+    like it; but recent excavations have brought much more of the
+    ancient cathedral to light, and laid bare, not only its original
+    plan, but some of the walls, and part of the very pavement trodden
+    by the feet of Wilfrid and his fellows so many centuries ago. The
+    tomb of Wilfrid, however, is not at Hexham, but at his other
+    foundation of Ripon.
+
+    The ancient Abbey suffered much at the hands of the Danes, and in
+    later years from the ravages of the Scots, having been burnt
+    several times, notably in 1296, when 40,000 Scots ravaged the North
+    of England, plundering, burning, and laying waste wherever they
+    went, exactly as the Danes had done four hundred years before. Some
+    of the stones of the old Abbey yet bear traces of the fires by
+    which the ancient building was so often nearly destroyed, and in
+    these frequent conflagrations all records, charters, etc., of the
+    Abbey, from which might have been compiled a complete history, not
+    only of the Abbey but of much of the provincial and national
+    history of the times, were lost.
+
+    The Abbey was restored and rebuilt again and again, but for varying
+    reasons was without a nave for some hundreds of years. Within the
+    last ten years, however, a complete restoration has been carried
+    out, under the loving, and, what is more to the point, the capable
+    superintendence of Canon Savage and his colleagues, in the spirit
+    and manner, as nearly as possible, of the beautiful portions
+    already standing; and several disfiguring so-called “restorations”
+    of nineteenth century work, which could only detract from the
+    beauty and dignity of the noble building, have been removed
+    entirely. This work was completed in 1908, and all who have the
+    honour of our famous county at heart must rejoice that its noblest
+    church is at last more worthy of its own high rank and glorious
+    past.
+
+    Among the many deeply interesting objects to be seen in the Abbey
+    is the stone Sanctuary seat—the Frid Stool, or seat of peace—at
+    which fugitives, fleeing from their enemies, might find refuge. It
+    is believed that this was the “Cathedra” of St. Wilfrid himself.
+    The arms and back of the chair are ornamented with a twisted
+    knot-work pattern. The right of Sanctuary extended for a mile round
+    the Abbey, the boundaries being marked by crosses, one at each
+    point of the compass at that distance.
+
+[Illustration: Hexham Abbey from North West Hexham Abbey from North
+West]
+
+    Other treasures of the Abbey are the beautiful Old Rood Screen,
+    dating from the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth
+    century; some wonderful old paintings, especially the portraits of
+    the early Bishops of Hexham, Alcmund, Wilfrid, Acca, Eata,
+    Frithbert, Cuthbert, and John, which date from the fifteenth
+    century; the mediaeval carved and painted pulpit, and the tomb of
+    good King Alfwald of Northumbria. Many of the stones used by
+    Wilfrid’s builders were of Roman workmanship, and seem to have come
+    from the Roman city of Corstopitum, at Corbridge. An inscription on
+    one of these old stones in the crypt takes us back some centuries
+    before even Wilfrid’s time, for it commemorates the Emperor Severus
+    and his two sons, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Caracalla) and Publius
+    Septimius Geta, and has the name of the latter erased, as was done
+    on all similar inscriptions throughout the Empire, by order of the
+    inhuman Caracalla, after his murder of his brother.
+
+    A very interesting feature of the building is the stone stairway in
+    the South transept, by which the monks ascended to their
+    dormitories above.
+
+    Quite near to the Abbey, at the other side of the Market Place, the
+    ancient Moot Hall claims attention. The modern visitor to the old
+    town walks beneath the gloomy archway, with its time-worn stones,
+    which forms the basement over which the Moot Hall stands. Another
+    building, grim and dark, near at hand, is the Old Manor House, in
+    which the business connected with the ancient Manor of Hexham was
+    transacted.
+
+    An old foundation in the town was the Queen Elizabeth Grammar
+    School, which, after having fallen into desuetude for many years,
+    has been revived in a form appropriate to modern needs, and housed
+    in a worthy building, formally opened by Sir Francis Blake on
+    November 2nd, 1910. The site on which the new Grammar School of
+    Queen Elizabeth stands is one of the finest in the county,
+    commanding, as it does, an uninterrupted view of the river valley
+    for some distance, and of the rising ground beyond.
+
+    At the beginning of last century, Hexham was famed for its
+    glove-making: but that industry has forsaken the town for many
+    years. Now, Hexham is surrounded by acres of market-gardens, from
+    which the produce of Tynedale is carried far and wide.
+
+    The spacious stretch of level meadow-land below Hexham, rising
+    gradually up to the swelling ridges beyond, is said to have been
+    the scene which John Martin had in mind when he painted the “Plains
+    of Heaven”; though the level reaches above Newburn, unencumbered
+    with buildings in John Martin’s time, and then a scene of quiet
+    pastoral beauty, also claim that honour.
+
+    Flowing now between well ordered gardens, green meadows, and ferny
+    banks, brawling musically over shingly shallows, or crooning gently
+    between fringing woods, the Tyne rolls onward to Corbridge,
+    receiving on its way the Devil’s Water, a sparkling stream which
+    flows through scenes of enchanting beauty, whether between rugged
+    cliffs and heather clad hills as in its upper course, through the
+    graceful overhanging trees and cool green recesses of Dipton woods
+    or between rich meadows and green pasture-land where it loses
+    itself in the bosom of the Tyne.
+
+    There is no more delightful experience than to wander through the
+    woods of Deepdene (Dipton) on a summer’s day, when it requires no
+    stretch of the imagination to believe oneself in an enchanted
+    forest, or, on hearing a crackle of twigs, or faint sounds of the
+    outside world filtering through the green solitudes, to turn round
+    expecting to see a maiden on a “milk-white steed,” or one of the
+    Knights of the Round Table come riding by, in bravery of glistening
+    armour and gay surtout, and to find oneself murmuring, “Now, Sir
+    Gawain rode apace, and came unto a right fair wood, and findeth the
+    stream of a spring that ran with a great rushing, and nigh
+    thereunto was a way that was much haunted. He abandoneth his
+    high-way, and goeth all along the stream from the spring that
+    lasteth a long league plenary, until that he espieth a right fair
+    house and right fair chapel enclosed within a hedge of wood.”
+
+    On the green meadows of Hexham Levels and near Dilston Castle—two
+    spots of more than ordinary historical interest—the Lancastrian
+    cause received, in 1464, a blow from which it never rallied, though
+    the courageous Queen fought gallantly till the final disasters at
+    Barnet and Tewkesbury. The general of her forces, the Duke of
+    Somerset, was beheaded in Hexham market-place, and, together with
+    several others of rank and station, buried at Hexham. The
+    well-known incident of Queen Margaret’s escape into Dipton, or
+    Deepdene woods, where she and young Prince Edward met with robbers,
+    and afterwards escaped by the aid of another member of that
+    fraternity, took place a year before this, after the first battle
+    of Hexham in 1463. The year had been one of constant warfare
+    between York and Lancaster in the north, the Castles of Alnwick and
+    Bamburgh having fallen into the hands of Queen Margaret’s friends
+    once more, after having been raptured by Edward of York the year
+    before; the Scots with Margaret and King Henry VI., had besieged
+    Norham, but were put to flight by the Earl of Warwick and hid
+    brother, Lord Montague; the royal fugitives sought safety at
+    Bamburgh, whence the Queen, with Prince Edward, sailed for
+    Flanders, leaving King Henry in the Castle where he was in no
+    immediate danger; Warwick, with his forces, retired southward
+    again, and the gentle King remained in his rocky stronghold, and
+    enjoyed there nine months of unwonted peace. Shortly after this,
+    the Duke of Somerset deserted the cause of York for that of
+    Lancaster, and became the leader of the Queen’s forces. In April,
+    1464, he and Sir Ralph Percy opposed, at Hedgeley Moor, the troops
+    of Lord Montague journeying northward to escort the Scottish
+    delegates who were coming to York to make terms with Edward of
+    York. Sir Ralph Percy was slain, exclaiming as he fell “I have
+    saved the bird in my bosom”—that enigmatic sentence which has given
+    rise to so much conjecture, but which is generally held to mean
+    that he had saved his honour, by dying at last, after so many
+    changes of front, in the service of that King and Queen to whom he
+    originally owed allegiance. “Percy’s Cross,” marking the site of
+    his death, may be seen by the side of the railway near Hedgeley
+    Station, on the Alnwick and Wooler line.
+
+    The rest of the force dispersed, and made their way to Hexham; and
+    Lord Montague marching upon them from Newcastle, a sharp engagement
+    took place on the Levels, near the Linnels Bridge, with the result,
+    as we have seen, of the defeat and death of Somerset, and the
+    overthrow of Queen Margaret’s hopes in the north, where she had had
+    a strong following.
+
+    The historical interest centred on Dilston Castle brings us to much
+    later times, and enshrines a story which possesses a pathetic
+    interest beyond that of any other place in Northumberland.
+    Originally the home of the family of D’Eivill, later Dyvelstone
+    (which explains the name “Devil’s Water”) Dilston Castle came into
+    the possession of the Radcliffes by marriage, and in the days of
+    the Commonwealth the Radcliffe of the day forfeited his estates on
+    account of his loyalty to the house of Stuart. Charles II. restored
+    them, and the close attachment between the houses of Stuart and
+    Radcliffe continued until the fortunes of both were quenched in
+    disaster and gloom. The figure of the young and gallant James
+    Radcliffe, last Earl of Derwentwater, holds the imagination no less
+    than the heart as it moves across the page of history for a brief
+    space to its tragic end. Though born in London, in June 1689, young
+    Radcliffe passed his childhood and youth in France in the closest
+    companionship with James Stuart, son of the exiled James II. At the
+    age of twenty-one he returned to his home in Northumbria, and took
+    up his residence there, his charming manners, kind heart, and
+    openhanded hospitality speedily endearing him to all classes. His
+    servants and tenants, in particular, were passionately devoted to
+    him. In the words of the old ballad of “Derwentwater”—
+  “O, Derwentwater’s a bonnie lord, And golden is his hair, And
+  glintin’ is his hawkin’ e’e Wi’ kind love dwelling there.”
+
+    On his marriage in 1712, the young bride and bridegroom remained
+    for two years at the home of the bride’s father, and preparations
+    were made for restoring the glories of Dilston on an extensive
+    scale. On Derwentwater’s return to his beautiful Northumbrian seat
+    in 1714, the death of Queen Anne had excited the hopes of all the
+    friends of the house of Stuart, and plots and secret meetings were
+    being planned throughout Scotland and the north of England, the
+    objective being the restoration of the exiled Stuarts to the
+    throne. Derwentwater took little part in these attempts to organise
+    rebellion for some time, but at length was drawn into the dangerous
+    game, as he was too valuable an asset to be passed over by the
+    Jacobite party.
+
+    At last rumours of the projected rising reached London, and a
+    warrant was issued for the arrest of Derwentwater, even before it
+    was known whether he had actually joined the plotters, his
+    well-known friendship with the exiled Prince making it almost
+    certain that he would be an important figure in any movement on
+    their behalf. For the next few weeks the young Earl found himself
+    obliged to remain in hiding, finding safety in the cottages of his
+    tenants, and in the houses of friends and neighbours. Finally,
+    though his good sense warned him that he was embarking on an almost
+    hopeless enterprise, he decided to throw in his lot with the
+    Jacobites.
+
+    Tradition has it that his decision was brought about by the taunts
+    of his Countess, who, like the rest of the Jacobite ladies, was
+    more enthusiastic than the men. Throwing down her fan, she
+    scornfully offered that to her husband as a weapon, and demanded
+    his sword in exchange. The immediate result was seen on that
+    October morning when Derwentwater and his little band of followers
+    rode over the bridge at Corbridge with drawn swords, on their way
+    to Beaufront, which was their first rendezvous; and from there
+    proceeded to Greenrigg, near the great Wall, which had been
+    appointed as a general meeting-place.
+
+    There they were joined by Mr. Forster, of Bamburgh, with his
+    contingent, and a few from the surrounding district. Rothbury next
+    saw the little army, which was joined on Felton Bridge by seventy
+    Scots; and thereafter Warkworth, Alnwick, and Morpeth heard James
+    Stuart proclaimed King under the title of James III.
+
+    Newcastle was to have been their next objective, but, hearing that
+    the city had closed its gates, and intended to hold out for King
+    George, the Jacobite force, after some indecision, returned
+    northward to Rothbury, where they were joined by a large company of
+    Scottish Jacobites under Lord Kenmure. Northward again they marched
+    to Kelso, where more than a thousand Scots joined forces with them.
+
+    The little army numbered now almost 2,000, and a council was held
+    to determine what their next step should be. On its being resolved
+    to enter England, some hundreds of the Highlanders returned home,
+    leaving an army of about 1,500 to march southwards to Lancashire.
+    On their way they put to flight at Penrith a motley force which was
+    raised to oppose them; and, elated with a first success, moved
+    forward to Preston, grievously disappointed on the way at the
+    failure of the people of Lancashire to rise with them, for they had
+    been given to understand that thousands in that county were only
+    awaiting an opportunity to declare for “King James.”
+
+    At Preston they barricaded the principal streets, and repulsed
+    General Willis; but the arrival of General Carpenter from Newcastle
+    changed the face of affairs. Young Derwentwater had fought
+    valiantly and worked arduously at the barricades, but Forster—whose
+    appointment as General had been made in the hope of attracting
+    other Protestant gentry to the Jacobite cause—offered to submit to
+    General Carpenter under certain conditions. Carpenter’s reply was a
+    demand for unconditional surrender, and the hopeless little
+    tragi-comedy was played out. The last scene took place on Tower
+    Hill three months later, when the gallant young Earl, then only
+    twenty-six years old, laid down the life which, after all, had been
+    spent in the service of others, with no selfish purpose in view,
+    and which was offered him, together with wealth and freedom, if he
+    would forsake his faith and throw aside his allegiance to the house
+    of Stuart. Refusing to purchase life at such a price, he was
+    condemned, and executed on Tower Hill on February 24th, 1716.
+
+    His brother Charles, who had been by his side throughout the
+    rising, had the good fortune to escape from Newgate Prison, and
+    passed most of his life abroad. Thirty years later, on his return
+    to take up arms on behalf of James’ son Charles—“bonnie Prince
+    Charlie”—when he also drew the sword in an attempt to regain the
+    throne of his fathers, Radcliffe was captured and beheaded. (For
+    account of a monument to the memory of these two brothers see in
+    previous chapter paragraph relating to Haydon Bridge.)
+
+    The story of General Forster’s escape from Newgate is told by Sir
+    Walter Besant, as all readers of his novel, “Dorothy Forster” know,
+    though the author has taken those minor liberties with unimportant
+    facts which are by common consent allowable in fiction.
+
+    James Radcliffe’s friends were allowed to have his body, though
+    they were forbidden to carry it home for burial; for such were the
+    love and esteem borne for the young Earl in the hearts of all his
+    North-country friends and dependents, that the authorities feared a
+    disturbance of the peace should his body be brought amongst them
+    while their rage and grief were still at their height.
+    Notwithstanding the prohibition, however, the body was brought
+    secretly to Dilston, and buried in the vault of the chapel, which,
+    with the ruined tower, are all that remain of the home of the
+    Radcliffes. Standing amidst luxuriant foliage, and overlooking a
+    romantic dell, the ruins of tower and chapel remain as they fell
+    into decay on the death of their luckless owners. The confiscated
+    estates were bestowed on Greenwich Hospital, whose agents
+    administer them still, with the exception of certain portions
+    purchased from time to time by various landowners. No other family
+    took the place of the Radcliffes in the deserted halls; but
+    tradition holds that the unfortunate Earl and his sorrowful lady
+    still revisit their ancient home. The Earl’s body is now at
+    Thorndon, in Essex. Below is Surtees’ beautiful ballad, “Lord
+    Derwentwater’s Farewell.”
+
+  LORD DERWENTWATER’S FAREWELL
+
+  “Farewell to pleasant Dilston Hall, My father’s ancient seat; A
+  stranger now must call thee his, Which gars my heart to greet.
+  Farewell each kindly well-known face My heart has held so dear; My
+  tenants now must leave their lord Or hold their lives in fear.
+  No more along the banks of Tyne I’ll rove in autumn grey; No more
+  I’ll hear, at early dawn, The lav’rocks wake the day; Then fare thee
+  well, brave Witherington, And Forster ever true; Dear Shaftsbury and
+  Errington, Receive my last adieu.
+  And fare thee well, George Collingwood, Since fate has put us down;
+  If thou and I have lost our lives, Our king has lost his crown.
+  Farewell, farewell, my lady dear, Ill, ill thou counsell’dst me; I
+  never more may see the babe That smiles upon thy knee.
+  And fare thee well, my bonny gray steed, That carried me aye so free;
+  I wish I had been asleep in my bed The last time I mounted thee; The
+  warning bell now bids me cease, My trouble’s nearly o’er; Yon sun
+  that rises from the sea Shall rise on me no more.
+  Albeit that here in London Town It is my fate to die; O carry me to
+  Northumberland, In my father’s grave to lie. There chant my solemn
+  requiem In Hexham’s holy towers; And let six maids of fair Tynedale
+  Scatter my grave with flowers.
+  And when the head that wears the crown Shall be laid low like mine;
+  Some honest hearts may then lament For Radcliffe’s fallen line.
+  Farewell to pleasant Dilston Hall, My father’s ancient seat; A
+  stranger now must call thee his, Which gars my heart to greet.”
+
+    Near to Corbridge the waters of the Tyne lave the ancient piers of
+    the old Roman bridge which led to Corstopitum, the most
+    considerable of the Roman stations in this region. The recent
+    careful excavations have laid bare the evidence of what must have
+    been a most imposing city, and many treasures of pottery, coins and
+    ancient jewellery and ornaments, together with large quantities of
+    the bones of animals, some of them identical with the wild cattle
+    of Chillingham, have been brought to light. The famous silver dish
+    known as the Corbridge Lanx, which was found at the riverside by a
+    little girl in 1734, had evidently been washed down from
+    Corstopitum. It is now preserved at Alnwick Castle. The antiquity
+    of Corbridge is thus superior to that of Hexham, as far as may be
+    known; but on the other hand, while Hexham in Saxon times grew to
+    power, Corbridge declined. Yet, in its time, it was more than the
+    home of a famous Abbey; it was a royal city, albeit the date of its
+    elevation to royal rank coincided with the decline of the kingdom
+    of which it was the final capital. When the fierce and ruthless
+    internal quarrels, which rent Northumbria after Edbert’s glorious
+    reign, had weakened it so that it fell a prey to the gradual
+    encroachments of its northern neighbours, the once royal city of
+    Bamburgh was left in the hands of a noble Saxon family, and the
+    court was removed to Corbridge, which remained the abode of the
+    kings of Northumbria until Northumbria possessed royal rank no
+    longer. The tale of the two hundred years during which Corbridge
+    was the capital city is a tale of red slaughter and ruin, murder
+    and bitter feud, not against outside foes, but between one family
+    and another, noble against king, king against relatives of other
+    noble houses, amongst which might possibly be found the thegn to
+    succeed him, or to murder him in order to bring about his own more
+    speedy elevation to a precarious throne.
+
+    So much was this the case, that Charles the Great, at whose court
+    the learned Northumbrian, Alcuin, was secretary, said that the
+    Northumbrians were worse than the invading heathen Danes, who, by
+    this time, had begun their ravages in the land. Amongst the rulers
+    of Northumbria in those days, the name of Alfwald the Just, who was
+    called “the Friend of God,” shines out with enduring light across
+    the stormy darkness of that terrible period; yet even his just and
+    merciful rule and noble life could not save him from the hand of
+    the assassin. He was buried with much mourning and great pomp in
+    the Abbey at Hexham; and during the recent excavations the fact of
+    a Saxon interment was verified as having taken place beneath the
+    beautiful tomb which tradition has always held to be that of King
+    Alfwald the Just. This fact also helped to demonstrate the extent
+    of the original Abbey.
+
+    There was a monastery at Corbridge in the year 771, which is
+    supposed to have been founded by St. Wilfrid. Of the four churches
+    which were erected in later times, only one survives—the parish
+    church of St. Andrew, which occupies the site of the early
+    monastery. In this ancient church may be seen part of the original
+    Saxon work, and many stones of Roman workmanship are built up in
+    the structure.
+
+    Like most other old churches in the north, it suffered severely at
+    the hands of the Scots, and, as at Hexham Abbey, traces of fire may
+    be seen on some of the stones.
+
+    King David of Scotland, on his invasion of England in 1138, which
+    was to end at the “Battle of the Standard,” at Northallerton,
+    encamped at Corbridge for a time, and terrible cruelties were
+    committed in the district by his followers. In the next century,
+    King John turned the little town upside down in his efforts to find
+    treasure which he was convinced must be concealed somewhere in the
+    houses; but his search was fruitless. In the days of the three
+    Edwards, during the long wars with Scotland, Corbridge suffered
+    terribly, being fired again and again; on one occasion, in 1296,
+    the destruction included the burning of the school with some two
+    hundred hapless boys within its walls.[4]
+
+ [4] _See_ Bates, p. 149.
+
+    Those heroes of our childhood’s days, William Wallace and Robert
+    Bruce, were far from guiltless in these cruelties, though in
+    justice to them personally, the wild and lawless character of the
+    men who formed their undisciplined hosts must be remembered; and we
+    know that Wallace tried to save the holy vessels in Hexham Abbey,
+    but, as soon as his back was turned, they were swept away in the
+    very presence of the officiating priest.
+
+    During these terrible years most of Northumberland was a desolate
+    waste; and divine service had almost ceased to be performed between
+    Newcastle and Carlisle, even Hexham being deserted for a time.
+    After the battle of Bannockburn, matters were worse, if possible,
+    and all the north lay in fear of the Scots, but from time to time
+    spasmodic efforts at retaliation were made by the boldest of the
+    Northumbrian landowners. In the reign of Edward III., however, many
+    of these great landowners thwarted the King’s designs by making a
+    traitorous peace with their turbulent neighbours.
+
+    David II. of Scotland encamped at Corbridge for a time during his
+    second attempt to invade England but this expedition ended in his
+    defeat and capture at Neville’s Cross. Thereafter the north had
+    rest for some years, and Corbridge seems to have been left in
+    peace. The Wars of the Roses passed it by; and the Civil Wars in
+    Stuart days also, except for an unimportant skirmish; and the only
+    part Corbridge saw of the Jacobite rising of “The Fifteen” was the
+    little cavalcade from Dilston which clattered over the old bridge
+    on its way to Beaufront. That bridge is the same which we cross
+    to-day; the date of its erection, 1674, may be seen on one of its
+    stones, and it was the only one on the Tyne which withstood the
+    great flood of 1771, when even the old Tyne Bridge at Newcastle was
+    swept away.
+
+    Quite close to the church there is an old pele-tower, which is in
+    an excellent state of preservation, little of it having disappeared
+    except the various floors. The vicars of Corbridge must have been
+    often thankful for such a refuge at hand, where they could bid
+    defiance to marauding bands, whether of Scottish or English
+    nationality. In the Register of the parish church may be seen a
+    most interesting entry, showing the Earl of Derwentwater’s
+    signature as churchwarden.
+
+    At a little distance from Corbridge, to the northward, is the
+    fortified manor-house of Aydon Castle, standing embowered in trees
+    where the Cor burn runs through a little rocky ravine, down whose
+    steep sides Sir Robert Clavering threw most of a marauding band of
+    Scotsmen who had attacked the grange; the place known as “Jock’s
+    Leap” obtained its name from one of the Scots who escaped the fate
+    of his comrades by his leap for life across the ravine. The Castle,
+    or hall, as it is variously called, has not suffered such
+    destruction as might have been expected, seeing that it dates from
+    the thirteenth century; but the thickness of its walls, and the
+    arrow-slits and narrow windows are obvious proof of the necessity
+    for defence which existed when it was first erected in the days of
+    Edward I. Many features of great interest, notably the ancient
+    fireplaces, remain in the interior of the building.
+
+    Returning down the Cor burn to the Tyne, our way lies eastward by
+    the side of the river, which here, after splashing and sparkling
+    over the shallows below Corbridge, narrows again to a deeper stream
+    of swifter current, and flows between green meadows and leafy
+    woods, fern-clad steeps and level haughs, all the way down to
+    Ryton, where the picturesque aspect of the river ceases, and it
+    becomes an industrial waterway. On this reach of the river are
+    several places of considerable interest.
+
+    Riding Mill, a pretty village in a well-wooded hollow, enclosed by
+    steep hills which rise ever higher and higher to the moors by
+    Minsteracres and Blanchland, stands where Watling Street, or Dere
+    Street, leading down the long slope of the country from
+    Whittonstall, on reaching the Tyne turned westward to Corstopitum.
+    Further down the stream is Stocksfield, where the aged King Edward
+    I. halted on his last journey into Scotland, on that expedition
+    which was to have executed a summary vengeance upon the Scots; he
+    journeyed forward by slow stages, but was taken ill at Newbrough,
+    where he stayed for some time, before continuing his journey by
+    Blenkinsopp, Thirlwall, and Lanercost to Carlisle.
+
+    On the opposite side of the stream from Stocksfield is the lovely
+    village of Bywell, a “haunt of ancient peace,” “sleeping soft on
+    the banks of the murmuring Tyne.” This little peaceful spot was at
+    one time a very busy centre of life and industry on a small scale;
+    in the Middle Ages the inhabitants drove a thriving trade in all
+    the necessities for a people who spent a great part of their lives
+    upon horseback, especially in the making of the ironwork
+    required—“bits, stirrups, buckles, and the like, wherein they are
+    very expert and cunning.” The Nevilles, lords of Raby and earls of
+    Westmoreland, held Bywell at this time; before that it was in the
+    hands of the Balliols, of Scottish fame, who, like the Bruces, were
+    Norman knights high in favour with their kings, Norman and
+    Plantagenet, though they afterwards became their most determined
+    foes.
+
+    Long before the advent of the Normans, a church was built here by
+    St. Wilfrid, and in it—St. Andrew’s or the “White” Church—Egbert,
+    twelfth bishop of Lindisfarne, was consecrated by Archbishop
+    Eanbald in the year 803. More than a thousand years afterwards, in
+    1896, an Ordination service was again held at Bywell, in St.
+    Peter’s church, when five deacons were ordained by Bishop Jacob.
+    And in times yet more remote than Wilfrid’s age, Roman legionaries
+    crossed the Tyne at this point over a bridge of their own
+    construction, of which the piers might be seen until our own day.
+    Bywell, too, had its “find” of Roman silver; in 1760 a silver cup
+    was found in the Tyne, bearing the inscription “Desidere vivas”
+    around the neck of the vessel.
+
+    When the Nevilles were lords of the manor of Bywell, they began to
+    build a castle here, which, however, was left unfinished; the
+    ancient tower still standing, with its picturesque draping of ivy,
+    was the gate-house of the intended fortress. On the rebellion of
+    the northern earls in 1569, Westmoreland’s forfeited lands passed
+    to the crown, so that Bywell was held by Queen Elizabeth for a year
+    or two, until she sold the estate to a branch of the Fenwick
+    family.
+
+    Bywell is unique in Northumberland in possessing two churches side
+    by side yet in different parishes. The town of Bywell, we are told
+    by the same authority before quoted, lay in a long line by the
+    north bank of the Tyne, and was “divided into two separate
+    parishes” even then, so that there ought to be traces of former
+    buildings westward from the present village. In connection with the
+    two churches which adjoin each other so closely, tradition tells
+    the well-known story of the two quarrelsome sisters who could not
+    agree on the building of a church and therefore each built one. One
+    might have imagined, with some show of reason, that there being two
+    parishes, the two churches were placed there in sheltering
+    proximity to the castle, were it not for the fact that the churches
+    were in existence long before the stronghold of the Nevilles was
+    contemplated.
+
+    St. Andrew’s, called the “White” church from the fact of its being
+    served in later days by the White friars, is the more ancient of
+    the two. As we have seen, a church erected by St. Wilfrid stood on
+    this site, and a goodly portion of the Saxon work remains in the
+    tower. The hagioscope, or “squint” in this church, and the “leper”
+    window in St. Peter’s are interesting relics of the Middle Ages.
+
+    St. Peter’s, or the “Black” church which once belonged to the
+    Benedictines or Black friars, is of much later date than its
+    neighbour, though still an ancient building, being supposed to date
+    from the eleventh century. Its most interesting possessions are two
+    very old bells, bearing Latin inscriptions, one announcing “I
+    proclaim the hour for people rising, and call to those still lying
+    down,” and the other reading “Thou art Peter.”
+
+    Bywell suffered greatly in the flood of 1771, when the bridge was
+    swept away, many houses destroyed, several people drowned, and both
+    churches greatly damaged.
+
+    It is not surprising that this tranquil little village—“the retreat
+    of the old doomed divinities of wood and fountain, banished from
+    their native haunts,” to quote Mr. Tomlinson’s happy phrase—has
+    always been beloved of artists, many of whom have transferred to
+    their canvasses the beauties of its mingled scenery of graceful
+    woods and sparkling waters, ancient fortress, peaceful meadows, and
+    gray old towers. Many noteworthy and fine old trees are to be found
+    in and around this artists’ haunt.
+
+    On the opposite side of the river, Bywell’s younger sister,
+    Stocksfield, grows apace, reaching out towards the lulls and along
+    the eastward lanes, though not as yet in such measure as to cover
+    the hillsides with any semblance of a town, being still almost
+    hidden amongst the profusion of trees that clothe most of the
+    district in their leafy greenery. On the north bank of the stream
+    the village of Ovingham now rises into view, its name telling us
+    plainly that there was a settlement here in Saxon times “the home
+    of the sons of Offa”; and the slope above the river is fittingly
+    crowned by the ancient church of St. Mary, whose tower, with its
+    curiously irregular windows, is the work of the Saxon builders of
+    the original church. The rest of the building, except some Saxon
+    work at the west end of the nave, dates from early Norman days.
+    Here is the burial place of the famous brothers John and Thomas
+    Bewick, who were born at Cherryburn House, just across the river.
+    In this delightful spot the boy Thomas Bewick grew up, absorbing
+    unconsciously the natural beauties that are to be found here by the
+    Tyne and in the little ravine through which the Cherry Burn flows,
+    which beauties he so lovingly reproduced on his engraving blocks
+    later in life.
+
+    At the fords of Ovingham, Eltringham, and Bywell, the Scots under
+    General Leslie crossed the Tyne in 1644, and made their way into
+    Durham, leaving six regiments to watch Newcastle.
+
+    The picturesque ruins of Prudhoe Castle, whose lofty towers
+    dominate the valley for some distance up and down the stream, stand
+    on a commanding rocky ridge above the Tyne. The lands of Prudhoe
+    were given, soon after the Norman Conquest, to one of Duke
+    William’s immediate followers, Robert de Umfraville; and it was
+    Odinel de Umfraville who built the present castle in the twelfth
+    century. Its strength was soon put to the test, for a few years
+    after it was built William the Lion of Scotland found that the
+    place baffled all his attempts to capture it. In his anger he
+    determined to reduce the fortress of Odinel, who had spent much
+    time at the Scottish court in his youth, the Kings of Scotland
+    being at that time lords of Tynedale. The attempt ended in total
+    failure, the greatest harm the Scots did on that occasion being to
+    destroy the cornfields and strip the bark from the apple trees near
+    the Castle; while, a day or two afterwards, Odinel de Umfraville,
+    with Glanvile and Balliol, captured the Scottish monarch himself at
+    Alnwick.
+
+    Another Umfraville, Richard, quarrelled with his neighbour of
+    Nafferton, on the opposite side of the river, for having begun to
+    erect a fortress much too near Umfraville’s own. He sent a petition
+    to the King on the subject and King John commanded Philip de
+    Ulecote’s building operations to cease. The unfinished castle,
+    known as Nafferton Tower, remains to this day as Philip’s masons
+    left it so many centuries ago.
+
+    Sir Ingram de Umfraville was by the side of Edward II. at
+    Bannockburn, when, before the battle, Bruce ordered his men to
+    kneel in prayer. Edward looked on the kneeling host, and turning to
+    Umfraville, exclaimed “See! Yon men kneel to ask mercy.” “You say
+    truth, sire,” answered the knight of Prudhoe; “they ask mercy—but
+    not of you.”
+
+    The last Umfraville, who died in 1381, left a widow, the Countess
+    Maud, who married a Percy of Alnwick, and so the castle passed into
+    the hands of that family, in whose possession it still remains.
+
+    When Odinel de Umfraville was building the keep of his castle,
+    every one in the neighbourhood was pressed into the service, and
+    all lent their aid except the men of Wylam. Wylam had been given to
+    the church of St. Oswyn at Tynemouth, and, as was customary, was
+    freed by charter from the duty of castle building, or any other
+    feudal service excepting such as were rendered to the Prior of
+    Tynemouth as occasion arose. So, in spite of the angry surprise of
+    the lord of Prudhoe, the Wylam men quietly held to their charter,
+    and not all Odinel’s threats or persuasions moved them one whit.
+
+    The Stanley Burn, which enters the Tyne close to Wylam railway
+    station, divides this part of the county of Durham from
+    Northumberland, so that from Wylam to the sea the south side of the
+    Tyne is in the county of Durham. The most noteworthy object at
+    Wylam, or, to be precise, a little way along the old post-road,
+    leading to Newcastle from Hexham, is the red-tiled cottage in which
+    George Stephenson was born in 1781. It stands on the north bank of
+    the Tyne, where it can be distinctly seen from passing trains. Its
+    neighbour cottage has been repaired and re-roofed, but Stephenson’s
+    cottage remains unaltered.
+
+    Mr. Blackett, who owned Wylam Colliery at the beginning of the
+    nineteenth century, took the keenest interest in the question of
+    locomotives, and had tried more than one on his estate before
+    George Stephenson brought them to the point of practical use. At
+    Newburn, just four miles down the Tyne, George Stephenson passed
+    many years of his youth; here he learned to read and write, when he
+    was old enough to earn a man’s wage and could afford the few pence
+    necessary; and here, in the parish church, may be seen, with an
+    interval of twenty years between them, the entries of his two
+    marriages.
+
+    Newburn is important nowadays for its steel works, within whose
+    workshops is incorporated an old building formerly known as Newburn
+    Hall; but in days long past its importance arose from its being on
+    the ford of the Tyne nearest to Newcastle. This ford was frequently
+    made use of, notably by the Scots in the reign of Charles I. Their
+    chief camping ground is pointed out to us by the name of Scotswood,
+    which also describes what Scotswood was like in those days—a great
+    contrast to its present appearance, when the lines of brick and
+    mortar stretching out uninterruptedly from Newcastle make it
+    practically one with that town. In 1640, the Scottish army, under
+    General Leslie, faced the Royalist troops, under Lord Conway, on
+    the south side of the river. The Scots mounted their rude cannon on
+    Newburn Church tower, and the English raised earthworks along the
+    bank of the river, which was here fordable in two places. The two
+    armies calmly watered their horses on opposite banks of the stream
+    all the next morning, but a shot at a Scottish officer from the
+    English ranks precipitated the battle; and the Scottish army,
+    having made a breach in both earthworks with their artillery, waded
+    across the fords and drove the Royalist troops up the bank, after
+    one spasmodic rally, which, however, failed to check the Scottish
+    advance. The way was now open for the Scottish army to continue
+    down the south bank of the Tyne and attack Newcastle from
+    Gateshead. It had been Lord Conway’s task to prevent this, but
+    owing to his incapacity or want of whole-hearted enthusiasm for his
+    cause, he failed entirely.
+
+    Not until 1644, however, was a Scottish attack on Newcastle
+    actually made, for on this occasion Leslie, as we have already
+    seen, led his men across the fords higher up the river and marched
+    southwards. The earthworks thrown up by Conway’s troops may still
+    be seen on Stella Haughs.
+
+    It is supposed that the Romans had a fort here, commanding the
+    passage of the river; indeed it would have been strange had this
+    not been the case, for the Romans were not the people to disregard
+    any point of strategical importance, especially one so near their
+    stations of Pons AElii and Condercum. Many stones of Roman
+    workmanship have been used in the building of the Newburn church.
+
+    From this point to its mouth, nearly fifteen miles away, both banks
+    of the Tyne present an unbroken scene of industry. Between the
+    steel works of Newburn and the iron and chemical works, the brick
+    and tile works of Blaydon and past the famous yards of Elswick,
+    down to the wharves and shipyards of North and South Shields, the
+    Tyne rolls its swift dark waters through a scene of stirring
+    activity; the air is dusky with soot and smoke, and reverberant
+    with the clang of hammers and the pulsing beat of machinery. Some
+    old and world-famed works have been closed or removed, like Hawks’
+    and Stephenson’s, but others, many others, have opened; and the map
+    of the positions of Tyne industries, published under the auspices
+    of the Newcastle and Gateshead Chamber of Commerce, is a record of
+    resolute toil and brilliant achievement in the many aspects of
+    industrial life represented on the river.
+
+    And, apart from the mere prosperity and commercial supremacy of the
+    district, there is another cause for pride in the many notable
+    inventions which hail from Tyneside; from the locomotive and the
+    “Geordie” lamp of Stephenson, the hydraulic machinery and the big
+    guns of Armstrong, to the wonderful turbine engines of Parsons; the
+    invention of water-ballast, too, belongs to the Tyne, for it was
+    the idea of a Gateshead man, and first used at Jarrow.
+
+    And, in connection with ships and seafarers, though not in any
+    commercial sense, we may proudly recall the fact that the first
+    Lifeboat was launched on the Tyne and named after the river; and
+    the first Volunteer Life Brigade was formed at Tynemouth. The Worth
+    Eastern Railway is carried across the Tyne by the Scotswood Bridge;
+    and it was on this part of the river that the boat-races, for which
+    the Tyne was once famous, were rowed. At Newcastle, the river is
+    bridged by four huge structures—The Redheugh Bridge, the new King
+    Edward VII. bridge, the High Level, and Swing Bridges,—all
+    connecting Newcastle with the sister town of Gateshead. An
+    interesting sight it is to see the Swing Bridge gradually turning
+    on its central pivot, until it lies in a straight line up and down
+    the stream, allowing some huge liner to pass, or some new
+    battleship, fresh from Elswick, to sail down the river, on its way
+    to make its trial trip over the “measured mile” in the open sea at
+    the mouth of the river, and thereafter to take its place among the
+    armaments of the nations.
+
+    The High Level Bridge allows ships of any height to pass under its
+    lofty and graceful arches, which look so light, but are yet so
+    strong. This splendid bridge is an enduring monument of Robert
+    Stephenson, whose work it was; and the story of its erection, at
+    the cost of nearly half a million of money, makes most interesting
+    reading. It took nearly two and a half years to build, and was
+    opened for traffic in 1849—little more than three years after the
+    first pile was driven in. A few months later, in 1850, the newly
+    built Central Station, with its imposing portico, was opened by
+    Queen Victoria.
+
+    Passing down the Tyne from Newcastle, which requires separate
+    notice, and Walker, with its reminiscences of “Walker Pit’s deun
+    weel for me,” we arrive at Wallsend, which in twenty-five years has
+    grown from a colliery village with a population of 4,000 to a town
+    of 23,000 inhabitants. Here are great shipbuilding and repairing
+    yards, chemical works and cement works; here, too, are Parsons’
+    Steam Turbine Works, where was designed and built the little
+    “Turbinia,” on which tiny vessel the early experiments were made
+    with the new engines; and here are the famous mines which have made
+    “Best Wallsend” a synonym for best household coal all over the
+    land. These mines, after having been closed for many years, were
+    reopened at the beginning of the century, and now turn out upwards
+    of one thousand tons of coal per day.
+
+    The church of St. Peter, at Wallsend, is little more than a hundred
+    years old; the old Church of Holy Cross, now long disused, was
+    built towards the end of the twelfth century. But Wallsend itself,
+    as all the world knows, is of much greater antiquity, for was it
+    not, as its name proclaims, situated at the end of the Great Wall?
+    Its name then, however, was not Wallsend but Segedunum.
+
+    Willington Quay, further down the river, was, for a time, the home
+    of George Stephenson, and here his son, Robert, was born. At
+    Howdon, which used to be known as Howdon Pans, from the salt-pans
+    there, the painter John Martin and his brothers once worked when
+    boys, being employed in some rope-works. Here, too, the Henzells, a
+    family of refugees who settled in the district in the days of
+    Elizabeth, founded some glass works, for which industry the Tyne
+    has been famous from that day to this.
+
+[Illustration: The River Tyne at Newcastle (showing Swing Bridge
+Open).]
+
+    Before the railway on the south side of the river was laid down,
+    passengers who wished to reach Jarrow had to alight at Howdon and
+    cross the river; and a racy dialect song—“Howdon for Jarrow” with
+    its refrain of “Howdon for Jarra—ma hinnies, loup oot”—commemorates
+    the fact. Willington Quay and Howdon carry on the line of
+    shipbuilding yards to Northumberland Dock and the staithes of the
+    Tyne Commissioners, where the waggon ways from various collieries
+    bring the coal to the water’s edge. Tyne Dock, just opposite, and
+    the Albert Edward Dock near North. Shields, provide abundance of
+    shipping accommodation, besides what is afforded by the river
+    itself; and now the river flows between the steep banks of North
+    and South Shields. As the names declare, these two growing and
+    prosperous towns once consisted of a few fishermen’s huts, or
+    “shielings”; but that was long ago, when the north shore of the
+    Tyne was owned by the Prior of Tynemouth, and the southern shore by
+    the Bishop of Durham, and the citizens of Newcastle complained to
+    King Edward I. that these two ecclesiastics had raised towns,
+    “where no town ought to be,” and that “fishermen sold fish there
+    which ought to be sold at Newcastle, to the great injury of the
+    whole borough, and in detriment to the tolls of our Lord the King.”
+    These quarrels between Newcastle and the other settlements on the
+    Tyne continued with varying results, until in the days of Cromwell,
+    Ralph Gardiner of Chirton, a little village close to North Shields,
+    took up the cudgels for the growing towns; and by dint of great
+    perseverance, and in spite of much persecution and ill-will,
+    succeeded in getting most of the unjust privileges of their
+    stronger neighbour abolished.
+
+    There were salt-pans, too, on both sides of the mouth of the Tyne,
+    which were worked in connection with the monasteries from very
+    early days; and Daniel Defoe, when he visited the north in 1726,
+    declared that he could see from the top of the Cheviot “the smoke
+    of the salt-pans at Sheals, at the mouth of the Tyne, which was
+    about forty miles south of this.”
+
+    North Shields clings haphazard to the steep bank of the Tyne, and
+    spreads away up and beyond it, reaching out towards Wallsend on the
+    river shore and Tynemouth along by the sea, the older parts by the
+    river looking black and grimy to the last degree; but there is a
+    silver lining to this very black cloud—not visible, it is true, but
+    distinctly audible—in the great shipbuilding and repairing works
+    known as Smith’s Dock, one of the largest concerns of the kind in
+    Great Britain, where so many hundreds of men earn their daily
+    bread; and in the fishing industry, which was the foundation of the
+    town’s prosperity, and bids fair to be so for many years to come,
+    as it is increasing year by year. The Fish Quay at North Shields is
+    a sight worth seeing; and, in the herring season, it is
+    increasingly frequented by Continental buyers.
+
+    The fortunes of South Shields and Jarrow, though these towns are
+    not in Northumberland, are yet so bound up with the story of the
+    Tyne that no one would ever think of that river without them.
+    Especially is this the case with Jarrow, which “Palmer’s” has
+    raised from a small colliery village to a large and flourishing
+    town. In those famous yards, everything that is necessary for the
+    building of the largest ironclad, from the first smelting of the
+    ore until the last rivet is in place, can be done. All
+    Northumbria—Northumbria in the ancient and widest sense of the
+    word—owes a debt of gratitude to Jarrow, for was it not the home of
+    Bede? The monk of Jarrow, who spent all his long life in the same
+    monastery by the Don, coming to it when he was a child of ten, made
+    that spot of Northumbrian ground famed to the farthest limits of
+    the civilized Europe of his day; and scholars from all over the
+    Continent came to learn at the feet of the Northumbrian teacher.
+    Beloved and revered by all, and in harness to the last hour of his
+    busy life, he died in the year 735, just one hundred years after
+    the coming of Aidan to Lindisfarne. “First among English scholars,
+    first among English theologians, first among English historians, it
+    is in the monk of Jarrow that English literature strikes its
+    roots.”—_J.R. Green_.
+
+    The Jarrow of to-day, and all its neighbours of industrial
+    Tyneside, possess no beauty of aspect such as the towns that are
+    more fortunately situated on the upper reaches of the river; they
+    are muffled in clouds of smoke and soot, and darkened by the
+    necessities of their toil in grimy ores and the ever-present coal.
+    But no one who has ever looked on these smoky reaches of the Tyne
+    with a seeing eye, or steamed down the river on a day either of
+    gloom or sunshine, can refuse to acknowledge that it has a certain
+    grandeur, a stern beauty of its own, that can stir the heart and
+    the imagination more deeply than any mere prettiness.
+
+    From the numberless hives of activity on both sides of the river
+    clouds of smoke roll heavily upward, and jets of steam from panting
+    machinery leap up in momentary whiteness on the dark background;
+    the white wings of flocks of wheeling gulls flash in the occasional
+    sunshine which lights up the scene, and between the clouds there
+    are glimpses of blue sky. Towards sunset, the evening mists drape
+    the darkening banks and crowded shipping in a soft robe of gray,
+    which, together with the glowing sky behind, produces most
+    wonderful Turneresque effects; and the fall of night on the river
+    only changes the aspect without diminishing the interest of the
+    scene. The blaze from a myriad workshops and forges glows against
+    the darkness, the lamps twinkle overhead on the steep banks, and
+    the lights from wharf and steamer are reflected in a thousand
+    shimmering lines on the dark water, which flows on soundlessly,
+    like the river of a dream.
+
+    On a day of wind and sun all these beauties are intensified a
+    thousandfold; the smoke is blown hither and thither in flying
+    clouds, the current seems to rush more swiftly, and a sense of
+    vigorous life permeates the whole scene, giving to the beholder a
+    feeling of keen exhilaration, as of new life rushing through his
+    veins. Especially is this the case on reaching the mouth of the
+    river and meeting the dancing waters of the open harbour, where the
+    twin piers of South Shields and Tynemouth reach out sheltering
+    arms. Within the wide bay they enclose, the storm-driven vessel may
+    always find comparatively smooth water, how wildly soever the waves
+    may rage and roar outside.
+
+    It is difficult to believe that so lately as the years 1858-60, the
+    “bar” at the mouth of the Tyne was an insuperable obstacle to all
+    but vessels of very moderate draught; and that ships might lie for
+    days, and sometimes weeks, after being loaded, before there came a
+    tide high enough to carry them out to sea. The river was full of
+    sand-banks, and little islands stood here and there—one in
+    mid-stream, where the ironclads are now launched at Elswick. Three
+    or four vessels might be seen at once bumping and grounding on the
+    “bar” unable to make their way over. Well might the old song say—
+  “The ships are all at the bar, They canna get up to Newcastle!”
+
+    An old map of the Tyne shows a number of sand-banks down the lower
+    reaches of the river, with ships aground on each, of them.
+
+    But the River Tyne Commissioners have changed all that, and their
+    implement of warfare has been the hideous but necessary dredger. No
+    longer need vessels of heavy tonnage desert the Tyne for the Wear,
+    as they were perforce driven to do during the first half of the
+    nineteenth century, for the Wearsiders had set about deepening and
+    widening their river long before the Tynesiders did the same by
+    theirs. Considerable and continuous pressure had to be brought to
+    bear on the civic authorities at Newcastle before they finally took
+    action; but having once done so, the future of the Tyne was
+    assured. Now it ranks second only to the Thames in the actual
+    number of vessels entering and leaving, and owns only the Mersey
+    its superior in the matter of tonnage.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.
+
+
+  “Her dusky hair in many a tangle clings About her, and her looks,
+  though stern and cold, Grow tender with the dreams of by-gone days.”
+  —_W.W. Tomlinson_.
+
+    The outward signs of “by-gone days,” in the Newcastle of to-day,
+    with the one notable exception of the Castle, must be diligently
+    sought out amongst the overwhelming mass of what is often called
+    “rampant modernity,” of which the town to-day chiefly consists. The
+    modernity, however, is not all bad, as this favourite phrase would
+    imply; much of it is doubtless regrettable and a very little of it
+    perhaps inevitable; but no one will deny either the modernity or
+    the beauty of Grey Street, one of the finest streets in any English
+    town; or the fine appearance of Grainger Street, Blackett Street,
+    Eldon Square, or any other of the stately thoroughfares with which
+    Grainger and Dobson enriched the town within the last eighty
+    years—no one, that is, who has learned to “lift his eyes to the
+    sky-line in passing along a thoroughfare” instead of keeping them
+    firmly fixed at the level of shop windows.
+
+    The grim old building which, when it was new, gave its name to the
+    town, is one for which no search needs to be made; its blackened
+    and time worn walls are seen from the train windows by every
+    traveller who enters the city from the south. So near is it to the
+    railway, that in the ultra-utilitarian days of sixty or seventy
+    years ago, it narrowly escaped the ignoble fate of being used as a
+    signal-cabin. It was rescued, however, by the Society of
+    Antiquaries, and carefully preserved by them—more fortunate in this
+    respect than the castle of Berwick, for the platform of Berwick
+    railway station actually stands on the spot once occupied by the
+    Great Hall of the Castle.
+
+    The site of the New Castle, on a part of the river bank which
+    slopes steeply down to the Tyne, had been occupied centuries before
+    by a Roman fort, constructed by order of the Emperor Hadrian, who
+    visited Britain A.D. 120. He also constructed a bridge over the
+    Tyne at this spot, fort and bridge receiving the name of Pons
+    AElii, after the Emperor (Publius AElius Hadrianus). This became
+    the second station on the Great Wall erected by Hadrian’s orders
+    along the line of forts which Agricola had raised forty years
+    before. This station shared the fate of others on the abandonment
+    of Britain by its powerful conquerors, who had now for more than
+    two hundred years been its no less powerful friends and protectors.
+    Pons AElii fell into ruins; but so advantageous a site could not
+    long be overlooked, and we read of a Saxon settlement there,
+    apparently that of a religious community, from which fact it was
+    known as Monkchester. All the records of this period seem to have
+    perished, for we hear nothing of the settlement during the Danish
+    invasions; but a Saxon town of some kind was evidently in existence
+    at the time of the Conquest, though in 1073 three monks from the
+    south who came to York, and, obtaining a guide to “Muneche-cester,”
+    sought for some religious house in that settlement, could find
+    none, and were prevailed upon by the first Norman Bishop of Durham,
+    Walcher, to stay at Jarrow. The years from 1069 to 1080 were evil
+    years for Northumberland, for at the first-named date the Conqueror
+    devastated the North, and left neither village nor farm unscathed;
+    and, as the desolated land was beginning to recover again, Odo of
+    Bayeux and Robert of Normandy relentlessly laid it waste once more,
+    partly in revenge for the murder of Bishop Walcher at Gateshead,
+    and partly to punish Malcolm of Scotland for his invasion of Norman
+    territory.
+
+    It was on his return from this expedition, which had penetrated as
+    far north as Falkirk, that Robert, by his father’s orders, raised a
+    stronghold on the Tyne on the site of the old Roman fort, in the
+    year 1080. His brother, William Rufus, erected a much stronger and
+    better one, the Keep of which, re-built by Henry II., stands to-day
+    dark and grim, looking out over river and town, as it has stood
+    since the Red King ruled the land, and, like his father, the
+    Conqueror, found it desirable to have a stronghold at this northern
+    point of his turbulent realm, around which a town might grow up in
+    safety.
+
+    The roof and battlements of the Keep are modern, but the rest of
+    it—the walls, 12 to 18 feet thick; the dismal dungeon, or guard
+    chamber, with iron rings and fetters still fastened to the walls
+    and central pillar; the beautiful little chapel, with its
+    finely-ornamented arches; the little chambers in the thickness of
+    the walls; the well, 94 feet deep, sunk through the solid masonry
+    into the rock beneath; the arrow slits in the walls; the stones in
+    the roof scored with frequent bolts from the besiegers’ crossbows,
+    one of which bolts is firmly embedded in the wall opposite one of
+    the narrow windows; the ancient weapons and armour—all these
+    breathe of the days when the Red King’s castle took its part in the
+    doings of our hardy ancestors in those stormy times in which they
+    lived and fought.
+
+    The last time the old Keep was called upon to act as fortress and
+    refuge in time of war was in Stuart days, after the ten weeks siege
+    of Newcastle by the Scottish General Leslie, Earl of Leven, in
+    1644, when brave “Governor Marley” and his friends held out in the
+    castle for a few days longer, after the town was taken. In memory
+    of this stout defence and long resistance King Charles gave to the
+    town its motto—_Fortiter defendit triumphans_, which Bates gives as
+    having originally been _Fortiter defendendo triumphat_—“She glories
+    in her brave defence.”
+
+    Two of the original fireplaces still remain in the Castle, and
+    there are besides many objects of great interest which have been
+    bestowed there from time to time for safe keeping; and many more
+    are to be seen at the Black Gate, formerly the chief entrance to
+    the Castle Hall and its surroundings. The Great Hall of the Castle,
+    in which John Baliol did homage to Edward I. for the crown of
+    Scotland, stood on the spot now covered by the Moot Hall. The Black
+    Gate, the lower part of which is the oldest part of the building,
+    which has many times been altered and repaired, is now used as a
+    museum. There were nearly a dozen rooms in it, and not so many
+    years ago the Corporation of Newcastle let these out in tenements,
+    until this building also was rescued from degradation by the
+    Newcastle Society of Antiquaries, who took down most of the
+    dividing walls, and converted it into a museum. Here may be seen
+    stored many sculptured stones, altars, and statues, which have been
+    brought from the various Roman stations in the north.
+
+    Around the walls of one room are to be seen facsimiles of the
+    famous Bayeux tapestry; there is also a model of the Castle as
+    originally built, and there are many more exhibits and loans of the
+    very greatest interest.
+
+    Of the walls of Newcastle only fragments remain, the most
+    considerable portion being found between Westgate Road and St.
+    Andrew’s Churchyard; here are also remains of several of the
+    watch-towers that stood at intervals around the walls—the Heber
+    Tower, the Mordaunt or Morden Tower, and the Ever Tower. Between
+    the two first named towers may be seen a little doorway, walled up,
+    once used by the Friars, who obtained from Edward II. permission to
+    make the doorway in order that they might the more easily reach
+    their gardens and orchards outside; but they had to be ready to
+    build it up at a moment’s notice on the approach of an enemy. One
+    of the towers—the Carliol or Weaver’s Tower—was pulled down to make
+    room for the Central Free Library, opened in 1881. Many little
+    fragments of the Castle wall are to be seen near the High Level
+    Bridge, incorporated in other walls, as far as the South Postern of
+    the Castle, which is said to be the only remaining Norman postern
+    in England and is the oldest remaining part of the Castle.
+
+    The old streets of Newcastle are fast disappearing to make room for
+    the ever-increasing needs of commerce; at the moment of writing it
+    is being proposed to pull down more of the historic street called
+    the Side, to make room for new printing offices. At the head of
+    this curious old street, which curves downward from the Cathedral
+    to the river, stood the birthplace of Cuthbert Collingwood, who was
+    to become Admiral Lord Collingwood, and second in fame only to
+    Nelson himself. Both this house and the one where Thomas Bewick had
+    his workshop, near the Cathedral, have gone to make room for new
+    buildings.
+
+    At the foot of this street, where it curves to the river front, is
+    the Sandhill, facing the Swing Bridge. Here are several old houses
+    remaining, with many-windowed fronts, looking out on the river. One
+    of these was the house of Aubone Surtees, the banker, whose
+    daughter Bessie, in 1772, stole out of one of those little windows,
+    and gave herself into the keeping of young Jack Scott, who was
+    waiting for her below. The adventurous youth became Lord Chancellor
+    of England, and is best known as Lord Eldon; his brother William
+    became Lord Stowell, and was for many years Judge of the High Court
+    of Admiralty.
+
+    Opposite the old houses of the Sandhill, close to the river bank,
+    is the old Guildhall, greatly altered in appearance from the time
+    when John Wesley preached from its steps to the keelmen and
+    fishermen of the town. It was here that a sturdy fishwife put her
+    arms round him, when some boisterous spirits in the crowd
+    threatened him with ill-usage, and, shaking her fist in their
+    faces, swore to “floor them” if they touched her “canny man.”
+
+    This spot, where the Swing Bridge unites the lower banks of the
+    stream, seems always to have been the most convenient point for
+    crossing the river, for the present bridge is the fifth that has
+    spanned the Tyne at this point: Hadrian’s bridge, Pons Aelii; a
+    mediaeval bridge destroyed by fire in 1248; the Old Tyne Bridge,
+    swept away in the flood of 1771; the successor of this, which was
+    found too low to allow of the passage of such large vessels as were
+    able to sail up the Tyne after the deepening of the river bed; and
+    the present Swing Bridge, which is worked by hydraulic machinery,
+    the invention of Lord Armstrong. We do not know how long Hadrian’s
+    bridge lasted, but William the Conqueror, when returning from his
+    expedition into Scotland in 1071, was obliged to camp for a time at
+    “Monec-cestre,” as the Tyne was in flood, and there was no bridge.
+
+    Some ancient houses are to be found in Low Friar Street, one of
+    which, with winged heads and dolphins carved on it, is said to be
+    the oldest house in Newcastle. Turning up an opening on the west
+    side of this street, all that is left of the ancient Blackfriars’
+    Monastery may be seen; some of its rooms are used as the meeting
+    places of various Trade Guilds, and the rest form low tenement
+    houses, in the walls of which are many Gothic archways and ancient
+    window-openings built up. Over the door of the Smith’s Hall is a
+    carving of three hammers, and the inscription:—
+  “By hammer and hand All artes do stand.”
+
+    This Hall was formerly the Great Hall of the monastery; and here
+    Edward Baliol did homage to Edward III. for his crown of Scotland.
+    Nun Street, leading out of Grainger Street, reminds us of the days
+    when the Nunnery of St. Bartholomew stood in this part of the town,
+    and the Nun’s Moor was part of the grounds belonging to the
+    establishment. In High Friar Street, which was not then the
+    dilapidated lane it now appears, Richard Grainger was born.
+
+    Another part of the town which has fallen from its former high
+    estate is the Close, which lies along the river front, westward
+    from the Sandhill. Here, at one time, lived many of the principal
+    inhabitants of Newcastle—Sir John Marley, Sir William Blackett, Sir
+    Ralph Millbank, and others equally important; and here, too, was
+    the former Mansion House of the city, where the Mayors resided, and
+    where they could receive distinguished visitors to the town.
+    Amongst those who have been entertained there were the Duke of
+    Wellington and the first King of the Belgians. But in 1836 the
+    Corporation of Newcastle sold the house, with the furniture, books,
+    pictures, plate, and everything else it contained.
+
+    Eastward from the Sandhill is Sandgate, immortalised in the
+    “Newcastle Anthem”—The Keel Row. Its present appearance is very
+    different from the green slope and sandy shore of former days; the
+    keelmen, too, have vanished, and their place in the commercial
+    economy of the Tyne is taken by waggon-ways and coal-shoots. The
+    old narrow alleys of the town, called “chares,” are fast
+    disappearing; the best known is Pudding Chare, leading from Bigg
+    Market to Westgate Road. Many and various are the explanations that
+    have been offered to account for its curious name, but the true one
+    does not seem yet to have appeared.
+
+    Pilgrim Street owes its name to the fact that it was the route of
+    the pilgrims who came in great numbers to visit the little chapel
+    or shrine of Our Lady of Jesmond, and St. Mary’s Well. In Pilgrim
+    Street was the gateway of a stately mansion, surrounded by
+    beautiful gardens, called Anderson Place, from a Mr. Anderson who
+    bought it from Sir Thomas Blackett in 1783. It had been built by
+    another Mr. Anderson in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, on the site
+    where once stood the monastery of the Grey Friars; he, however, had
+    named his mansion “The Newe House.” In this house Charles I. lived
+    when a prisoner in Newcastle. Anderson Place no longer exists, but
+    the Newcastle of to-day has a constant reminder of its last owners,
+    for Major George Anderson, son of the Mr. Anderson who purchased it
+    in 1783, gave to the Cathedral of St. Nicholas the great bell—known
+    on that account as “The Major”—whose deep reverberant “boom” can be
+    heard for a distance of ten miles. The bell was re-cast in 1891,
+    and in 1892 a new peal of bells was consecrated by Canon Gough.
+
+    Westgate Road is another interesting street; the old West Gate
+    stood near the site of the present Tyne Theatre, and from this
+    point onward the street follows, almost exactly, the line of the
+    Roman Wall.
+
+    Some noteworthy houses in Newcastle are—No. 17, Eldon Place, where
+    George and Robert Stephenson lived in the years 1824-25; No. 4, St.
+    Thomas’ Crescent, where the celebrated artist, Wm. Bell Scott lived
+    when he was headmaster of the School of Art, and to whom Swinburne
+    wrote a fine memorial poem; the Academy of Arts, in Blackett
+    Street, built for the exhibition of pictures by those well-known
+    painters T.M. Richardson and H.T. Parker, and for a short period
+    the home of the Pen and Palette Club, which, both here and in its
+    new home at Higham Place, has entertained many people distinguished
+    in letters, art, and travel who have visited the town of late
+    years; and No. 9, Pleasant Row, the birthplace of Lord Armstrong,
+    which has only recently been destroyed to make way for the N.E.R.
+    Company’s new ferro-concrete Goods Station in New Bridge Street.
+
+    The list of important buildings in Newcastle, exclusive of the
+    churches, is a long one; one of the most prominent is the Library
+    of the Literary and Philosophical Society, familiarly known as the
+    “Lit. and Phil.,” which stands at the lower end of Westgate Road, a
+    little way back from the roadway. It is built on the site of the
+    town house of the Earls of Westmoreland; and its fine Lecture
+    Theatre was a gift to the Society from Lord Armstrong. It is the
+    centre of the intellectual life of the city as a whole, apart from
+    the work of the justly famed Armstrong College, a teaching
+    institute of University rank. This was formerly known as the Durham
+    College of Science, and, with the Durham College of Medicine, forms
+    part of the University of Durham.
+
+    Other seats of learning in the town are the Rutherford College, in
+    Bath Lane, and the Royal Grammar School, which dates from the reign
+    of Henry VIII. It was reconstituted by Queen Elizabeth, and has had
+    many changes of abode. At one time it occupied the buildings of the
+    Convent of St. Mary, which covered the space where Stephenson’s
+    monument now stands. While the Grammar School was located there,
+    the boys Cuthbert Collingwood, William Scott, and John Scott, who
+    afterwards became so famous, attended it; and other distinguished
+    scholars were John Horsley, author of _Britannia Romana_, and John
+    Brand and Henry Bourne, the historians of Newcastle. The school is
+    now situated in Eskdale Terrace and its splendid playing fields
+    stretch across to the North Road.
+
+    One of the most interesting buildings in Newcastle is the Hancock
+    Museum of Natural History, at Barras Bridge. It contains a
+    matchless collection of birds, and some unique specimens of extinct
+    species; also the original drawings of Bewick’s _British Birds_,
+    and other works of his. The famous Newcastle naturalist, John
+    Hancock, presented his wonderful collection, prepared by himself,
+    to the museum. Here, too, is a complete set of fossils from the
+    coal measures, including some fine specimens of Sigillaria. These
+    are only a few of the treasures contained in the museum, which was
+    built chiefly through the generosity of the late Lord and Lady
+    Armstrong, Colonel John Joicey of Newton Hall, Stocksfield, and Mr.
+    Edward Joicey of Whinney House.
+
+    The new Victoria Infirmary, on the Leazes, is a magnificent
+    building, and was opened by King Edward VII. in 1906. It was
+    erected by public subscription, and when £100,000 had been
+    subscribed, the late Mr. John Hall generously offered a like sum on
+    condition that the building should be erected either on the Leazes
+    or the Town Moor. Arrangements were made to do so, and another
+    £100,000 given by the present Lord and Lady Armstrong.
+
+    But fine as all these buildings are, the pride of Newcastle is one
+    much older than any of them—the Cathedral church of St. Nicholas,
+    with its exquisitely beautiful lantern steeple. This wonderful
+    lantern was the work of Robert de Rhodes, who lived in the
+    fifteenth century. The arms of this early benefactor of the church
+    may yet be seen on the ancient font. The present church was
+    finished in the year 1350, says Dr. Bruce; but there was a former
+    one on this site to which the crypt is supposed to belong. It has
+    undergone many alterations at different times, and has sheltered
+    within its walls many and various great personages.
+
+[Illustration: Newcastle-upon-Tyne.]
+
+    In 1451, a treaty between England and Scotland was ratified in the
+    vestry. In the reign of Henry VII., his daughter, Princess
+    Margaret, attended mass here, with all her retinue, when she stayed
+    in the town on her way to Scotland to be married to the gallant
+    young king James IV. She was entertained at the house of the Austin
+    Friars, which stood where now stands the Holy Jesus Hospital at the
+    Manors, near to the Sallyport Tower. When James I. became king of
+    England, he attended service here, as he passed through Newcastle
+    on his way to his southern capital. In the reign of his ill-fated
+    son, Charles I., Newcastle was occupied by the Scots, under General
+    Leslie, for a year after the battle of Newburn in 1640; and again
+    in 1644 was besieged by them for ten weeks. On this occasion the
+    town nearly lost its chief ornament and pride—the lantern of the
+    church; for “There is a traditional story,” says Bourne, “of this
+    building I am now treating of, which may not be improper to be here
+    taken notice of. In the time of the Civil Wars, when the Scots had
+    besieged the town for several weeks, and were still as far as at
+    first from taking it, the General sent a messenger to the Mayor of
+    the town, and demanded the keys and the delivery up of the town, or
+    he would immediately demolish the steeple of St. Nicholas.
+
+    “The Mayor and Aldermen, upon hearing this, immediately ordered a
+    certain number of the chiefest Scottish prisoners to be carried up
+    to the top of the old tower, the place below the lantern, and there
+    confined. After this, they returned the General an answer to this
+    purpose, that they would upon no terms deliver up the town, but
+    would to the last moment defend it; that the steeple of St.
+    Nicholas was indeed a beautiful and magnificent piece of
+    architecture, and one of the great ornaments of the town, but yet
+    should be blown to atoms before ransomed at such a rate; that,
+    however, if it was to fall it should not fall alone; that at the
+    same moment he destroyed the beautiful structure he should bathe
+    his hands in the blood of his countrymen, who were placed there on
+    purpose, either to preserve it from ruin or to die along with it.
+    This message had the desired effect. The men were kept prisoners
+    during the whole time of the siege, and not so much as one gun was
+    fired against it.”
+
+    In 1646, when Charles I. was a prisoner in Newcastle for nearly a
+    year (from May, 1646, to February 3rd, 1647), this was the church
+    he attended; and we may picture him listening perforce to the
+    “admonishing” of the stern Covenanters. In this connection occurs
+    the oft-told story of his ready wit, when one of the preachers
+    wound up his discourse by giving out the metrical version of the
+    fifty-second Psalm, with an obvious allusion to his royal hearer:—
+  “Why dost thou, tyrant, boast abroad, Thy wicked works to praise?”
+
+    Charles quickly stood up and asked for the fifty-sixth Psalm
+    instead:—
+  “Have mercy, Lord, on me, I pray, For man would me devour.”
+
+    The good folk of Newcastle with willing voice rendered the latter
+    Psalm, doubtless to the discomfiture of the preacher.
+
+    Gray, who published his _Chorographia_, or Survey of
+    Newcastle-upon-Tyne, just three years after this, describes St.
+    Nicholas’ as having “a stately, high, stone steeple, with many
+    pinakles, a stately stone lantherne, standing upon foure stone
+    arches, builded by Robert de Rhodes.... It lifteth up a head of
+    Majesty, as high above the rest as the Cypresse Tree above the low
+    Shrubs.”
+
+    The church underwent a terrible despoliation at the hands of the
+    Scots in 1644; but more terrible still were the injuries it
+    received, a little more than a century later, from those who ought
+    to have been its friends. In the years 1784-7 there were many
+    alterations made in the building, during which almost all the old
+    memorials and monuments perished, or were removed; those which were
+    not claimed by the living representatives of the persons
+    commemorated being ruthlessly sold, or destroyed; and the brasses
+    were disposed of as old metal. The modern alterations and
+    restorations have been more happy in their effect, and one of the
+    notable additions to the church is the beautiful carved oak screen
+    in the chancel, the work of Mr. Ralph Hedley.
+
+    There are many beautiful memorial windows in the church, and many
+    memorials in other forms to the various eminent North-country folk
+    who have been connected with Newcastle and its chief place of
+    worship. The Collingwood cenotaph is the most interesting of all;
+    the brave Admiral’s body, as is well known, lies beside that of his
+    friend and commander, Nelson, in St. Paul’s Cathedral, but this
+    memorial of him is fittingly placed in the Cathedral of his native
+    town, within whose walls he worshipped as a boy. There are two
+    monuments by Flaxman—one of the Rev. Hugh Moises, the famous master
+    of the Grammar School when Collingwood was a boy; and the other of
+    Sir Matthew White Ridley, who died in 1813. Of the newer monuments,
+    those of Dr. Bruce, of Roman Wall fame, and of the beloved and
+    lamented Bishop Lloyd, are particularly fine.
+
+    Near the east end of the church, which was raised to the rank of a
+    Cathedral in 1881, is hung a large painting by Tintoretto, “Christ
+    washing the feet of the Disciples”; this was presented to the
+    church by Sir Matthew White Ridley in 1818. There are many more
+    things of interest in the Cathedral, but mention must be made of a
+    wonderful MS. Bible, incomplete, it is true, but beautifully
+    written and illuminated by the monks of Hexham, and other
+    manuscript treasures carefully kept in the care of the authorities.
+
+    The oldest church in the town is St. Andrew’s, supposed to have
+    been built by King David of Scotland at the time when that monarch
+    was Lord of Tynedale, in the reign of King Stephen. It suffered
+    greatly in the struggle with the Scots, whose cannon, planted on
+    the Leazes, did it great damage, and some of the fiercest fighting,
+    at the final capture of the town, took place close by, where a
+    breach was made in the walls. In such a battered condition was it
+    left that the parish Registers tell us that no baptism nor “sarmon”
+    took place within its walls for a year (1645). But a marriage took
+    place, the persons wedded being Scots, who, we learn from the same
+    authority, “would pay nothing to the Church.”
+
+    In the church is buried Sir Adam de Athol, Lord of Jesmond, and
+    Mary, his wife. It is supposed that this Sir Adam gave the Town
+    Moor to the people of Newcastle, though this has been disputed. A
+    fine picture of the “Last Supper,” by Giordano, presented by Major
+    Anderson in 1804, hangs in the church.
+
+    St. John’s Church ranks next to St. Andrew’s in point of age; there
+    are fragments of Norman work in the building, and it is known to
+    have been standing in 1297. To-day the venerable pile, with its age
+    worn stones, stands out in sharper contrast to its environment than
+    does any other building in the town, surrounded as it is by modern
+    shops and offices. The memories it evokes, and the past for which
+    it stands, are such as the citizens of Newcastle will not willingly
+    let die; and when, a few years ago, a proposal was made for its
+    removal, the proposition aroused such a storm of popular feeling
+    against it that it was incontinently abandoned.
+
+    All Saints’ Church was built in 1789, on the site of an older
+    building which was in existence in 1296, and which became very
+    unsafe. Here is kept one of the most interesting monuments in the
+    city—the monumental brass which once covered the tomb of Roger
+    Thornton, a wealthy merchant of Newcastle, and a great benefactor
+    to all the churches. He died in 1429. He gave to St. Nicholas’
+    Church its great east window; but, on its needing repair in 1860,
+    it was removed entirely, and the present one, in memory of Dr.
+    Ions, inserted; and the only fragment left of Thornton’s window is
+    a small circular piece inset in a plain glass window in the
+    Cathedral. He gave much money to Hexham Abbey also.
+
+    Besides the famous men already mentioned in connection with the
+    town, Newcastle possesses other well-known names not a few. In the
+    Middle Ages, Duns Scotus, the man whose skill in argument earned
+    for him the title of “Doctor Subtilis,” owned Northumberland as his
+    home, and received his education in the monastery of the Grey
+    Friars, which stood near the head of the present Grey Street. He
+    returned to this monastery after some years of study at Oxford; in
+    1304 he was teaching divinity in Paris.
+
+    Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London in the reign of Edward VI., whose
+    Northumbrian birthplace at Willimoteswick has already been noted,
+    received his early education at the Grammar School in Newcastle,
+    and on going to Cambridge was a student at Pembroke. We are told he
+    was the ablest man among the Reformers for piety, learning and
+    judgment. As is well known, he died at the stake in 1555.
+
+    William and Elizabeth Elstob, who lived in Newcastle at the end of
+    the seventeenth century, were learned Saxon scholars, but were so
+    greatly in advance of the education of their times that they met
+    with little encouragement or sympathy in their labours.
+
+    Charles Avison, the musician and composer, was organist of St.
+    John’s in 1736, and afterwards of St. Nicholas’.
+
+    It was he to whom Browning referred in the lines—
+    
+                               “On the list Of worthies, who by help of
+                               pipe or wire, Expressed in sound rough
+                               rage or soft desire, Thou, whilom of
+                               Newcastle, organist.”
+
+    These lines have been carved on his tombstone in St. Andrew’s
+    churchyard. He is best known as the composer of the anthem “Sound
+    the loud timbrel.”
+
+    Mark Akenside, the poet, was born in Butcher Bank, now called after
+    him Akenside Hill. His chief work “The Pleasures of Imagination,”
+    is not often read now, but it enjoyed a considerable reputation in
+    an age when a stilted and formal style was looked upon as a true
+    excellence in poetry.
+
+    Charles Hutton, the mathematician, was born in Newcastle in 1737.
+    He began life as a pitman; but, receiving an injury to his arm, he
+    turned his attention to books, and taught in his native town for
+    some years, becoming later Professor of Mathematics in the Royal
+    Military Academy at Woolwich.
+
+    John Brand, the antiquary and historian of Newcastle, was born at
+    Washington, County Durham, but came to Newcastle as a child. After
+    attending the Grammar School, he went to Oxford, by the aid of his
+    master, the Rev. Hugh Moises. He was afterwards curate at the
+    church of St. Andrew.
+
+    Robert Morrison, the celebrated Chinese scholar, was born near
+    Morpeth, but his parents came to Newcastle when the boy was three
+    years of age. He died in China in 1834.
+
+    Thomas Miles Richardson, the well-known artist, was born in
+    Newcastle in 1784, and was at first a cabinetmaker, then master of
+    St. Andrew’s Free School, but finally gave up all other work to
+    devote himself to his art.
+
+    Robert Stephenson went to school at Percy Street Academy, which for
+    long has ceased to exist. There he was taught by Mr. Bruce, and had
+    for one of his fellow-pupils the master’s son, John Collingwood
+    Bruce, who afterwards became so famous a teacher and antiquary.
+
+    Newcastle is not, as most southerners imagine, a dark and gloomy
+    town of unrelieved bricks and mortar, for, besides possessing many
+    wide and handsome streets, it has also several pretty parks, the
+    most noteworthy being the beautiful Jesmond Dene, one of the late
+    Lord Armstrong’s magnificent gifts to his native town. The Dene,
+    together with the Armstrong Park near it, lies on the course of the
+    Ouseburn, which is here a bright and sparkling stream, very
+    different from the appearance it presents by the time it empties
+    its murky waters into the Tyne. Besides these there are Heaton
+    Park, the Leazes Park, with its lakes and boats, Brandling Park,
+    and others smaller than these; and last, but most important of all,
+    the Town Moor, a fine breezy space to the north of the town, of
+    more than 900 acres in extent.
+
+    Of statues and monuments Newcastle possesses some half-dozen, the
+    finest being “Grey’s Monument”—a household word in the town and
+    familiarly known as “The Monument.” It was erected at the junction
+    of Grey Street and Grainger Street in memory of Earl Grey of
+    Howick, who was Prime Minister at the passing of the Reform Bill.
+    The figure of the Earl, by Bailey, stands at the top of a lofty
+    column, the height being 135 feet to the top of the figure. There
+    is a stairway within the column, by which it can be ascended, and a
+    magnificent view enjoyed from the top.
+
+    In an open space near the Central Station, between the _Chronicle_
+    Office and the Lit. and Phil., there is a fine statue of George
+    Stephenson, by the Northumbrian sculptor, Lough. It is a full
+    length representation of the great engineer, in bronze, with the
+    figures of four workmen, representing the chief industries of
+    Tyneside, around the pedestal—a miner, a smith, a navvy, and an
+    engineer. At the head of Northumberland Street, on the open space
+    of the Haymarket, stands a beautiful winged Victory on a tall
+    column, crowning “Northumbria” typified as a female figure at the
+    foot of the column. This graceful and striking memorial is the work
+    of T. Eyre Macklin, and is in memory of the officers and men of the
+    North who fell in the Boer War of 1899-1902. Two other noteworthy
+    statues in the town are those of Lord Armstrong, near the entrance
+    to the Natural History Museum at Barras Bridge, and of Joseph
+    Cowen, in Westgate Road.
+
+THE KEEL ROW
+
+  As I came thro’ Sandgate, Thro’ Sandgate, thro’ Sandgate, As I came
+  thro’ Sandgate, I heard a lassie sing “O weel may the keel row, The
+  keel row, the keel row, Weel may the keel row That my laddie’s in
+  “O who is like my Johnnie, Sae leish,[5] sae blithe, sae bonnie; He’s
+  foremost ’mang the mony Keel lads o’ coaly Tyne He’ll set and row sae
+  tightly, And in the dance sae sprightly He’ll cut and shuffle
+  lightly, ’Tis true, were he not mine!
+  “He has nae mair o’ learnin’ Than tells his weekly earnin’, Yet,
+  right frae wrang discernin’, Tho’ brave, nae bruiser he! Tho’ he no
+  worth a plack[6] is, His ain coat on his back is; And nane can say
+  that black is The white o’ Johnnie’s e’e
+  He wears a blue bonnet, Blue bonnet, blue bonnet, He wears a blue
+  bonnet, And a dimple in his chin O weel may the keel row, The keel
+  row, the keel row, Weel may the keel row That my laddie’s in.”
+
+ [5] Leish = lithe, nimble.
+
+ [6] Plack = a small copper coin, worth about one-third of a penny.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. ELSWICK AND ITS FOUNDER.
+
+
+  Sailed from the North of old The strong sons of Odin; Sailed in the
+  Serpent ships, “By hammer and hand” Skilfully builded.
+
+
+  Still in the North-country Men keep their sea-cunning; Still true the
+  legend, “By hammer and hand” Elswick builds war-ships.
+  —(_Northumbriensis_).
+
+    For a mile and a quarter, along the north bank of the Tyne, stretch
+    the world-famed Elswick Works, which have grown to their present
+    gigantic proportions from the small beginnings of five and a half
+    acres in 1847. In that year two fields were purchased as a site for
+    the new works about to be started to make the hydraulic machinery
+    which had been invented by Mr. Armstrong.
+
+    In this undertaking he was backed by the wealth of several
+    prominent Newcastle citizens, who believed in the future of the new
+    inventions—Messrs. Addison Potter, George Cruddas, Armourer Donkin,
+    and Richard Lambert. At that time Elswick was a pretty country
+    village some distance outside of Newcastle, and the walk along the
+    riverside between the two places was a favourite one with the
+    people of the town. In midstream there was an island, where stood a
+    little inn called the “Countess of Coventry”; and on the island
+    various sports were often held, including horse-racing.
+
+    The price of the land for the new shops, which were soon built on
+    the green slopes above the Tyne, was paid to Mr. Hodgson Hind and
+    Mr. Richard Grainger; the latter of whom had intended, could he
+    have carried out his plans for the rebuilding of Newcastle, not to
+    stop until he made Elswick Hall the centre of the town.
+
+    Until the new shops were ready to begin work, some of Mr.
+    Armstrong’s hydraulic cranes were made by Mr. Watson at his works
+    in the High Bridge.
+
+    All the summer of 1847, the building went briskly on; and in the
+    autumn work was started. At first Mr. Armstrong had an office in
+    Hood Street, as he was superintending his machinery construction in
+    High Bridge, as well as the building operations at Elswick. On some
+    of the early notepaper of the firm there is, as the heading, a
+    picture of Elswick as it was then, showing the first shops, the
+    little square building in which were the offices, the green banks
+    sloping down to the waterside, and the island in the middle of the
+    shallow stream, while the chimneys and smoke of Newcastle are
+    indicated in the remote background. Along the riverside was the
+    public footpath.
+
+    The first work done in the new shops was the making of Crane No. 6;
+    and amongst other early orders was one from the _Newcastle
+    Chronicle_, for hydraulic machinery to drive the printing press.
+    The new machinery rapidly grew in favour; and orders from mines,
+    docks and railways poured in to the Elswick firm, which soon
+    extended its works.
+
+    In 1854, when the Crimean War broke out, Mr. Armstrong was
+    requested to devise some submarine mines which would clear the
+    harbour of Sebastopol of the Russian war-ships which had been sent
+    there. He did so, but the machinery was never used.
+
+    At the same time, in his leisure moments, he turned his attention
+    to the question of artillery. The guns in use at that time were
+    very little better than those which had been used during the
+    Napoleonic wars; and Mr. Armstrong devised a new one, which was
+    made at his workshops. It was a 3-pounder, complete with
+    gun-carriage and mountings, and is still to be seen at Elswick.
+
+    With the usual reluctance of Government departments to consider
+    anything new, the War Office of the day was slow to believe in the
+    superiority of the new field-piece; but when every fresh trial
+    proved that superiority to be beyond doubt, the gun was adopted.
+    And then Mr. Armstrong showed the large-minded generosity which was
+    so marked a feature of his character. Holding in his hand—as every
+    man must, who possesses the secret of a new and superior engine of
+    destruction—the fate of nations, to be decided at his will, and
+    with the knowledge that other powers were willing and eager to buy
+    with any sum the skill of such an inventor, Mr. Armstrong presented
+    to the British Government, as a free gift, the patents of his
+    artillery; and he entered the Government service for a time, as
+    Engineer to the War Department, in order to give them the benefit
+    of his skill and special knowledge.
+
+    A knighthood was bestowed upon him, and he took up his new duties
+    as Sir William Armstrong. An Ordnance department was opened at
+    Elswick, and the Government promised a continuance of orders above
+    those that the Arsenal at Woolwich was able to fulfil. All went
+    well for a time, but after some years the connection between the
+    Government and Elswick ceased; the Ordnance and Engineering works
+    were then amalgamated into one concern, and Mr. George Rendel and
+    Captain Noble—now Sir Andrew Noble, and one of the greatest living
+    authorities on explosives—were placed in charge of the former.
+
+    Released from the agreement to make no guns except for the British
+    Government, Elswick was open to receive other orders, which now
+    began to roll in from all the world. Elswick prospered greatly,
+    until suddenly there came a check, in the shape of a strike for a
+    nine hours day, in 1871. After the strike had lasted for four and a
+    half months, work was resumed; but the old genial relationship
+    between masters and men had received a rude strain, and was never
+    the same as before.
+
+    Shipbuilding had been taken up a year or two before this, but the
+    earliest vessels were built to their order in Mr. Mitchell’s yard
+    at Walker. The first one was a small gunboat, the “Staunch,” built
+    for the Admiralty. In later years the Walker ship-yard was united
+    to the Elswick enterprises, and a ship-yard at the latter place was
+    also opened.
+
+    Meantime, Captain Noble had been experimenting further in
+    artillery, and in 1877 another and better type of gun was produced.
+    It was adopted by the Government, and all guns since then have been
+    modifications, more or less, of this type. In 1876 the famous
+    hundred-ton gun for Italy was made, and was taken on board the
+    “Europa” to be carried to her destination; this vessel being the
+    first to pass the newly-finished Swing Bridge, another outcome of
+    the inventive genius of the head of the Elswick firm. The gun,
+    which was the largest in the world at that time, was lowered into
+    the “Europa” by the largest pair of “sheer-legs” in existence, and
+    was lifted out again at Spezzia by the largest hydraulic crane of
+    that day, and all these were the work of the Elswick firm.
+
+    Soon after this the firm became Sir W.G. Armstrong, Mitchell, and
+    Co.; and in consequence of the continued increase of business, it
+    became necessary to open Steel Works also. This is one of the most
+    notable features of the Elswick works; the wonders of ancient
+    magicians pale into insignificance before the marvels of this
+    department, and no Eastern Genius could accomplish such seemingly
+    impossible feats with greater ease than do the workmen of Elswick.
+
+    The works continued to grow still further, and soon Elswick was
+    building cruisers for China, for Italy (where works at Pozzuoli—the
+    ancient Puteoli—were opened), for Russia, Chili, and Japan.
+    Tynesiders took a special interest in the progress of the Japanese
+    wars, for so many of that country’s battleships had their birth on
+    the banks of the river at Elswick, and Japanese sailors became a
+    familiar sight in Newcastle streets. Groups of strange faces from
+    alien lands are periodically seen in our midst, and met with again
+    and again for some time; then one day there is a launch at Elswick,
+    and shortly afterwards all the strange faces disappear. They have
+    gathered together from their various quarters in the town, and
+    manning their new cruiser, have sailed away to their own land, and
+    Newcastle streets know them no more; but, later, Tynesiders read in
+    their newspapers of the deeds done on the vessels which they have
+    sent forth to the world.
+
+    The ice-breaker “Ermack” is one of the firm’s most notable
+    achievements, the vessel having been built and designed in their
+    Walker yard, to the order of the Czar of Russia, in 1898, for the
+    purpose of breaking up ice-floes in the northern seas, and more
+    especially for keeping open a route across the great lakes of
+    Siberia.
+
+    The Elswick firm became Armstrong, Whitworth and Co., Ltd., in
+    1897, which was also the year of another great strike; and two
+    years later, a disastrous fire burned down three of their shops,
+    throwing two thousand men temporarily out of employment. Still the
+    works continued to grow, and business to increase, until, instead
+    of the five and a half acres originally purchased, the Company’s
+    works, in 1900, covered two hundred and thirty acres, and the
+    number of men on the pay-roll was over 25,000—that is, sufficient
+    with their families to people a town three times the size of
+    Hexham. And the scope and extent of these works are extending, and
+    yet extending; and now Elswick and Scotswood form an uninterrupted
+    line of closely-packed dwellings, which stretch without a break
+    from Newcastle, and make a background for the immense works on the
+    river shore; and one would look in vain for any signs of the pretty
+    country lanes and village of sixty years ago.
+
+    The founder of this great enterprise, in the early days of the
+    Company, built for his workpeople schools, library, and reading
+    rooms, as well as dwellings, and met them personally at their
+    social gatherings and entertainments—generally provided by himself;
+    but the increasing size of the concern, the excellence and
+    capability, amounting to genius, of the various heads of
+    departments chosen by him, and his own increasing years and failing
+    health, led to his gradual withdrawal from personal attendance at
+    Elswick. The last time he appeared there officially was when the
+    King of Siam visited the works in 1897.
+
+    One who knew him well has written of him, “His mind was at the same
+    time original and strictly practical; he noticed with a penetrating
+    observation, and drew conclusions with intuitive genius. Abstract
+    speculation had no charm for him; he never cherished wild dreams or
+    extravagant ideas. But if his conception was thus wisely
+    restricted, his execution of an idea was unrivalled in its
+    thoroughness. Whether he was founding an industrial establishment,
+    or building a house, or making a road, the hand of the man is quite
+    unmistakable. There is the same solid basis, the same enduring
+    superstructure. Every stone that is laid at Cragside or Bamburgh
+    seems to be stamped as it were with the impression of his great
+    personality, and the thoroughness of his work.” All his life long,
+    the thoroughness with which he was able to concentrate his mind on
+    the one subject which occupied it at the time, was a marked feature
+    of Lord Armstrong’s character.
+
+    In the early period of his career, while he was still in a
+    solicitor’s office, and when the study of hydraulics was absorbing
+    all his leisure hours, he was quizzically said to have “water on
+    the brain.” Electrical problems also engaged his attention, and in
+    1844 he lectured at the Lit. and Phil. rooms on his hydro-electric
+    machine, on which occasion the lecture room was so tightly packed
+    that he had to get in through the window. In the following year he
+    explained to the same society his hydraulic experiments and
+    achievements; in 1846 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society;
+    and the next summer, 1847, saw the Elswick Works begun.
+
+    It is difficult to realize the fact, brought home to us on looking
+    at dates like these, that Lord Armstrong and Robert Stephenson were
+    contemporaries, and that both great engineers were engaged at the
+    same time on the works which were to bring them lasting fame. The
+    life and work of Robert Stephenson seem so remote, so much a part
+    of bygone history, that it strikes the mind with an unexpected
+    shock to realise that here is a life which began about the same
+    time, yet has lasted until quite recent years; for Lord Armstrong’s
+    long and successful career only closed with the closing days of the
+    nineteenth century.
+
+    In the later years of his life he was greatly interested in
+    repairing and partly re-building the historic castle of Bamburgh,
+    which Mr. Freeman calls “the cradle of our race,” and which Lord
+    Armstrong purchased from Lord Crewe’s Trustees. Of his personal
+    character, the writer above quoted says, “Apart from his
+    intellectual gifts, Lord Armstrong’s character was that of a great
+    man. His unaffected modesty was as attractive as his broad-minded
+    charity. In business transactions, he was the soul of integrity and
+    honour, while in private life his mind was far too large to regard
+    accumulated wealth with any excessive affection. He both spent his
+    money freely and gave it away freely. His benefactions to Newcastle
+    were princely, and his public munificence was fit to rank with that
+    of any philanthropist of his time.”
+
+    Princely, indeed, were his gifts to his native town, as the list of
+    them will show; they embraced either large contributions to, or the
+    entire gift of, Jesmond Dene, the Armstrong Park, the Lecture
+    Theatre of the Literary and Philosophical Society, St. Cuthbert’s
+    Church, the Cathedral, St. Stephen’s Church, the Infirmary, the
+    Deaf and Dumb Institution, the Children’s Hospital, the Elswick
+    Schools, Elswick Mechanics’ Institute, the Convalescent Home at
+    Whitley Bay, the Hancock Museum—to which he and Lady Armstrong
+    contributed a valuable collection of shells, and £11,500 in
+    money—the Armstrong Bridge, the Armstrong College, and the
+    Bishopric Endowment Fund.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. THE CHEVIOTS.
+
+
+    From the crowded, bustling scenes of Tyneside to the solitude of
+    the Cheviot Hills is a “far cry,” even farther mentally than in
+    actual tale of miles. Yet the two are linked by the same stream,
+    which begins life as a brawling Cheviot burn, having for its
+    fellows the head waters of the Rede, the Coquet, and the Till, with
+    the scores of little dancing rills that feed them.
+
+    Nowhere in this land of swelling hills and grassy fields can one
+    get out of either sight or sound of running water. Every little dip
+    in the hills has its watercourse, every vale its broader stream,
+    and the pleasant sound of their murmurings and sweet babbling fills
+    in the background of every remembrance of days spent upon the green
+    slopes of the Cheviots. You may hear in their tones, if you listen,
+    the shrill chatter and laughter of children, soft cooing voices,
+    and the deeper notes of manhood, and might fancy, did not your
+    sight contradict the fact, that you were close to a goodly company,
+    whose words met your ear, but whose magic language you could not
+    understand.
+
+    One little burn of my acquaintance, which runs through field and
+    dell to join the Till, I have hearkened to again and again for
+    hours, unable to break away from the spell of its ever-varying, yet
+    constant music—a sort of wilder, sweeter version of Mendelssohn’s
+    Duetto, with the voices of Knight and Lady alternating and
+    intermingling amidst a rippling current of clear bell-like
+    undertones.
+
+    Down from Cheviot itself, the lovely little Colledge Water splashes
+    its way, issuing from the wild ravine called the Henhole, where the
+    cliffs on each side of the rocky gorge rise in some places to a
+    height of more than two hundred feet. Concerning this ravine, there
+    is a legend that a party of hunters, long ages ago, were
+    deer-stalking in Cheviot Forest, when on reaching the Henhole their
+    ears were greeted by the most ravishing music they had ever heard.
+    Allured by the enchanting sounds, they followed the music into the
+    ravine, where they disappeared, and were never again seen.
+
+    The range of the Cheviot Hills stretches for about twenty-two miles
+    along the north-west border of Northumberland; and as the width of
+    the range is, roughly speaking, twenty-one miles, we have a tract
+    of over three hundred square miles of rolling, grassy, and
+    heath-clad hills, of which about one-third is over the Scottish
+    border in Roxburghshire. The giants of the range, The Cheviot
+    (2,676 feet high), Cairn Hill (2,545 feet), and the striking cone
+    of Hedgehope (2,348 feet), are all near to each other on
+    Northumbrian soil, a few miles south-west of Wooler, which is a
+    most convenient starting place for a visit to any part of the
+    Cheviots, as the Alnwick and Cornhill Railway brings within easy
+    reach the heights which lie still farther north.
+
+    The quiet little market town lies pleasantly among green meadows
+    almost at the foot of the Cheviots; its low substantial stone
+    houses, with few gardens in front, give the place a somewhat
+    monotonous appearance, but the newer streets try to make amends by
+    blossoming out into brilliant flower-plots in summer-time. Still,
+    one would not quarrel with the older buildings; solid and
+    unpretentious, they must look much the same as in the days of
+    Border turmoil, when the first requisite in house or town was
+    strength, not beauty.
+
+    Near to Wooler are many interesting places; within the limits of
+    quite a short stroll one may visit the Pin Well, a wishing well of
+    which there are so many examples to be found wherever one may
+    travel; the King’s Chair, a porphyry crag on the hill above the Pin
+    Well; Maiden Castle, or, less euphoniously, Kettles Camp, an
+    ancient British encampment on the same hill, the Kettles being
+    pot-like cavities in the ravines surrounding it; and the Cup and
+    Saucer Camp, just half a mile distant from Wooler. The Golf Course
+    is now laid out on these same heights.
+
+    To reach the Cheviots from Wooler, the most usual way is by the
+    beautiful glen in which lies Langleeford. The bright streamlet
+    known as the Wooler Water runs through it from Cheviot on its way
+    to the town from which it has taken its present name; formerly it
+    was known as Caldgate Burn. It was at Langleeford that Sir Walter
+    Scott stayed, as a youth, in 1791, with his uncle, after they had
+    vainly attempted to find accommodation in Wooler. Here they rode,
+    fished, shot, walked, and drank the goat’s whey for which the
+    district was famous in those days and for long afterwards.
+
+    Cheviot itself, or “The Muckle Cheviot,” is a huge cumbrous-looking
+    mass, with rounded sides and flat top, boggy and treacherous,
+    where, nevertheless, many wild berries brighten the marshy flats in
+    their season. The name “Cheviot” is said to mean “Snowy Ridge” and
+    well does this highest summit of the range merit the name, for on
+    its marshy top and in the rocky chasms of Henhole and Bazzle, the
+    winter’s snow often lies until far into the summer. Down through
+    the weird and fairy-haunted cleft of Henhole, as we have seen, the
+    little brown stream of Colledge Water splashes its way, breaking
+    into golden foam between mossy banks as it reaches the outlet, and
+    turns northward to join the Till.
+
+    This little burn is one of the prettiest of mountain streams; and
+    in the district surrounding it are perhaps more points of interest
+    than any other stream of such inconsiderable dimensions can show,
+    saving only its neighbour, the Till. The whole of the surrounding
+    country, wild, lonely, and romantic, teems with memories and
+    reminders of the past. Sir Walter Scott, while on the visit already
+    referred to, found an additional pleasure in the presence of so
+    many relics of ancient days in the neighbourhood. “Each hill,” he
+    wrote to a friend, “is crowned with a tower, or camp, or cairn, and
+    in no situation can you be near more fields of battle.”
+
+    Indeed, the whole district of the Cheviots, and the lower lines of
+    swelling hills into which the land subsides as it nears the sea, is
+    crowded with the memorials of an earlier race; from every hill-top
+    and rocky height they speak with tantalising half-revelations of
+    that race which the Romans found here when their galleys brought
+    them to the land which was to them Ultima Thule. No convincing
+    explanation has yet been found of the concentric circular markings,
+    with radiating grooves from the cup-shaped hollow in the middle,
+    which are scored on the rocks wherever traces of an ancient camp
+    are found; and the numbers of these traces are proof that this
+    district was once a very thickly populated part of Britain.
+
+    And when Angle and Saxon were driving the early inhabitants before
+    them, westward and southward, these hills and valleys still
+    sheltered a considerable population; and Bede tells us of a royal
+    residence not far away, at the foot of the well known Yeavering
+    Bell, one of the more important hills of the range. It rises to a
+    height of more than 1,100 feet, and then abruptly ends in a wide,
+    almost level top, grass-grown and boulder-strewn, and crowned near
+    the centre with a roughly-piled cairn. The ancient name of
+    Yeavering Bell, as given by Bede in his account of the labours of
+    St. Paulinus, was Ad-gefrin.
+
+    To recall the days when King Edwin and his queen, Ethelburga, came
+    here from the royal city of Bamburgh, we must go back to a time
+    nearly forty years after the Bernician chieftain, Ida, established
+    himself in that rocky fortress, from whence he ruled a district
+    roughly corresponding to the present counties of Durham and
+    Northumberland, and known as Bernicia. One of Ida’s successors,
+    Ethelric, overcame the tribe of Angles then established in the
+    neighbouring district of Deira—the Yorkshire of to-day. His
+    successor, Ethelfrith, ruled over the united district, and married
+    the daughter of Ella, the vanquished chieftain. Her brother, Edwin,
+    he drove into exile, and the young prince found refuge at the court
+    of Redwald of East Anglia, where he remained for some years.
+
+    Redwald’s friendship, however, does not seem to have been above
+    suspicion, for we find that Ethelfrith’s bribe had on one occasion
+    nearly induced him to give up his guest, whose life, however, was
+    saved by Redwald’s wife who turned her husband from his purpose. In
+    his exile the thoughts of the young prince often turned towards his
+    own land; and, once, as he sat brooding over his misfortunes, he
+    saw in a vision one who came and spoke comforting words to him,
+    saying that he should yet be king and that his reign should be long
+    and glorious. “And if one should come to thee and repeat this
+    sign,” said the stranger, laying his right hand on Edwin’s head
+    “wouldst thou hearken to his rede?” Edwin gave his word, and the
+    vision fled. Some little time after this, Ethelfrith of
+    Northumbria, as the united districts were now called, fell in
+    battle against Redwald, and Edwin, returning northward, became
+    ruler of Northumbria, the sons of Ethelfrith fleeing in their turn
+    before the new king. Edwin wedded, as his second wife, Ethelburga,
+    daughter of that king of Kent in whose days Augustine came to
+    England; and being a Christian princess, she brought with her a
+    priest to her new home in the north. The priest’s name was
+    Paulinus; and one day he went to the King and, placing his right
+    hand on Edwin’s head, asked if he knew that sign. Edwin remembered,
+    and redeemed his promise. He hearkened to the teaching of the
+    earnest monk, with the result that before long he and his court
+    were baptised by Paulinus, Edwin’s little daughter, it is said,
+    being the first to receive the sacred rite.
+
+    This was at York; and when the king and queen went to the royal
+    city of Bamburgh, or to their country dwelling at the foot of the
+    Cheviots, Paulinus accompanied them; and wherever he went, he
+    laboured to teach the North-country Angles and Saxons the gospel of
+    Christ. This country dwelling, to which came Paulinus and his royal
+    friends, was Ad-gefrin, or Yeavering; and though it is extremely
+    unlikely that any traces of it could remain until our day, yet
+    tradition points out a fragment of an old building still standing
+    there, as a remnant of the royal residence.
+
+    In the region of Kirknewton, a pretty little village to the
+    north-west of Yeavering, where Colledge Water joins the Glen, which
+    gives its name to the romantic district of Glendale, Paulinus
+    baptised many hundreds of Edwin’s people; and the name of
+    Pallinsburn—which is now confined to a house at some little
+    distance from the burn—enshrines the memory of yet another scene of
+    the labours of the indefatigable monk.
+
+    If we stand on the wind-swept top of Yeavering Bell, we are
+    surrounded by the evidences of still more remote days, for the
+    whole of the summit was once a fortified camp of the ancient
+    Britons. A roughly-piled, but massive wall, now almost all broken
+    down, surrounded it, and within its grass-grown oval are two
+    additional walls, at the east and the west ends of the enclosure,
+    and many hut-circles, evidences of the rude dwellings of our remote
+    ancestors. Excavations here many years ago brought to light a
+    jasper ball, some fragments of a coarse kind of pottery, and some
+    oaken armlets. Evidently the enclosure on the summit was intended
+    to be a last resort in time of danger, for traces of many huts are
+    to be found outside its encircling wall, which is surrounded by a
+    ditch and a low rampart of earth. At the east end, where the
+    porphyry crag juts out from the hilltop to a height of about twenty
+    feet, full advantage has been taken of this naturally strong
+    position.
+
+    Now, instead of advancing foes, the spreading heather climbs
+    steadily up the sloping sides of this ancient stronghold, and
+    invades the central enclosure at its will; a few hardy sheep that
+    have wandered up here from the richer pastures below, and now and
+    again a stray tourist, anxious to make acquaintance at first hand
+    with one of the more famous of the Cheviot heights, and more than
+    satisfied with the glorious view spread out before him, are all
+    that disturb the brooding peace of its grassy solitudes. Up here
+    the wind blows keenly around us with an exhilarating freshness in
+    its breath, and we think regretfully of coats left behind at the
+    shepherd’s hospitable dwelling, which, with the rest of the
+    cottages clustering round the old farm house, lies sunning itself
+    in the warm glow of the September afternoon, in the green fields at
+    the foot of the sheltering hills.
+
+    Looking southward now, up the stream, there is stretching away to
+    the left the long ridge of Newton Tor, and away behind it Great
+    Hetha and Little Hetha; while half-way down the vale the Colledge
+    Water tumbles over the rocks at Hethpoole Linn (or Heathpool, as
+    the modern rendering has it), breaking into amber spray deep down
+    beneath overhanging trees and boulders and golden bracken.
+
+    This brings our thoughts to days comparatively modern, for when
+    Admiral Collingwood was raised to the peerage of Great Britain, it
+    was by the title of “Baron Collingwood of Caldburn and Hethpoole,
+    in the county of Northumberland.” The brave Admiral was fond of
+    planting an oak tree whenever he found an opportunity, to secure
+    the continuance of those wooden walls which in his hands, and in
+    those of his life-long friend, Nelson, had proved such a sure
+    defence to his country. In a letter dated March, 1806, he wrote to
+    his wife, “I wish some parts of Hethpoole could be selected for
+    plantations of larch, oak, and beech, where the ground could best
+    be spared. Even the sides of a bleak hill would grow larch and
+    fir.” In another letter some months later he told her what
+    “agreeable news” it was to hear that she was taking care of his
+    oaks, and planting some at Hethpoole; and saying that if he ever
+    returned he would plant a good deal there; adding, however, that he
+    feared before that could take place both he and Lady Collingwood
+    might themselves be planted in the churchyard beneath some old yew
+    tree.
+
+    Hethpoole presents us with a link not only with history, but with
+    romance as well. An ivied ruin near at hand, with walls of enormous
+    strength, is said to be the remains of the castle where the final
+    tragedy in “The Hermit of Warkworth” took place. Here, it is said,
+    the distracted lover came upon his lady and his brother, who had at
+    that moment effected her escape, and not recognising the youth,
+    rushed upon the pair with drawn sword, only to discover too late
+    his terrible mistake, and lose both brother and bride—for the lady
+    received a mortal wound in trying to save her rescuer.
+
+    Turning our eyes now northward across the Glen from Yeavering Bell,
+    we are looking towards Coupland Castle, and the fact that it was
+    built so late as the reign of James I. bears eloquent testimony to
+    the insecurity of life and property on the Borders even at that
+    period. The barony either gave its name to, or took its name from,
+    a well-known Northumbrian family, of which one of the most
+    prominent members was that Sir John de Coupland who succeeded in
+    capturing David of Scotland at the battle of Neville’s Cross—not,
+    however, before he had lost some of his teeth by a blow from the
+    mailed fist of that doughty monarch!
+
+    Beyond Coupland Castle we look across Milfield Plain lying in the
+    angle formed by the meeting of the Glen with the deep and sullen
+    Till, whose slow windings can be traced as it gleams at intervals
+    between the undulations of the lower hills through which it flows
+    northwestward to the Tweed. Though a brisk and sparkling stream in
+    certain parts of its course, the general characteristics of the
+    Till are well borne out by the lines—
+  Tweed says to Till “What gars ye rin sae still?” Till says to Tweed
+  “Though ye rin wi’ speed And I rin slaw; Where ye droon ae man I
+  droon twa.”
+
+    There is yet more of historical and traditional interest to note in
+    this view from the top of Yeavering Bell, which, as I saw it last,
+    lay warm in the glow of a September afternoon. Nennius is our
+    authority for stating that on Milfield Plain took place one of the
+    great conflicts in which King Arthur
+  “Fought, and in twelve great battles overcame The heathen hordes, and
+  made a realm, and reigned”
+
+    And, as we gazed, the level spaces seemed peopled once more with
+    charging knights, flashing sword and swinging battle-axe, and the
+    intervening centuries dropped away, and Arthur’s call to battle for
+    “our fair father Christ,” seemed curiously befitting that romantic
+    scene. But, as the shadows lengthened, and the streams took on a
+    golden glow in the rays of the September sun, then slowly setting,
+    “the tumult and the shouting of the captains” died away, and the
+    figure of an earnest monk seemed to stand by the riverside, with
+    prince and serf, peasant and warrior for his audience, and the cold
+    bright waters of the Glen dripping from his hand, as he enrolled
+    one after another into the ranks of an army mightier than the hosts
+    of Arthur or Edwin.
+
+    Milfield again emerges into notice out of the obscurity of those
+    dark ages, in the days of the Bernician kings who succeeded Edwin;
+    for Bede tells us that “This town (Ad-gefrin) under the following
+    kings, was abandoned, and another was built instead of it at a
+    place called Melmin,” now Milfield. Nothing, however, remains here
+    of the buildings which once sheltered the royal Saxons and their
+    court. In later days, Milfield has a melancholy interest attaching
+    to it from its connection with the battle of Flodden; for, on the
+    heights above, King James fixed his camp, in the hope that Surrey
+    would lead his troops across the plain below. Of the other
+    considerable heights of the Cheviot range, Carter Fell and Peel
+    Fell are the best known; they both lie right on the border line of
+    England and Scotland, between the North Tyne and the Rede Water. As
+    we have already seen, the men of Tynedale and Redesdale bore a
+    reputation for lawlessness in the time of the Border
+    “Moss-trooping” days, and until nearly the end of the eighteenth
+    century the tradesmen and guilds of Newcastle would take no
+    apprentice who hailed from either of these dales. The tracks and
+    passes between the hills, once alive with frequent foray and wild
+    pursuit, are now silent and solitary but for the occasional passing
+    of a shepherd or farmer, and the flocks of sheep grazing as they
+    move slowly up the hillsides. A quaint survival of the remembrances
+    of those days was unexpectedly brought before me one day. A child
+    presented me with a bunch of cotton-grass, gathered on the moors
+    not far from the Roman-Wall. I asked if she knew what they were
+    that she had brought. “Moss-troopers,” she replied.
+
+    Many of the Cheviot heights bear most suggestive and interesting
+    names, such as Cushat[7] Law, Kelpie[8] Strand, Earl’s Seat,
+    Stot[9] Crags, Deer Play, Wether Lair, Bloodybushedge, Monkside,
+    etc., etc.
+
+ [7] Cushat = a wood-pigeon.
+
+ [8] Kelpie = a water-witch.
+
+ [9] Stot = a bullock.
+
+    In these lonely wilds, which occupy all the northwest of the
+    county, one may travel all day and meet with no living thing save
+    the birds of the air, and a few shy, wild creatures of the
+    moorlands; curve after curve, the rounded hills stretch away into
+    the distance, grass-grown or heatherclad, with occasional
+    peat-mosses; above is the “grey gleaming sky,” and, all around, a
+    stillness as of vast untrodden wastes, and a sense of solitude out
+    of all proportion to the actual extent of this lonely region. The
+    fascination of it, however, admits of no denial, even on the part
+    of those newly making its acquaintance; while those who in
+    childhood or youth roam over its wild fells, and feel the spell of
+    its brooding mystery, retain in their hearts for all time an
+    unfading remembrance of its magic charm.
+  COLLEDGE WATER.
+  My sire is the stooping Cheviot mist, My mother the heath in her
+  purple train; And every flower on her gown I’ve kissed Over and over
+  and over again.
+  The secret ways of the hills are mine, I know where the wandering
+  moor-fowl nest; And up where the wet grey glidders[10] shine I know
+  where the roving foxes rest.
+  I know what the wind is wailing for As it searches hollow and hag and
+  peak; And, riding restless on Newton Tor, I know what the questing
+  shadows seek.
+  I know the tale that the brown bees tell, And they tell it to me with
+  a raider’s pride, As, drunk with the cups of Yeavering Bell, They
+  stagger home from the English side.
+  I know the secrets of haugh and hill; But sacred and safe they rest
+  with me, Till I hide them deep in the heart of Till, To be taken to
+  Tweed and the open sea.
+    —_Will. H. Ogilvie_.
+  BY PERMISSION OF MESSRS. W. AND R. CHAMBERS
+
+ [10] Glidders = Patches of loose stones on the hillside.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE ROMAN WALL.
+
+
+  “Take these flowers, which, purple waving, On the ruined rampart
+  grew, Where, the sons of Freedom braving, Rome’s imperial standard
+  flew. Warriors from the breach of danger Pluck no longer laurels
+  there; They but yield the passing stranger Wild-flower wreaths for
+  Beauty’s hair.” —_Sir Walter Scott._ (Lines written for a young
+  lady’s album.)
+
+    Of all the abundance of treasure which Northumberland possesses,
+    from a historical point of view—of all its wealth of interesting
+    relics of bygone days—ancient abbey, grim fortress, menhir and
+    monolith, camp and tumulus—none grips the imagination as does the
+    sight of that unswerving line which pursues its way over hill and
+    hollow, from the eastern to the western shores of the north-land,
+    visible emblem, after more than a thousand years, of the far-flung
+    arm of Imperial Rome.
+
+    From Wallsend on the Tyne to Bowness on the Solway Firth it strode
+    triumphantly across the land; even now in its decay it remains a
+    splendid monument to that mighty nation’s genius for having and
+    holding the uttermost parts of the earth that came within their
+    ken. As was inevitable, after the lapse of nearly eighteen
+    centuries the great work is everywhere in a ruinous condition, and
+    in many places, especially at its eastern end, has disappeared
+    altogether; but not only can its course be traced by various
+    evidences, but it was actually standing within comparatively recent
+    years. As lately as the year 1800—lately, that is, compared with
+    the date of its building—its existence at Byker was referred to in
+    a magazine of the period. Now nothing is to be seen of it excepting
+    a few stones here and there, for many miles from Wallsend; but the
+    highroad westward from Newcastle, by Westgate Road, as is well
+    known, follows the course of the Wall for nearly twenty miles. But
+    farther west we may walk along the uneven, broken surface of the
+    mighty rampart, or climb down into the broad and deep fosse which
+    lies closely against it along its northern side, without troubling
+    ourselves with the arguments and uncertainties of antiquaries, who
+    have by no means decided on what was the original function of the
+    Wall, who was its real builder, why and when the earthen walls and
+    fosse which accompany it on the south were wrought, and many other
+    smaller controversial points, which afford endless matter for
+    speculation and discussion.
+
+    Early references to the Wall show that our forefathers knew it as
+    the Picts’ Wall; it is now generally referred to as the Wall of
+    Hadrian, the general concensus of opinion yielding to that
+    indefatigable ruler the credit of having wrought the mighty work.
+    Whether built originally as a frontier line of defence or not,
+    opinions are not agreed; but it is very certain that the Wall
+    afforded the only secure foothold in the North to the Romans for
+    well-nigh two centuries of hostility from the restless Brigantes to
+    the southward, and the Picts and Scots to the north; and for
+    another century or so after their southern neighbours had become
+    friendly and peaceful, it still remained a substantial bulwark
+    against the northern barbarians.
+
+    Throughout the whole of its length it steadily holds the line of
+    the highest ridges in its course, climbing up slopes and dipping
+    down into the intervening hollows with the least possible deviation
+    from its onward course. The most interesting, because most
+    complete, portion of the Wall, is that in the neighbourhood of the
+    three loughs—Broomlee, Greenlee, and Crag Loughs, which, with
+    Grindon Lough to the south of the Wall, boast the name of the
+    Northumberland Lakes. On this portion of the wall is situated the
+    large Roman station of Borcovicus, from which we have gained a
+    great deal of our information as to what the life of the garrisons
+    on this lonely outpost of Empire was like.
+
+    The station is situated on hilly ground, which slopes gently to the
+    south, and is nearly five acres in extent. On entering the eastern
+    gateway one cannot but experience a sudden thrill on seeing the
+    deep grooves worn in the stone by the passing and repassing of
+    Roman cart and chariot wheels. That mute witness of the daily
+    traffic of the soldiery in those long-past centuries speaks with a
+    most intimate note to us who eighteen hundred years afterwards come
+    to look upon the place of their habitation. The station itself is
+    of the usual shape of the Roman towns on the course of the
+    Wall—oblong, with rounded corners. The greatest length lies east
+    and west, in a line with the Wall; and two broad streets crossing
+    each other at right angles lead from the north to the south, and
+    from the east to the western gateways. Each of the four was
+    originally a double gateway; but in every case one half of it has
+    been closed up, no doubt when the garrison was declining in
+    numbers, and the attacks of the enemy were increasing in severity.
+
+[Illustration: North Gateway, Housesteads and Roman Wall.]
+
+    Considerable portions of the guard-chambers, one at each side of
+    each gateway, still remain; and near one of them was found a huge
+    stone trough, its edges deeply worn by, apparently, the frequent
+    sharpening of knives upon it. Its use has not been determined; Dr.
+    Bruce tells us that one of the men engaged in the work of
+    excavation gave it as his firm opinion that the Romans used it to
+    wash their Scotch prisoners in! The buildings of the little town—a
+    row of houses against the western wall, two large buildings near
+    the centre of the camp, with smaller chambers to the east of
+    them—in which the garrison lived, worked, and stored their
+    supplies, are still quite plainly to be traced, although the walls
+    are only three or four courses high in most places, and of the
+    pillars the broken bases are almost all that remain.
+
+    A considerable number of people dwelt outside the walls of this, as
+    of all the stations, sheltering under its walls, and relying on the
+    protection of its garrison; the slope to the southward of
+    Borcovicus shows many traces of buildings scattered all over it. On
+    the northern side, the steep hill, massive masonry, and deep fosse
+    would seem to have offered well-nigh insuperable difficulties to an
+    attacking force such as then could be brought against the camp; yet
+    not only here, but in all the stations whose remains yet survive,
+    there is unmistakable evidence that more than once has the garrison
+    been driven out by a victorious foe, to re-enter and occupy it
+    again at a later period. And when we consider that the Wall and its
+    forts were garrisoned by the Romans for a period extending over
+    nearly three centuries, a period corresponding to the time from the
+    reign of James I. to the present day, it becomes a matter of
+    wonder, not that such was the case, but that such occurrences were
+    not more frequent than the evidences seem to declare.
+
+    In spite of all the hard fighting, however, the recreations of
+    lighter hours would seem not to have been forgotten; on the north
+    of the wall is a circular hollow in the ground, evidently a little
+    amphitheatre, in which doubtless many a captive Briton and Pict
+    played his part. On a little rise to the southward, called Chapel
+    Hill, stood the temple where the garrison paid its vows to the
+    various deities of its worship. Many remarkably fine altars found
+    on this and other sites have been preserved, either at the fine
+    museum at The Chesters, or at the Black Gate in Newcastle. One of
+    the most striking is the altar to Mithras, the Persian sun-god,
+    found in a cave near the camp, evidently constructed for the
+    celebration of the rites connected with the worship of Mithras. The
+    altar shows the god coming out of an egg, and surrounded by an oval
+    on which are carved the signs of the Zodiac.
+
+    The Teutonic element in the garrison is represented by the altars
+    to Mars Thingsus, the discovery of which caused great interest in
+    Germany, and by the altars to the Deae Matres—the mother-goddesses,
+    whose carved figures are shown seated, fully draped, and holding
+    baskets of fruits on their knees. They are generally found in sets
+    of three; but unfortunately they have been much mutilated, and all
+    the examples remaining are headless. The Deae Matres would seem to
+    correspond in some degree to the Roman Ceres and the Greek Demeter,
+    the bountiful givers of the fruits of the earth. The majority of
+    the altars found are, as was to be expected, dedicated to the
+    deities of Rome; chiefly, as shown by the constantly recurring
+    I.O.M.—_Jovi optimo maximo_—to “Jupiter, the best and greatest.”
+    The varying inscriptions which follow as reasons for their erection
+    as votive offerings give us glimpses of the life in these
+    communities clearer than those afforded by anything else. And as
+    most, if not all, of our knowledge concerning the details of the
+    Roman occupation of the north-country has to be obtained from the
+    inscriptions which the garrisons left behind them, the inscribed
+    stones as well as the altars are of the greatest possible interest
+    and value. One such stone, found at the Borcovicus mile-castle,
+    states that “the Second Legion, the August (erected this at the
+    command of) Aulus Platorius Nepos, Legate and Propraetor, in honour
+    of the Emperor Caesar Trajanus Hadrianus Augustus.”
+
+    At “Cuddy’s” (Cuthbert’s) Crag near Borcovicus is one of the most
+    picturesque bits of scenery to be found on the whole course of the
+    Wall. My first acquaintance with it was made on a day of grey mist
+    and drizzling rain, which completely hid any view of the
+    surrounding country, and of necessity confined our attention to the
+    stones (and wet grass!) immediately beneath our feet. But another
+    visit was on a day of wind and sunshine, and in the company of a
+    group of light-hearted students. We explored the ruins of
+    Borcovicus, walked along the broad and broken top of the Wall, and
+    climbed up hill and down dale with it under the pleasantest
+    conditions, if a trifle breezy on the heights. June was at her
+    traditional best, which she does not often vouchsafe to show us;
+    flowers waved all around, amongst the grass and in the crannies
+    between the stones, and more than once the lines at the head of
+    this chapter were quoted by one to another. Again and again our
+    progress was stayed while we admired the glorious view spread out
+    all around, but especially was this the case at Cuddy’s Crag. We
+    looked westward over Crag Lough, its usually dark waters flashing
+    in the afternoon sun; the three Loughs were all within view; away
+    to the southward, beyond Barcombe Hill, and the site of Vindolana,
+    Langley Castle could be seen, “standing four-square to all the
+    winds that blew”; and further away again, beyond the valley of the
+    South Tyne, to the southwest the faint outlines of Crossfell and
+    Skiddaw. Northward it was quite easy to imagine oneself looking out
+    over the Picts’ country still, so far do the moorlands stretch, and
+    so few are the signs of habitation. Rolling ridges stretch
+    northward, wave upon wave, clothed with grass and heather, amongst
+    which Parnesius and Pertinax went hunting with little Allo the
+    Pict; to the northeast the heights of Simonside showed; and far
+    beyond them, though more to the westward, the rounded summits of
+    the Cheviots lay on the horizon.
+
+    A short distance westward from the Crag is Hot Bank farmhouse, a
+    place which most visitors to the Wall remember with grateful
+    feelings; for what is more refreshing, after a long tramp, than a
+    farmhouse cup of tea accompanied by that most appetising of
+    Northumbrian dainties, hot girdle cakes! The Visitors’ Book at Hot
+    Bank is a “civil list” of all the most learned and noted names in
+    Great Britain, and many outside its shores, together with legions
+    of humbler folk. In this it resembles the one at Cilurnum, which is
+    the only other considerable station along the line of the Wall in
+    Northumberland.
+
+    This station of Cilurnum, or Chesters, is a little over five acres
+    in extent, and is quite near to Chollerford station on the North
+    British Railway. To describe Cilurnum in detail, and the
+    interesting museum connected with it, filled with a wonderful
+    collection of objects found on the line of the Wall, would require
+    a book to deal with that alone. The general plan is the same as
+    that which we have already seen at Borcovicus, with the same
+    rounded corners, and double gateway with guard-chambers at each
+    side; the western and eastern walls at Chesters, however, have each
+    an additional single gateway to the south of the larger portals. We
+    must content ourselves with a short survey of the camp, with its
+    two wide streets at right angles to each other as at Borcovicus,
+    and the rest of them very narrow—indeed, little more than two feet
+    in width; the remains of its Forum and market, its barracks and
+    houses, its open shops and colonnades, the bases of the pillars yet
+    in position; its baths, with pipes, cistern, and flues; and a
+    vaulted chamber which was thought, on its being first excavated, to
+    lead to underground stables, for a local tradition held that such
+    were in existence, and would be found, with a troop of five hundred
+    horses. The vault, however, did not lead further, so that the
+    tradition remained unproven. Notwithstanding this, there was a
+    grain of fact in it; for Chesters was a cavalry station, and five
+    hundred was the full complement of the _ala_, or troop (_ala_ being
+    a “wing,” and cavalry forming the “wing” of an army in position).
+
+    Outside the walls of Cilurnum are traces of the usual suburban
+    dwellings; and here, near the river, stood the villa of the officer
+    in command of the station. The excavation of all these buildings
+    and many others took place in the forties and fifties of last
+    century, and were due to the energy of Mr. John Clayton, the
+    learned and zealous antiquary, in the possession of whose family
+    the estate still remains. To Mr. N.G. Clayton we owe the Museum at
+    the Lodge gate, which he built for the reception of the notable
+    collection it contains of antiquities gathered from all the various
+    stations in Northumberland. A very fine altar brought from
+    Vindolana at once strikes the eye, and may be taken as a type of
+    many others, though not many are so perfect. The gravestone of a
+    standard-bearer, from the neighbouring station of Procolitia, shows
+    a full-length carving of the dead warrior. Other inscribed stones
+    are of great interest, though unfortunately most of them are but
+    fragments; still these fragments not infrequently contain a few
+    words which enable students of them to confirm a date or a fact
+    concerning the garrisons, which must otherwise have been a matter
+    of pure conjecture. For instance, it might seem very improbable
+    that the same regiments should have been quartered in certain
+    stations for over two hundred years; yet one of the inscribed
+    stones proves that such was the case at Cilurnum. The inscription
+    states that the second _ala_ of the Asturians repaired the temple
+    during the consulate of certain persons, which is found to be about
+    the year 221. In the _Notitia_, which was not compiled until the
+    beginning of the fifth century, the second _ala_ of the Asturians
+    is given as the garrison of Cilurnum.
+
+    Another thing which strikes the imagination is the sight, after the
+    lapse of so many centuries, of the erasures on various inscribed
+    stones—erasures of some emperor’s or Caesar’s name after his death
+    by the chisel of a soldier in one of his legions on this far-away
+    post of his empire. It is one thing to read one’s Gibbon, and learn
+    of the murder of Geta, son of Severus, by order of his brother
+    Caracalla, and another to see the youth’s name roughly scratched
+    out on a stone in Hexham Abbey crypt; and to read of the
+    assassination of Elagabalus does not move us one whit, but to see
+    his name erased from a stone in Chesters museum brings the
+    tumultuous happenings in ancient Rome very closely home to us.
+
+    Here are also several Roman milestones, with their lengthy and
+    sonorous inscriptions, from various points on the Wall; and a
+    miscellaneous and deeply interesting collection of smaller
+    articles, such as ornaments of bronze, jet, or gold, fibulae
+    (brooches or clasps), coins of many reigns, Samian-ware,
+    terra-cotta and glass, parts of harness, etc., etc.
+
+    Of carven figures there are several besides the standard bearer
+    already mentioned. The best is a figure of Cybele, with elaborate
+    draperies, but unfortunately headless; another, of Victory, holds a
+    palm branch in the left hand, but the right arm is missing. A
+    soldier is shown with spear, shield, and ornate head-piece; and a
+    representation of a river-god, the genius of the Tyne, is worthy of
+    notice. He is a bearded figure, after the style of the figures of
+    Nilus, or the representations in old prints of Father Thames. From
+    Procolitia comes an altar to the goddess Coventina, a name not met
+    with elsewhere, the presiding genius of the well in that station.
+    She is shown reclining on a water-lily leaf, holding in one hand a
+    water-plant, and in the other a goblet from which a stream of water
+    runs. An elaborate carving of three water nymphs, most probably
+    meant to be in attendance on the goddess, is one of the few pieces
+    of sculpture that are not greatly mutilated.
+
+    Centurial stones are numerous, having been put up at all parts of
+    the Wall to record the building of such and such parts by various
+    centurions and their companies. The mark >, which Dr. Hodgkin
+    supposes to be a representation of the vine rod, a centurion’s
+    symbol of authority, and the sign C or Q, are used to signify a
+    century. Thus a stone inscribed Q VAL. MAXI. states that the
+    century of Valerius Maximus built that part of the Wall. Two or
+    three small altars are inscribed DIBVS VETERIBVS—“To the Old Gods”;
+    and Mars Thingsus is well represented.
+
+    A very important relic of Roman times found at Cilurnum was a
+    bronze tablet of citizenship, giving this coveted privilege to a
+    number of soldiers who had served in twenty-five campaigns and
+    received honourable discharge. There have been only three specimens
+    of this diploma found in Britain, and all are preserved in the
+    British Museum. There are many memorial tablets erected by wives to
+    their husbands, and husbands to their wives, which leads to much
+    speculation as to how these ladies, high-born Roman, native Briton,
+    or freed-woman, liked their sojourn in a small garrison town on the
+    breezy heights of a Northumbrian moorland. Those ladies who dwelt
+    at Cilurnum, however, had not so much cause to complain, for such
+    natural advantages as were to be had were certainly theirs, in that
+    sheltered spot. The scenery round about Cilurnum is quiet, peaceful
+    and pastoral, altogether different from the wild beauty of Cuddy’s
+    Crag, Limestone Corner, or Whinshields.
+
+    Having now noticed the two chief stations on the line of the Wall,
+    it will be interesting to follow the course of the rampart itself
+    throughout its journey across Northumberland, though to do so in
+    detail is impossible within the limits of so small a volume as the
+    present one. Neither would it be necessary, or desirable, for the
+    last word in detailed description has been said long ago in the two
+    wonderfully exhaustive treatises on the subject by Dr. Bruce.
+
+    A list of Roman officials, civil and military, throughout the
+    empire has come down to us; in this list—_Notitia Dignitatem et
+    Administratem, tam civilium quam militarium in partibus orientis et
+    occidentis_—the portion which relates to the Wall is headed, _Item
+    per lineam Valli_—“Also along the line of the Wall.” The following
+    is a copy of this portion, as given by Dr. Bruce in his _Handbook
+    to the Roman Wall_.
+  The Tribune of the fourth cohort of the Lingones at Segedunum.
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of Cornovii at Pons AElii.
+  The Prefect of the first _ala_ of the Asturians at Condercum. The
+  Tribune of the first cohort of the Frixagi (Frisii) at Vindobala.
+  The Prefect of the Savinian _ala_ at Hunnum.
+  The Prefect of the second _ala_ of the Asturians at Cilurnum.
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of the Batavians at Procolitia.
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of the Tungrians at Borcovicus.
+  The Tribune of the fourth cohort of the Gauls at Vindolana.
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of Asturians at Aesica.
+  The Tribune of the second cohort of Dalmatians at Magna.
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of Dacians, styled Aelia, at
+  Amboglanna.
+  The Prefect of the _ala_ called “Petriana,” at Petriana.
+  The Prefect of a detachment of Moors, styled Aureliani, at Aballaba.
+  The Tribune of the second cohort of the Lingones at Congavata.
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of Spaniards at Axelodunum.
+  The Tribune of the second cohort of the Thracians at Gabrosentum.
+  The Tribune of the first marine cohort, styled Aelia, at Tunnocelum.
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of the Morini at Glannibanta.
+  The Tribune of the third cohort of the Nervians at Alionis.
+  The Cuneus of men in armour at Bremetenracum.
+  The Prefect of the first _ala_, styled Herculean, at Olenacum.
+  The Tribune of the sixth cohort of the Nervians at Virosidum.
+
+    Of these stations, with their officers and troops, only those as
+    far as Magna are in Northumberland; the rest continue the chain of
+    defences across Cumberland to the Solway Firth. Besides these
+    stations, there were _castella_ at the distance of every Roman mile
+    (seven furlongs) along the Wall, from which circumstance they are
+    known as “mile-castles.” They provided accommodation for the troops
+    necessary between the stations, which were at some distance from
+    each other; and between each two _castella_ there were also erected
+    two turrets, so that communication from one end of the Wall to the
+    other was speedy and certain.
+
+    All traces of the station of Segedunum (Wallsend) have long since
+    disappeared; the Wall from there, beginning actually in the bed of
+    the river, ran almost parallel with the N.E.R. Tynemouth Branch, a
+    little to the south of it, and climbing the hill to Byker, went
+    down the slope to the Ouseburn parallel with Shields Road, crossing
+    the burn just a little to the south of Byker Bridge. From there its
+    course has been traced to Red Barns, where St. Dominic’s now
+    stands, to the Sallyport Gate, and over the Wall Knoll to Pilgrim
+    Street; thence to the west door of the Cathedral, and on past St.
+    John’s Church, up Westgate Road.
+
+    The station at Pons AElii, it is generally agreed, occupied the
+    ground between the Cathedral church of St. Nicholas and the
+    premises of the Lit. and Phil. Society. Following the Wall up
+    Westgate Road, we are now out upon the highway from Newcastle to
+    Carlisle, which, as we have seen, is upon the very line of the Wall
+    for nearly a score of miles. At Condercum (Benwell) the next
+    station, garrisoned by a cavalry corps of Asturians from Spain, a
+    small temple was uncovered in the course of excavating, and two
+    altars found still standing in their original position. Both of
+    these were to a deity unknown elsewhere, given as Antenociticus on
+    one, and as Anociticus on the other. The former was erected by a
+    centurion of the Twentieth Legion, the Valerian and Victorious,
+    whose crest, the running boar, we shall meet with more than once in
+    our journey.
+
+    Westward from here, near West Denton Lodge, faint indications of
+    the turf wall (generally called the Vallum, to distinguish it from
+    the Murus, or stone wall), come into sight, and traces of a
+    mile-castle to the left of the road. After this the Vallum and
+    Murus accompany each other for the rest of their journey, with but
+    little intermission. The next mile-castle was at Walbottle, from
+    which point a delightful view of the Tyne valley and the
+    surrounding country can be obtained. Passing Throckley and
+    Heddon-on-the-Wall, where the fosse on the northern side of the
+    Wall is well seen, and also the Vallum and its fosse, Vindolana
+    (Rutchester) is reached; but there is little evidence here that it
+    is the site of a once busy and bustling garrison station. Indeed,
+    up to this point and for a considerable distance further, a few
+    courses of stones here and there are all that is to be seen of the
+    Roman Wall, its material having for the most part been swallowed up
+    in the construction of the turnpike road on which we are
+    travelling. This road was made in 1745 because there was no road by
+    which General Wade could convey his troops from Newcastle to
+    Carlisle, when “Bonnie Prince Charlie” marched so gaily to that
+    city on his way southward, and so sadly, in a month, returned
+    again.
+
+    The Wall now makes for the ridge of Harlow Hill, while the Vallum
+    goes on in a perfectly straight line past the picturesque Whittle
+    Dene and the waterworks, until the Wall joins it again near Welton,
+    where the old pele-tower is entirely built of Roman stones. After
+    Matfen Piers, where a road to the northward leads to the beautiful
+    little village of Matfen, and one to the southward to Corbridge,
+    the Wall passes Wall Houses and Halton Shields, where the various
+    lines of the Wall, road, and earthworks, as well as the fosse of
+    each, can be distinctly seen. Passing Carr Hill, the Wall leads up
+    to the station of Hunnum (Halton Chesters), where Parnesius was
+    stationed when Maximus gave him his commission on the Wall. It is
+    not easy to recognise the site now, but as we follow the road we
+    may comfort ourselves with the reflection that at least we have
+    walked right across it from the eastern gate to the western.
+
+    A short distance further on is Stagshawbank, famed for its fairs,
+    the glory of which, however, has greatly departed since the days
+    when Dandie Dinmont had such adventures on returning from
+    “Staneshiebank.” It stands just where the Wall crosses the Watling
+    Street, which enters Northumberland at Ebchester, and crossing the
+    moors to Whittonstall, leads down the long descent to Riding Mill;
+    there turning westward to Corbridge, it comes straight on to
+    Stagshawbank, leading thence northwestward past the Wall through
+    Redesdale to the Borders, which it reaches at Ad Fines Camp, or
+    Chew Green, where the solitudes of the Cheviots and the silence of
+    the deserted camp are soon to be startled by the rifle-shots of
+    Territorials at practice. West of Stagshawbank the earthen ramparts
+    are to be seen in great perfection.
+
+    As the Wall nears Chollerford, one may see, a little to the
+    northward, the little chapel of St. Oswald, which, as we have seen
+    in a former chapter, marks the site of the battle of Heavenfield.
+    Just before reaching this point, there is a quarry to the south of
+    the Wall from which the Romans obtained much building-stone, and
+    one of them has left his name carved on one of the stones left
+    lying there, thus—(P)ETRA FLAVI(I) CARANTINI—_The stone of Flavius
+    Carantinus_.
+
+    At Plane Trees Field and at Brunton there are larger pieces of the
+    Wall standing than we have yet seen. The Wall now parts company
+    with the highroad, which swerves a little to the north in order to
+    cross the Tyne by Chollerford Bridge, while the course of the Wall
+    is straight ahead, for the present bridge is not the one built and
+    used by the Romans. That is in a line with the Wall, and therefore
+    south of the present one; and as we have already noticed, its piers
+    can be seen near the river banks when the river is low. A diagram
+    of its position is given in Dr. Bruce’s _Handbook_.
+
+    The Wall now leads up to the gateway of Cilurnum, which we have
+    already visited; and after leaving the park, it goes on up the hill
+    to Walwick. Here it is rejoined by the road, which now for some
+    little distance proceeds actually on the line of the Wall, the
+    stones of which can sometimes be seen in the roadway. The tower a
+    little further on, on the hill called Tower Tye, or Taye, was not
+    built by the Romans, although Roman stones were used in its
+    erection; it is only about two hundred years old.
+
+    At Black Carts farm, which the Wall now passes, the first turret
+    discovered on the line of the Wall after the excavations had begun,
+    and interest in the subject was revived, was here laid bare by Mr.
+    Clayton in 1873. At Limestone Bank, not much further on, the fosse
+    north of the Wall, and also that of the Vallum, show a skill in
+    engineering such as we are apt to fancy belongs only to these days
+    of powerful machinery, and explosives for rending a way through the
+    hardest rock. The ditches have both been cut through the solid
+    basalt, and great boulders of it are strewn around; one huge mass,
+    weighing many tons, has been hoisted out—by what means, we are left
+    to wonder; and another, still in the ditch, has the holes, intended
+    for the wedges still discernible.
+
+    A mile or so further on is Procolitia (Carrawburgh), where is the
+    famous well presided over by the goddess Coventina, whose
+    acquaintance we have already made at Cilurnum. The remains of the
+    station at Procolitia are by no means to be compared with those at
+    Borcovicus or Cilurnum; very few of its stones are yet remaining.
+    The well was the most interesting find at Procolitia. It was known
+    to be there, for Horsley had mentioned it; but the waters which
+    supplied it were diverted in consequence of some lead-mining
+    operations. Then the stream formed by its overflow dried up, grass
+    grew over its course and over the well, and it was lost sight of
+    entirely. But the same thing which had led to its disappearance was
+    the means of finding it again. Some lead miners, prospecting for
+    another vein of ore in the neighbourhood, happened to dig in this
+    very spot, and soon struck the stones round the mouth of the well.
+    Mr. Clayton had it properly excavated, and was rewarded by coming
+    not only upon the well, but a rich find of Roman relics of all
+    kinds, which had either been thrown pell-mell into it for
+    concealment in a moment of danger, or, what is more likely, been
+    thrown in during the course of ages as votive offerings to the
+    presiding goddess of the well. There were thousands of coins,
+    mostly silver and copper, with four gold pieces among them; and a
+    large collection of miscellaneous objects, including vases, shoes,
+    pearls, ornaments, altars and inscribed stones, all of which were
+    taken to Chesters. The next point of interest on the Wall is the
+    farmhouse of Carraw, which the Priors of Hexham Abbey once used as
+    a summer retreat. A little further on, at Shield-on-the-Wall,
+    Wade’s road crosses to the south of the earthen lines, and parts
+    company with the Wall for a little while, for the latter bends
+    northward to take the high ridge, as usual, while the road and
+    Vallum continue in a straight line. The fragments of a mile-castle
+    are standing just at the point where the Wall swerves northward;
+    indeed, we have been passing the sites of these _castella_, with
+    fragments more or less in evidence all along the route, but those
+    which we shall now encounter are much more distinctly to be seen
+    than their fellows on the eastern part of the journey, many of
+    which have disappeared altogether.
+
+    The high crags which here shoulder the Wall are part of the Great
+    Whin Sill, an intrusive dyke of dolerite which stretches from
+    Greenhead northeastward across the county nearly to Berwick. The
+    military road here leaves the Wall, with which it does not again
+    come into close contact until both are near Carlisle, though in
+    several places the Roman road will be encountered near the Wall in
+    a well-preserved condition. The Wall now climbs another ascent to
+    the farmhouse of Sewingshields, which name is variously explained
+    as “Seven Shields,” and as “The shiels (shielings, or little huts)
+    by the seugh” or hollow—the hollow being the fosse. Sewingshields
+    Castle, long since disappeared, is the scene of the knight’s
+    adventures in Sir Walter Scott’s “Harold the Dauntless.” And
+    tradition asserts that King Arthur, with Queen Guinevere and all
+    the court, lies in an enchanted sleep beneath the castle, or at
+    least its site. Not only is there no castle, but the Wall also has
+    been despoiled to supply the material for building the farmhouse
+    and other buildings in the neighbourhood. The Wall climbs
+    unfalteringly over the crags, one after the other, until the wide
+    opening of Busy Gap is reached. This being such a convenient pass
+    from north to south, it was naturally used constantly by raiders
+    and thieves; and such an unenviable notoriety did it possess, that
+    to call a person a “Busy Gap rogue” was sufficient to lay oneself
+    open to an action for libel. Climbing the next slope we look down
+    on Broomlee Lough and reach the portion of the Wall we have already
+    noted—Borcovicus (Housesteads), Cuddy’s Crag, Hot Bank farmhouse,
+    and Crag; Lough.
+
+    The course of the Wall continues, past Milking Gap, along the
+    rugged heights of Steel Rig, Cat’s Stairs, and Peel Crag, till on
+    reaching Winshields we are at the highest point on the line, 1,230
+    feet above the sea-level. Dipping down to Green Slack, the Wall
+    crosses the valley called Lodham Slack, and begins to ascend once
+    more. The local names of gaps and heights in this neighbourhood are
+    highly descriptive, and sometimes weirdly suggestive; we have had
+    Cat’s Stairs, and now we come to Bogle Hole, Bloody Gap, and Thorny
+    Doors. A little further west from here the very considerable
+    remains of a mile-castle may be seen, in which a tombstone was
+    found doing duty as a hearth-stone. The inscription recorded that
+    it had been erected by Pusinna to the memory of her husband
+    Dagvaldus, a soldier of Pannonia.
+
+    Westward from this mile-castle the Wall climbs Burnhead Crag, on
+    which the foundations of a building, similar to the turrets, were
+    exposed a few years ago; then it dips down again to Haltwhistle
+    Burn, which comes from Greenlee Lough, and is called, until it
+    reaches the Wall, the Caw Burn. From the burn a winding watercourse
+    supplied the Roman station of AEsica (Great Chesters) with water.
+    Just here the Wall is in a very ruinous condition; and of the
+    station of AEsica but little masonry remains, though the outlines
+    of it can he clearly traced. Beyond AEsica, however, is a splendid
+    portion of the Wall, standing some seven or eight courses high.
+    Here it climbs again to the top of the crags which once more
+    appear, bold and rugged, to culminate in the “Nine Nicks of
+    Thirlwall,” so called from the number of separate heights into
+    which the crags divide, and over which the Wall takes its way.
+
+    At Walltown, on this part of its course, is to be seen an old well,
+    in which Paulinus is said to have baptised King Edwin; but the
+    local name for it is King Arthur’s Well. Now the Wall descends to a
+    level and pastoral country, leaving behind it the wild moorland and
+    craggy heights across which it has travelled so long; but
+    unfortunately much of it has been destroyed by the quarrying
+    operations at Greenhead. Of the station of Magna (Caervoran) little
+    can be seen at the present day. This station and Aesica are nearer
+    to each other than are any other two stations on the Wall, and a
+    line of camps, five in number, stand south of the Wall and Vallum,
+    from Magna to Amboglanna, showing that a third line of defence was
+    deemed necessary where the natural defences of moorland ridge,
+    lough or crag were absent.
+
+    The Roman way called the Stanegate comes from the eastward almost
+    up to the station of Magna, which stands a little to the south of
+    both Wall and Vallum, between them and Wade’s road, which here
+    approaches nearer to the Wall than it has done for many miles.
+
+    Another Roman road, the Maiden Way, comes from the South closely up
+    to the Vallum, quite near to Thirlwall castle. The name “Thirlwals”
+    was supposed to commemorate the “thirling” (drilling or piercing)
+    of the Wall at this point by the barbarians, but this is extremely
+    doubtful; though the difficulty of defending the wall on this level
+    tract lends an air of likelihood to this supposition. Near here the
+    little river Tipalt flows across the line of the Wall on its way
+    southward to join the North Tyne.
+
+    Passing Wallend, Gap, and Rose Hill, where Gilsland railway station
+    now stands, we follow the Wall to the deep dene of the Poltross
+    Burn, which forms the boundary between Northumberland and
+    Cumberland. The railway just beyond the burn crosses the line of
+    the Wall; and, further on, an interesting portion, several courses
+    high, takes its way through the Vicarage garden. Here we will leave
+    it to continue its way through Cumberland, and turn our attention
+    to the chief Roman ways which cross Northumberland, with other
+    stations standing upon them.
+
+    The Watling Street or Dere Street, we have already noticed; and the
+    chief station on it, which has also proved to be the largest in
+    Northumberland, is Corstopitum, near Corbridge. The recent
+    excavations since 1906 have resulted in the finding of many
+    interesting relics, including some hundreds of coins, amongst which
+    were forty-eight gold pieces, of later Roman date, ranging from
+    those of Valentinian I. to those of Magnus Maximus. Pottery in
+    large quantities has also been found, most of it, of course, in a
+    fragmentary condition, but some pieces, notably bowls of Samian
+    ware, almost perfect, and dating from the first century. Several
+    interesting pieces of sculpture have been unearthed; one a finely
+    sculptured lion standing over an animal which it has evidently just
+    killed; this was, no doubt, used as an outlet for water at the
+    fountain, judging by the projection of the lion’s lower lip.
+    Another piece of sculpture represents a sun-god, the rays
+    surrounding his face; and several altars and many inscribed stones
+    are also amongst the treasures lately revealed. A clay mould of a
+    human figure was also found, which is supposed to represent some
+    Keltic deity; but as the figure wears a short tunic not unlike a
+    kilt, and carries a crooked club, the workmen promptly christened
+    it Harry Lauder! The buildings in this town, for it is much more
+    than a military station, have been large and imposing, as is shown
+    by each successive revelation made by the excavators’ spades. The
+    portion of the Watling Street leading from Corstopitum to the river
+    has also been laid bare.
+
+    The Roman road called the Stanegate runs westward from the North
+    Tyne at Cilurnum, a little to the north of Fourstones railway
+    station, through Newbrough, on past Grindon Hill, Grindon Lough,
+    which it passes on the south, and Grindon Dykes, to Vindolana
+    (Chesterholm) another Roman town, which lies a mile due south from
+    Hot Bank farmhouse on the Wall. Vindolana stood on a most
+    favourable site, a high platform protected on three sides, and it
+    covered three and a half acres of ground. Here no excavations have
+    yet been made, and the site is grass grown and desolate although
+    the outlines of the station may be distinctly traced. A ruinous
+    building to the west of this station was popularly called the
+    Fairies’ Kitchen, a name given to it on account of the marks of
+    fire and soot on the pillars. From the station several inscribed
+    stones and altars have been taken to the museum at Chesters. One of
+    them is dedicated to the Genius of the Camp by Pituanius Secundus,
+    the Prefect of the fourth Cohort of the Gauls, which cohort, as we
+    have already seen by the _Votitia_, was stationed here. In the
+    valley below Vindolana a little cottage is standing. It is built
+    entirely of Roman stones, and was erected by an enthusiastic
+    antiquary, Mr. Anthony Hedley, for himself. Many of the stones used
+    in its construction have inscriptions on them; and in the covered
+    passage, leading from the cottage down to the burn, we come upon
+    one of them inscribed with the name of our old friend the XXth
+    Legion, and its crest, the running boar. The most interesting relic
+    of all in the neighbourhood is a Roman mile-stone, standing in its
+    original position on the Stanegate.
+
+    Leaving Vindolana, this road goes on westward to Magna, where it
+    joins the Maiden Way, another important Roman road, which runs from
+    north to south. Coming from the neighbourhood of Bewcastle Fells,
+    it enters Northumberland at Gilsland, and leading eastward as far
+    as Magna, then turns directly southward past Greenhead.
+
+    In concluding this chapter on the Roman remains in our county,
+    _apropos_ of the wholesale destruction of the Wall and larger
+    stations which has taken place in the last century or two, I will
+    quote the words of two historians on that subject. Dr. Thomas
+    Hodgkin says: “In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Camden, the
+    enthusiastic antiquary, dared not traverse the line of the wall by
+    reason of the gangs of brigands by whom it was infested. The union
+    of the two countries brought peace, and peace brought prosperity;
+    prosperity, alas! more fatal to the Wall than centuries of Border
+    warfare. For now the prosperous farmers of Northumberland and
+    Cumberland awoke to the building facilities which lurked in these
+    square green enclosures on their farms, treated them as their best
+    quarries, and robbed them unmercifully of their fine well-hewn
+    stones. Happily that work of demolition is now in great measure
+    stayed, and at this day we visit the camps for a nobler purpose, to
+    learn all they can teach us as to the past history of our country.”
+
+    None, I think, will disagree with these words of the learned
+    Doctor, whether or not they may go as far as Cadwallader J. Bates,
+    who, in concluding his chapter on the Roman Wall, gave it as his
+    opinion that “unless the island is conquered by some civilized
+    nation, there will soon be no traces of the Wall left. Nay, even
+    the splendid whinstone crags on which it stands will be all
+    quarried away to mend the roads of our urban and rural
+    authorities.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. SOME NORTHUMBRIAN STREAMS.
+
+
+  “Come, don’t abuse our climate, and revile The crowning county of
+  England—yes, the best.
+
+  Have you and I, then, raced across its moors. Till horse and boy were
+  well-nigh mad with glee, So often, summer and winter, home from
+  school, And not found that out? Take the streams away, The country
+  would be sweeter than the South Anywhere; give the South our streams,
+  would it Be fit to match our Borders? Flower and crag, Burnside and
+  boulder, heather and whin,—you don’t Dream you can match them south
+  of this? And then, If all the unwatered country were as flat As the
+  Eton playing-fields, give it back our burns, And set them singing
+  through a sad South world, And try to make them dismal as its fens—
+  They won’t be! Bright and tawny, full of fun And storm and sunlight,
+  taking change and chance With laugh on laugh of triumph—why, you know
+  How they plunge, pause, chafe, chide across the rocks, And chuckle
+  along the rapids, till they breathe And rest and pant and build some
+  bright deep bath For happy boys to dive in, and swim up. And match
+  the water’s laughter.”
+
+
+    Northumberland is fortunate in the number of rivers which, owing to
+    the position of the Cheviot Hills, flow right across the county
+    from west to east. These Northumbrian streams have a distinct
+    character of their own, and are of a different breed from those of
+    the southern; counties. They are neither mountain torrents nor
+    placid leisurely rivers, such as are met elsewhere in Britain, but
+    busy, bright, joyous, and sparkling, never sluggish, never silent,
+    even when deep and full, as is the Tyne in its lower reaches. With
+    the Tyne and its tributary streams we have already travelled; but
+    there are others yet awaiting us, claiming our attention sometimes
+    for the romantic scenery through which they run their bright
+    course, sometimes for the historic sites they pass on their way,
+    sometimes for both reasons. Wansbeck, Coquet, Aln, or Till—each has
+    its own interest, as has also the Tweed in that score or so of
+    miles along which it can he spoken of in connection with
+    Northumberland.
+
+    The source of the Wansbeck, the only “beck” the county possesses,
+    is amongst the “Wild Hills o’ Wannys” (Wanny’s beck) a group of
+    picturesque sandstone crags which surround Sweethope Lough, a sheet
+    of water which covers 180 acres. The scenery of this upper course
+    of the Wansbeck is very striking, from the Lough to
+    Kirkwhelpington, flowing between bleak moorland and rich pasture,
+    and on to Littleharle Tower, which stands secluded in deep woods.
+
+    Another mansion near at hand, and most picturesquely situated, is
+    Wallington Hall, lying a short distance away on the north bank of
+    the Wansbeck. It is one of the most notable country houses in
+    Northumberland, and especially so on account of its unique
+    picture-gallery, roofed with dull glass, and containing several
+    series of pictures connected with Northumbrian history. One of
+    these is a series of frescoes by William Bell Scott, whose name was
+    for so many years associated with all that was best in art in
+    Newcastle, and whose picture of the “Building of the Castle” may be
+    seen at the head of the staircase in the Lit. and Phil. building.
+    His pictures at Wallington are:—1. The Building of the Roman Wall.
+    2. The visit of King Egfrid and Bishop Trumwine to St. Cuthbert on
+    Fame. 3. A Descent of the Danes. 4. Death of the Venerable Bede. 5.
+    The Charlton Spur. 6. Bernard Gilpin taking down a challenge glove
+    in Rothbury Church. 7. Grace Darling and her father on the way to
+    the wreck. 8. The Nineteenth Century—showing the High Level Bridge,
+    the Quayside, an Armstrong gun, etc., etc. Another series consists
+    of medallions and portraits of famous men connected with
+    Northumbrian events, from Hadrian and Severus down to George
+    Stephenson and others of modern times; while yet another depicts
+    all the incidents of “Chevy Chase.”
+
+    Some miles further eastward, the Wansbeck receives the Hart
+    Burn—which, by the way, is larger than the parent stream at this
+    point—and, a little later, the Font. The lovely little village of
+    Mitford, once important enough to overshadow the Morpeth of that
+    day, lies at the junction of Font and Wansbeck. The Mitfords of
+    Mitford can boast, if ever family could, of being Northumbrian of
+    the Northumbrians, as they were seated here before the days of the
+    Conqueror, who made such a general upsetting amongst the Saxon
+    landowners.
+
+    The beauty of the two miles walk along the banks of the Wansbeck
+    from here to Morpeth is not easy to surpass in all the county,
+    though several parts of the Coquet valley may justly compete with
+    it. William Howitt has left on record his admiration for this
+    lovely region, and said Morpeth was “more like a town in a dream”
+    than a reality. Especially is this so when looking at the town from
+    the neighbourhood of the river. Before actually reaching Morpeth
+    the Wansbeck waters the fair fields that once held Newminster Abbey
+    in its pride; now, nothing remains but an arch or so and a few
+    stones, to remind us of the noble abbey which Ralph de Merley built
+    so long ago. When only half built it was demolished by the Scots
+    under King David; but willing hands set to work again, and the
+    abbey and monastery were completed.
+
+    In the town of Morpeth, though newer buildings are stretching out
+    towards the outskirts, many of the ancient buildings and streets
+    remain, and the general aspect of this part of it is much the same
+    as when the Jacobites of Northumberland gathered together here, and
+    the clergyman, Mr. Buxton, proclaimed James III. in its Market
+    Place. Of Morpeth Castle, built by a De Merley soon after the
+    Conquest, only the gateway tower remains, but the outlines of the
+    original boundary walls can be clearly traced. A company of five
+    hundred Scots, whom Leslie had left as a garrison in 1644, held out
+    here for three weeks against two thousand Royalists under Montrose.
+    After the cannonading received during that siege, the walls were
+    not repaired again, and the castle fell into decay. The inhabitants
+    of Morpeth have a daily reminder of times yet more remote, for the
+    Curfew Bell still rings out over the little town every evening at
+    eight o’clock.
+
+    Another walk of three miles along the still beautiful banks of the
+    Wansbeck brings us to Bothal, another little village of great
+    beauty, embowered and almost hidden amongst luxuriant woods. Its
+    curious name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon _bottell_, a place of
+    abode (as in Walbottle). The name conjures up memories of the
+    knights of old, their loves and their fortunes, fair or disastrous;
+    for the best-known version of “The Hermit of Warkworth” tells us
+    that it was a Bertram of Bothal who was the luckless hero of that
+    tale, though another version avers that he belonged to the house of
+    Percy.
+
+    Wansbeck’s fellow stream, the Coquet, has its birth amongst some of
+    the wildest scenery of the Cheviot Hills, where the heights of
+    Deel’s Hill and Woodbist Law look down on the now silent Watling
+    Street and the deserted Ad Fines Camp. In its windings along the
+    bases of the hills it is joined by the Usway Burn, said to be named
+    after King Oswy, between which and the little river Alwine lies the
+    famous Lordship of Kidland, once desolate on account of the
+    thieving and raiding of its neighbours of Bedesdale and Scotland.
+
+    Hodgson, in his “Northumberland,” says of this region, “All the
+    said Kydlande is full of lytle hilles or mountaynes, and between
+    the saide hilles be dyvers valyes in which discende litle Ryvvelles
+    or brokes of water, spryngynge out of the said hilles and all
+    fallynge into a lytle Rever or broke callede Kidlande water, w’ch
+    fallethe into the rever of cockette nere to the towne of
+    alwynntonn, w’tin a myll of the castell of harbottell.” The reasons
+    for the desolation of Kidland are graphically set forth:—“In somer
+    seasons when good peace ys betwene England and Scotland,
+    th’inhabitantes of dyv’se townes thereaboutes repayres up with
+    theyr cattall in som’ynge (summering) as ys aforesaid, and so have
+    used to do of longe tyme. And for the pasture of theyr cattall, so
+    long as they would tarye there they payed for a knoweledge two pens
+    for a household, or a grote at the most, though they had nev’ so
+    many cattalles. And yet the poore men thoughte their fermes dere
+    enoughe. There was but fewe yeres that they escaped w’thout a
+    greatter losse of their goodes and cattalles, by spoyle or thefte
+    of the Scottes or Ryddesdale men, then would have paide for the
+    pasture of theyr cattail in a much better grounde. And ov’ (over,
+    besides) that, the saide valyes or hopes of Kidlande lyeth so
+    distant and devyded by mounteynes one from an other, that such as
+    Inhabyte in one of these hoopes, valeys, or graynes, can not heare
+    the Fraye outcrye, or exclamac’on of such as dwell in an other
+    hoope or valley upon the other side of the said mountayne, nor come
+    or assemble to theyr assystance in tyme of necessytie. Wherefore we
+    can not fynde anye of the neyghbours thereabouts wyllinge
+    cotynnally to Inhabyte or plenyshe w’thin the saide grounde of
+    Kydland, and especially in wynter tyme.”
+
+    These reasons were given by the people of “Cockdale” in the
+    neighbouring valley, to account for the desolation of Kidland,
+    which lay open on the northward to attacks from the Scots, and had
+    no defence on the south from the rievers of Redesdale. The
+    inhabitants of Coquetdale seem to have been a right valiant and
+    hardy fraternity, honest and fearless, well able to give good blows
+    in defence of their possessions, for it is left on record that “the
+    people of the said Cock-dayle be best p’pared for defence and most
+    defensyble people of themselfes, and of the truest and best sorte
+    of anye that do Inhabyte, endlonge, the frounter or border of the
+    said mydle m’ches of England.” The traces of these days of raid and
+    foray are to be found in abundance all over Coquetdale, as indeed
+    all over Northumberland, in pele-tower and barmkyn, fortified
+    dwelling and bastle house.
+
+    Harbottle Castle would have a good deal to tell, could it only
+    speak, of siege and assault from the day when, “with the aid of the
+    whole county of Northumberland and the bishopric of Durham,” it was
+    built by Henry II., until, after the Union of the Crowns, it shared
+    the fate of many of the Border strongholds, and fell into gradual
+    decay, or was used as a quarry from which to draw building material
+    for new and modern mansions. At Rothbury, a pele-tower has formed
+    the dwelling of the Vicars of that town from the time that any
+    mention of Whitton Tower is to be found, it being first noticed as
+    “Turris de Whitton, iuxta Rothebery.” Rothbury itself occupies
+    quite the finest situation of any of the Northumbrian towns.
+    Others, besides it, lie on the banks of a pretty river; others,
+    too, possess fair meadows and rich pastures; but none other has the
+    combination of these attractive features with the finer
+    surroundings of hill, crag, and moorland as picturesquely beautiful
+    as those of Rothbury. In the old church here Bernard Gilpin, “the
+    Apostle of the North,” often preached; and even the fierce rival
+    factions of the Borderland were so influenced by the gentle, yet
+    fearless preacher, that they consented to forego their usual
+    pleasure of “drawing” whenever they met one of a rival family, at
+    least so long as Gilpin dwelt among them, and especially to refrain
+    from showing their hostility in church.
+
+    There are in Coquetdale, as elsewhere, memorials of the ancient
+    British days in the many camps to be found on the summits of the
+    hills near the town, on Tosson Hill and the Simonside Hills; and
+    not camps only, but barrows, cist-vaens, and flint weapons in
+    considerable numbers. The magnificent view to be obtained, on a
+    clear day, from Tosson Hill or the Simonsides is one to be
+    remembered; to the west and north stretch the vales of Coquet and
+    Alwin, with the rolling heights of the Cheviots bounding them;
+    northward are the woods surrounding Biddlestone Hall, the
+    “Osbaldistone Hals” of Scot’s _Rob Roy_, awakening memories of Di
+    Vernon; far to the eastward a faint blue haze denotes the distant
+    coastline; while southward, over the dales of Rede and Tyne, the
+    smoke of industrial Tyneside lies on the horizon, with the spires
+    and towers of Newcastle showing faintly against the heights of the
+    Durham side of the Tyne.
+
+    One of the chief sights of Rothbury is the beautiful mansion of
+    Cragside and the wonderful valley of Debdon and Crag Hill, as
+    transformed by the first Lord Armstrong into a paradise of beauty,
+    where art and nature are so blended as to make a romantically
+    artistic whole. Another lovely spot on the banks of Coquet is at
+    Brinkburn, where the famous Priory stands almost hidden at the foot
+    of thickly wooded slopes. A very much larger portion of this fine
+    Priory is still standing than is the case with many other religious
+    houses of the same age, for it dates from the reign of Henry I. The
+    story is told of Brinkburn as well as of Blanchland, that a party
+    of marauding Scots on one of their forays passed by the Priory
+    without discovering it in its leafy bower; and so overjoyed were
+    the monks at their escape that they incautiously rang the bells by
+    way of showing their delight. The Scots, who had passed out of
+    sight but not out of hearing, immediately returned on their tracks,
+    and, guided by the joyful peal, reached the Priory, sacked the
+    buildings, and then set them on fire. It may well be that the
+    tragedy occurred at both places, on different occasions.
+
+    Farther eastward down the Coquet are two places pre-eminently noted
+    as centres for the sport for which the river is famed above all
+    other Northumbrian streams, though some of them are worthy rivals.
+    These two places are Weldon Bridge and Felton; the old Angler’s Inn
+    at the first-named is a favourite rendezvous of the fraternity of
+    rod and creel. Fishermen have long known the fascination of these
+    two places, and I quote from the “Fisherman’s Garland” two stanzas
+    written by two enthusiastic anglers in praise of them. The writers
+    are Robert Roxby and Thomas Doubleday.
+  “But we’ll awa’ to Coquetside, For Coquet bangs them a’; Whose
+  winding streams sae sweetly glide By Brinkburn’s bonny Ha’!”
+  _Written in 1821_
+  “The Coquet for ever, the Coquet for aye! The _Woodhall_ and _Weldon_
+  and _Felton_ so gay, And _Brinkburn_ and _Linden_, wi’ a’ their sweet
+  pride, For they add to the beauty of dear Coquetside.”
+  _Written in 1826_
+
+    Felton, a charmingly placed little village, on the banks of the
+    river where they are overhung by graceful woods, and diversified by
+    cliff and grassy slope, stands just where the great North Road
+    crosses the Coquet. By reason of this position it has been the
+    scene of one or two events of historical interest, notably those
+    connected with the “Fifteen” and the “Forty-five.” On the former
+    occasion, the gallant young Earl of Derwentwater, with his
+    followers, was joined here by a band of seventy gentlemen from the
+    Borders, and they rode on to Morpeth to proclaim James III. And
+    thirty years later, the soldiers of George II. passed over the
+    bridge from the southward, led by the Duke of Cumberland, and
+    pressed on towards the Scottish moor where they dealt the final
+    blow to the Stuart cause at Culloden. The interesting old church at
+    Felton, dating from the thirteenth century, is well worth a visit.
+    After leaving Felton behind, the Coquet enters on the most marked
+    windings of all its winding course, until, when it enters the sea
+    at Warkworth Harbour, just opposite Coquet Island, it has contrived
+    to lengthen out its journey to a distance of forty miles.
+
+    The bright clear stream of the Aln also begins its short journey
+    across Northumberland from the heights of Cheviot, but in the
+    narrower northern portion of the county. Alnham, with its
+    pele-tower Vicarage, ancient church, and memories of a castle,
+    stands just at the foot of the hills, near the source of the river.
+    Some three or four miles eastward along its banks, a walk through
+    leafy woods brings us to Whittingham—the final syllable of which,
+    by the way, one pronounces as “jam,” as one does that of nearly all
+    the other place-names ending in “ing-ham” in Northumberland,
+    contrary though it be to etymological considerations—excepting,
+    curiously enough, Chillingham, situated in the very midst of all
+    the others. The “ing” and “ham” are in themselves a historical
+    guide to the days in which the various villages received their
+    names, these two syllables being a certain indication of a Saxon
+    settlement, the “home of the sons, or descendants of” whatever
+    person the first syllable indicates. Thus, Edlingham, only a few
+    miles away, is the “home or settlement of the sons of Eadwulf”;
+    Ellingham, the “home of the sons of Ella,” and so on. How the
+    “Whitt” syllable was spelled we do not know; most probably Hwitta
+    or Hwitha—for all our _wh’s_ were _hw_ originally—_hwaet, hwa,
+    hwaether_ and so forth.
+
+    This ancient village is in these days a charming and peaceful
+    place, lying in the midst of rich meadow lands, and surrounded by
+    magnificent trees. It had its romances, too, in the course of
+    years; so long ago as the days of the early Danish invasions a
+    certain widow in Whittingham, in the reign of King Alfred, had no
+    less a person than a Danish prince among her slaves; he was
+    ransomed, however, and made king of the Danes in the North, in
+    consequence of a vision in which St. Cuthbert had directed the
+    Abbot of Carlisle to see this done. Young Prince Guthred’s
+    gratitude showed itself in a substantial grant of land to St.
+    Cuthbert at Durham. Whittingham Church is supposed to have been
+    founded by the Saxon king Ceolwulf, whose acquaintance we have
+    already made at Holy Island, and he bestowed the lands of
+    Whittingham on the church at Lindisfarne. It still shows some of
+    the original Saxon work at the base of the tower, and much more was
+    to be seen before the so-called “restoration” of the church in
+    1840. The pele-tower on the south side of the river, after its days
+    of storm and stress are over, still serves as a shelter in time of
+    need, for it is now used as an almshouse for the poor of the
+    village, a former Lady Ravensworth having originated the quaint
+    idea and seen it carried out.
+
+    Whittingham Fair, now Whittingham Sports, a well-known rendezvous
+    of the whole countryside, has lost some of its former splendour,
+    but is still looked forward to with great enjoyment in the
+    surrounding district. The old coaching road from Newcastle to
+    Edinburgh passed through the village, crossing the Aln by the stone
+    bridge, from whence it went on through Glanton and Wooler to
+    Cornhill.
+
+    In the vale of Whittingham, the little Aln flows placidly along,
+    its waters murmuring a soothing refrain, a peaceful interlude
+    between its busy bustling beginning and its ending. Before reaching
+    Alnwick it flows past the ancient walls of Hulne Abbey, the
+    monastery of Carmelite friars so romantically founded by the
+    Northumbrian knight and monk after his visit to the monastery on
+    Mount Carmel. A considerable portion of the ancient building is
+    still standing, and few sites chosen by the old monks, who had an
+    unerring eye for beauty as well as safety and convenience in their
+    choice of abode, can surpass this one, surrounded by fair meadows,
+    and standing on the green hill-side, with the rippling Aln flowing
+    through the levels below. In Hulne Park is also the Brislee Tower,
+    erected by the first Duke of Northumberland in 1781, on the top of
+    Brislee Hill.
+
+[Illustration: Alnwick Castle]
+
+    Alnwick itself, with its quaint, uneven, narrow streets, and grey
+    stone houses, looks the part of a Border town even in these days;
+    and the grim old Hotspur tower, bestriding the main street like an
+    ancient warrior still on guard, helps to give the illusion an air
+    of reality. The tower, however, was not built by Hotspur, but by
+    his son. The names of the streets, too, are redolent of the days
+    when the only safety for the inhabitants of a town worth plundering
+    lay in the strength of its walls and gateways. Bondgate,
+    Bailiffgate, and Narrowgate, still speak of the days of siege and
+    sortie, of fierce attack and stout defence.
+
+    The magnificent castle which dominates the town stands majestically
+    at the top of a green slope above the Aln, its vast array of walls
+    and towers far along the ridge, fronting the North as though still
+    looking, albeit with a seemingly languid interest, for the coming
+    of the Scots who were such inveterate foes of its successive lords.
+    The principal entrance, however, the Barbican, faces southwards to
+    the town, and here the massive gateway, with portcullis complete,
+    and crowned by quaint life-size figures of warriors in various
+    attitudes of defence, conveys the impression that the huge giant is
+    still alert and on guard. The history of Alnwick is the history of
+    the castle and its lords, from the days of Gilbert Tyson, variously
+    known as Tison, Tisson, and De Tesson, one of the Conqueror’s
+    standardbearers, upon whom this northern estate was bestowed, until
+    the present time. After being held by the family of De Vesci (of
+    which the modern rendering is Vasey—a name found all over
+    south-east Northumberland) for over two hundred years, it passed
+    into the hands of the house of Percy. The Percies, who hailed from
+    the village of Perce in Normandy, had large estates in Yorkshire,
+    bestowed by the Conqueror on the first of the name to arrive in
+    England in his train. The family, however, was represented by an
+    heiress only in the reign of Henry II., whose second wife, a
+    daughter of the Duke of Brabant, thought this heiress, with her
+    wide possessions, a suitable match for her own young half-brother
+    Joceline of Louvain. The marriage took place; and thereafter
+    followed the long line of Henry Percies (Henry being a favourite
+    name of the Counts of Louvain) who played such a large part in the
+    history of both England and Scotland; for, as nearly every Percy
+    was a Warden of the Marches, Scottish doings concerned them more or
+    less intimately—indeed, often more so than English affairs.
+
+    It was the third Henry Percy who purchased Alnwick in 1309 from
+    Antony Bec, Bishop of Durham and guardian of the last De Vesci, and
+    from that time the fortunes of the Percies, though they still held
+    their Yorkshire estates, were linked permanently with the little
+    town on the Aln, and the fortress which alike commanded and
+    defended it. The fourth Henry Percy began to build the castle as we
+    see it now; but to call him “the fourth” is a little confusing, as
+    he was the second Henry Percy, Lord of Alnwick. On the whole, it
+    will be clearer to begin the enumerations of the various Henry
+    Percies from the time they became Lords of Alnwick. It was, then,
+    Henry Percy the second, Lord of Alnwick, who began the re-building
+    of the castle; he also was jointly responsible for the safety of
+    the realm during the absence of Edward III. in the French wars, and
+    in this official capacity, no less than in that of a Border baron
+    whose delight it was to exchange lusty blows with an ever-ready
+    foe, he helped to win the battle of Neville’s Cross. His son,
+    Henry, married a sister of John of Gaunt, and their son, the next
+    Henry Percy, was that friend who stood John Wycliffe in such good
+    stead, when he was cited to appear before the Bishop of London.
+    Henry Percy, who had been made Earl Marshal of England, and the
+    Duke of Lancaster took their places one on each side of Wycliffe,
+    and accompanied him to St. Paul’s, clearing a way for him through
+    the crowd. It does not belong to this story to tell how their
+    private quarrels with the Bishop prevented Wycliffe’s
+    interrogation, and how he left the Cathedral without having uttered
+    a word; we are concerned at the moment with his North-country
+    friend, who, the same year, was created Earl of Northumberland,
+    which title he was given after the coronation of Richard II. Nor
+    was this all, for he was that Northumberland whose doings in the
+    next reign fill so large a part of Shakespeare’s Henry IV., and he
+    was the father of the most famous Percy of all, the gallant Henry
+    Percy the fifth, better known as “Harry Hotspur.” Hotspur never
+    became Earl of Northumberland, being slain at Shrewsbury in the
+    lifetime of his father, whose estates were forfeited under
+    attainder on account of the rebellion of himself and his son
+    against King Henry IV.
+
+    King Henry V. restored Hotspur’s son, the second Earl, to his
+    family honours, and the Percies were staunch Lancastrians during
+    the Wars of the Roses which followed, the third Earl and three of
+    his brothers losing their lives in the cause. The fifth Earl was a
+    gorgeous person whose magnificence equalled, almost, that of
+    royalty. Henry Percy, the sixth Earl of Northumberland, loved Ann
+    Boleyn, and was her accepted suitor before King Henry VIII.
+    unfortunately discovered the lady’s charm, and interfered in a
+    highhanded “bluff King Has” fashion, and young Percy lost his
+    prospective bride. He had no son, although married later to the
+    daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and his nephew, Thomas Percy,
+    became the seventh Earl.
+
+    Thereafter, a succession of plots and counterplots—the Rising of
+    the North, the plots to liberate Mary Queen of Scots, and the
+    Gunpowder Plot—each claimed a Percy among their adherents. On this
+    account the eighth and ninth Earls spent many years in the Tower,
+    but the tenth Earl, Algernon, fought for King Charles in the Civil
+    War, the male line of the Percy-Louvain house ending with
+    Josceline, the eleventh Earl. The heiress to the vast Percy estates
+    married the Duke of Somerset; and her grand-daughter married a
+    Yorkshire knight, Sir Hugh Smithson, who in 1766 was created the
+    first Duke of Northumberland and Earl Percy, and it is their
+    descendants who now represent the famous old house.
+
+    At various points in the town are memorials of the constant wars
+    between Percies and Scots in which so many Percies spent the
+    greater part of their lives. At the side of the broad shady road
+    called Rotten Row, leading from the West Lodge to Bailiffgate, a
+    tablet of stone marks the spot where William the Lion of Scotland
+    was captured as we have already seen, in 1174, by Odinel de
+    Umfraville and his friends; and there are many others of similar
+    interest.
+
+    Within the park, approached by the gate at the foot of Canongate,
+    is the fine gateway which is all that is left of Alnwick Abbey. No
+    more peaceful spot could have been found than this, on the level
+    greensward, surrounded by fine trees which shelter it on all sides
+    save one, and near the brink of the little Aln, whose banks are
+    thickly covered with wild flowers, while the steep slope on the
+    opposite side of the river is overhung with shady woods. The extent
+    of the parks may be judged from the fact that the enclosing wall is
+    about five miles long. At the foot of Bailiffgate, on the edge of a
+    steep ridge above the descent to Canongate and the banks of the
+    river, the ancient parish church, dedicated to St. Mary and St.
+    Michael stands in a commanding position. The present building dates
+    from the fourteenth century, and occupies the site of an earlier
+    one, whose few remaining stones have been built into the present
+    structure. Two other reminders of long-past days are to be found in
+    Alnwick; one is the large stone in the Market Place to which the
+    bull ring used to be fixed in the days when bull-baiting and
+    bear-baiting took place; and the other, a relic of days still
+    further back in the distant years, is the sounding of the Curfew
+    Bell, which is still rung here every evening at eight o’clock.
+    Altogether there is the quaintest and most unexpected mingling of
+    the ancient and modern in the little feudal town.
+
+    Between Alnwick and the sea, the Aln winds its way past Alnmouth
+    Station, formerly known as Bilton Junction, and past Lesbury, a
+    pretty little tree-shaded village, to the sandy flats by Alnmouth
+    where it ends its journey in the North Sea.
+
+    The Till, by whose side we shall next wander, flows in the opposite
+    direction, for that historic stream is a tributary of “Tweed’s fair
+    river, broad and deep,” and curves from the Cheviots round to the
+    North-west, where it enters the larger stream at Tillmouth. It
+    begins life as the Breamish, tumbling down the slopes of Cushat Law
+    within sight of all the giants of the Cheviot range. The Linhope
+    Burn, a fellow traveller down these steep hillsides, forms in its
+    course the Linhope Spout, one of the largest waterfalls to be found
+    amongst the Cheviots, before it joins the Breamish, which then
+    flows through a country of green slopes and grassy levels to
+    Ingram. This village possesses an old church with massive square
+    tower and windows which suggest the fortress rather than the
+    church. The heights which stretch eastward from the Cheviots and
+    bound the valley of the Till add not a little to the beauty and
+    variety of the scenery in this district.
+
+    The little stream, which turns northward near Glanton railway
+    station, moves on in loops and windings past Beanley, which Earl
+    Gospatric held in former days by virtue of the curious office of
+    being a kind of official mediator between the monarchs of England
+    and Scotland when they came to blows; and past Bewick, with its
+    little Norman church buried from sight amongst leafy trees. The
+    effigy of a lady in the chancel of this church is said to be that
+    of Matilda, wife of Henry I. This is the more likely in that the
+    lands of Bewick formed part of her dowry, and were given by her to
+    the monks of Tynemouth Priory. At Bewick Bridge the little stream
+    ceases to be the Breamish, and becomes the Till; as an old rhyme
+    has it—
+  “The foot of Breamish, and head of Till, Meet together at Bewick
+  Mils”
+
+    Some miles to the northward, the Till reaches the little village of
+    Chatton, having, on the way, passed a little to the westward of
+    Chillingham Castle and Park, where is the famous herd of wild
+    cattle. Roscastle, a craggy height covered with heather, stands at
+    the edge of the chase, and looks over a wild and romantic scene of
+    moorland and pastureland, deep glens and heathery hills. The
+    Vicarage at Chatton is another of those north-country vicarages in
+    which an old pele-tower forms part of the modern residence. On the
+    top of Chatton Law is an ancient British encampment, with inscribed
+    circles similar to those on Bewick Hill.
+
+    From Chatton, the loops and windings of the Till grow more
+    insistent, and the little stream adds miles to its length by reason
+    of its frequent doubling on its tracks; this, however, but gives an
+    added charm to the landscape, as the silvery gleams of the winding
+    river come unexpectedly into view again and again. It flows on
+    through Glendale, with which attractive region we have already made
+    acquaintance; and on its banks are the two prettiest villages in
+    Northumberland—Ford and Etal.
+
+    Ford Castle, as seen at the present day, is chiefly modern, but the
+    northwest tower is part of the old fortress of Odenel de Forde,
+    which experienced so many vicissitudes in its time. One of the most
+    famous owners of Ford Castle was Sir William Heron, who married
+    Odenel’s daughter, and who held the responsible and troublesome
+    office of High Sheriff of Northumberland for eleven years, besides
+    being Captain of Bamburgh and Warden of the northern forests. The
+    castle was burnt down by James IV. of Scotland just before the
+    battle of Flodden, which was not by any means the only time in its
+    career that it was demolished, entirely or in part, and restored
+    again.
+
+    In the village of Ford, the walls of the schoolroom are decorated
+    by a series of pictures of the children of Scripture story, for
+    whose portrayal it is said the Marchioness of Waterford, the
+    artist, took the village children as models. The late Vicar of
+    Ford, the Rev. Hastings Neville, has laid all who are interested in
+    the rural life of Northumberland, and the quaint and traditional
+    manners and customs of the North-country which are so fast
+    disappearing, under the greatest obligation to him for his
+    interesting and entirely delightful little book, “A Corner in the
+    North.” Historical records, and matters of business, ownerships,
+    etc., connected with any special area can always be turned up for
+    reference when required; but the manner of speech, the customs of
+    daily life, the quaint survivals of former usages and
+    half-forgotten lore, being entirely dependent on individual memory
+    and oral tradition, only too often disappear before any adequate
+    record can be made. Hence it is a matter for congratulation that
+    such a book should have been written.
+
+    Etal, Ford’s pretty neighbour, also boasts a castle, built only two
+    years after that of Ford and by the same masons. A considerable
+    portion of the ruins remains, but, unlike Ford Castle, it was never
+    restored after James the Fourth’s drastic handling of it, but was
+    left to decay. Opposite Ford and Etal, on the left bank of the
+    Till, is Pallinsburn House, referred to in another chapter, and the
+    village of Crookham; and beyond the woods of Pallinsburn, Flodden
+    ridge, with its memories of the disastrous field on which James was
+    slain.
+
+    The mansion house of Tillmouth Park, owned by Sir Francis Blake, is
+    built of stones from the ruins of Twizell Castle, on the northern
+    bank of the Till; the castle was begun by a former Sir Francis
+    Blake but never finished. Between the two buildings the Berwick
+    Road crosses the Till by Twizell Bridge, over which Surrey marched
+    his men southward on the morning of Flodden. Not far from this
+    bridge, to the westward, is St. Helen’s Well, alluded to by Scott
+    in his account of the battle, in “Marmion”—
+  “Many a chief of birth and rank, St. Helen, at thy fountain drank.”
+
+    Sibyl’s well, from which Lady Clare brought water to moisten the
+    lips of the dying Marmion, is beside the little church at Branxton.
+    Tillmouth, however, has older memories still; for it was to the
+    little chapel there that St. Cuthbert’s body floated in its stone
+    coffin from Melrose, dating the course of its seven years’
+    wandering, ere it found a final rest at Durham.
+  “From sea to sea, from shore to shore, Seven years Saint Cuthbert’s
+  corpse they bore They rested them in fair Melrose, But though alive
+  he loved it well Not there his relics might repose, For, wondrous
+  tale to tell, In his stone coffin forth he glides, A ponderous bark
+  for river tides, Yet light as gossamer it glides Downward to
+  Tillmouth cell.
+
+  Chester-le-Street and Ripon saw His holy corpse, ere Wardilaw Hailed
+  it with joy and fear; Till, after many wanderings past, He chose his
+  lordly seat at last Where his cathedral, huge and vast, Looks down
+  upon the Wear.”
+  _Sir W. Scott_—MARMION.
+
+    The “stone coffin” was boat-shaped, “ten feet long, three feet and
+    a half in diameter, and only four inches thick, so that, with very
+    little assistance, it might certainly have swum; it still lies, or
+    at least did so a few years ago, in two pieces, beside the ruined
+    chapel at Tilmouth.”—_Sir W. Scott’s Notes to “Marmion.”_
+
+    Three or four miles from Tillmouth, south-westward up the valley of
+    the Tweed, and just beyond Cornhill, lies the village of Wark, near
+    which the remains of the famous Border castle are still standing.
+    The castle was built on a stony ridge of detritus called the
+    _Kaim_, which stretches from Wark village towards Carham. In the
+    reign of Henry I. all those who owned land in the North were
+    seemingly animated simultaneously by a lively desire to secure
+    their Borders; Bishop Flambard began to build Norham Castle,
+    Eustace Fitz-John, husband of Beatrice de Vesci, built the greater
+    part of Alnwick Castle, and Walter Espic raised the mighty
+    fortress, the great “Wark” or work (A.S. _were_ or _weare_) on the
+    steep ridge above Tweed, in “his honour (seignieury) of Carham.”
+
+    From that time the castle of Wark went through a greater succession
+    of sieges, assaults, burnings, surrenders, demolitions, and
+    restorations than any other place in England, except, perhaps,
+    Norham Castle or Berwick-upon-Tweed. In an age and situation where
+    hard blows given and returned, desperate adventures and equal
+    chances of life or death were the common-places of everyday
+    existence, Wark was probably the place where these excitements were
+    to be had oftener than anywhere else.
+
+    The romantic episode which gave rise to the establishment of the
+    Order of the Garter is generally allowed to have taken place at
+    Wark Castle. The young king of Scotland, David Bruce, had “ridden a
+    raid” into England, and ravaged and plundered on his way as far as
+    Auckland, after having burnt the town of Alnwick, amongst others,
+    but having been repulsed before the castle. King Edward III. was at
+    Stamford when he heard of the invasion; but hurrying northward he
+    reached Newcastle in four days. The Scots, retreating before him,
+    passed Wark Castle, which was held by the Countess of Salisbury and
+    her nephew, in the absence of her husband. The young man was loth
+    to let so much English booty be carried off under his very eyes, so
+    he fell upon the rearguard, and succeeded in bringing a number of
+    packhorses to the castle. On this the whole Scottish array turned
+    back, and a siege of the castle began; but the Countess spiritedly
+    held out, and Edward meanwhile drew nearer. Some of the Scotsmen
+    were captured, and from them the Countess’s nephew heard that
+    Edward had reached Alnwick. He stole out of the castle before
+    dawning in heavy rain, to let the King know where his help was
+    urgently needed; and by noon of the same day Edward was at Wark,
+    only to find his quarry flown, the Scots having retreated a few
+    hours earlier. The King was joyfully received and thanked by the
+    grateful Countess; and he in his turn was much struck by the beauty
+    and grace of the high-spirited lady, and showed his admiration
+    plainly. In the evening, according to tradition, a ball was held,
+    at which the incident occurred, so often related, of the accidental
+    losing of her garter by the fair chatelaine, and the restoration of
+    it by the King, with the remark, as a rebuke to the smiling
+    bystanders,—“_Honi soit qui mal y pense._” This he afterwards
+    adopted as the motto of the Order he established in honour of the
+    beautiful Countess.
+
+    The Garter is the most exclusive of Orders, and consists of the
+    reigning Sovereign and twenty-five Companions, of whom the Prince
+    of Wales is always one; and it takes precedence of all other
+    titles, ranking next to royalty. It is a matter of great pride to
+    all Northumbrians that perhaps the only instance of its having been
+    bestowed on any except a peer of the realm or a foreign Sovereign,
+    has occurred recently in the bestowal of the coveted decoration on
+    Sir Edward Grey, a member of the ancient and important Northumbrian
+    house of that name.
+
+    Every King of England from Henry I. to Henry IV., seems to have
+    been at Wark at some time during his reign, with the exception of
+    Richard Coeur-de-Lion and Richard II. After the Union of the
+    Crowns, Wark, like most other fortresses in the north that were not
+    in use as the dwellings of their owners, was allowed to fall into
+    decay. From Wark to Carham is a walk of only two miles along the
+    road which follows the course of the river, and ultimately leads to
+    Kelso. Carham has the remains of an ancient monastery; and here the
+    Danes, after having plundered Lindisfarne, fought a battle in which
+    the Saxons, led by several Bishops, were defeated with great
+    slaughter. From Carham, having reached the last point of interest
+    on the Tweed within the Northumbrian border, we must retrace our
+    steps to Tillmouth, and follow the Tweed through pasture land and
+    level haughs, until we come in sight of the steep cliffs and
+    overhanging woods by Norham Castle.
+
+    Naturally here, the words of the opening canto of “Marmion” are
+    recalled to our memory—
+  “Day set on Norham’s castled steep, On Tweed’s fair river, broad and
+  deep, And Cheviot’s mountains lone The battled towers, the donjon
+  keep, The loophole grates, where captives weep, The flanking walls
+  that round it sweep, In yellow lustre shone.”
+
+    The “castled steep” is still crowned by a massive fragment of the
+    old fortress that has braved, in its time, so many days of storm
+    and stress. A good deal of the curtain wall, too, is standing, and
+    the natural defences of the castle are admirable, for a deep ravine
+    on the east and the river with its steep banks on the south made it
+    practically unassailable at these points. It was built in 1121, as
+    we have seen, by Bishop Flambard of Durham, as a defence for the
+    northern portions of his diocese. The necessity for its presence
+    there was soon made apparent, for it was attacked by the Scots
+    again and again; and by the time thirty years had passed. Bishop
+    Pudsey found it necessary to strengthen it greatly. When Edward I.
+    was called to arbitrate between the claimants to the Scottish
+    throne, he came to Norham and met the rival nobles, who, with their
+    followers, were quartered at Ladykirk, on the opposite side of the
+    Tweed. It was known as Upsettlington then, however; the name of
+    Ladykirk was bestowed upon it long afterwards, when James IV. built
+    the little chapel there, in gratitude for an escape from drowning
+    in the Tweed. Edward held his interview with the Scottish nobles in
+    Norham church, and announced that he had come there in the
+    character of lord paramount, and as such was prepared to make
+    choice of one among them. Edward did not by any means make up his
+    mind quickly, and the various places in which the successive acts
+    in the affair took place are widely scattered, for he met the
+    nobles at Norham, some time afterwards delivered his decision at
+    Berwick, and finally received the homage of John Balliol at
+    Newcastle.
+
+    Norham, like Wark, has also its romantic episode—or rather, an
+    episode more conspicuously so in a series of them to which the name
+    might with justice be applied. It occurred during the time that Sir
+    Thomas Gray was holding the castle against a determined blockade of
+    it by the Scots in 1318. A certain fair lady of Lincolnshire sent
+    one of her maidens to a knight whom she loved, Sir William Marmion
+    (whose name probably suggested to Sir Walter Scott the name for the
+    hero of his tale of Norham and Flodden). Sir William was at a
+    banquet when the maiden came before him bearing a helmet with a
+    golden crest, together with a letter from his lady bidding him go
+    “into the daungerust place in England, and there to let the heaulme
+    be seene and knowen as famose.” Evidently it was well known where
+    “the daungerust place in England” was to be found, for the story
+    laconically says “So he went to Norham.” He had not been there more
+    than a day or two when a band of nearly two hundred Scots, bold and
+    expert horsemen, led by Philip de Mowbray, made an attack on the
+    castle, rousing Sir Thomas and his garrison from their dinner. They
+    quickly mounted, and were about to sally forth when Sir Thomas
+    caught sight of Marmion, in rich armour, and on his head the helmet
+    with the golden crest; and halting his men, he cried out, “Sir
+    knight, ye be come hither as a knight-errant to fame your helm; and
+    since deeds of chivalry should rather be done on horseback than on
+    foot, mount up on your horse, and spur him like a valiant knight
+    into the midst of your enemies here at hand, and I forsake God if I
+    rescue not thy body dead or alive, or I myself will die for it.” At
+    this Marmion mounted and spurred towards the Scots, by whom he was
+    instantly set upon, wounded, and dragged from the saddle. But
+    before they had time to give him the final blow they were scattered
+    by the rapid charge of Sir Thomas and his men, who quickly rescued
+    Marmion and set him on his horse again; and using their lances
+    against the horses of the Scots, caused many of them to throw their
+    riders, while the rest galloped away. The women of the castle
+    caught fifty of the riderless horses, on which more of the garrison
+    mounted and joined in the pursuit of the flying Scots, whom they
+    chased nearly to Berwick.
+
+    The tables were sometimes turned, however; and on one of these
+    occasions the valiant Sir Thomas Gray and his son were enticed out
+    of the castle into an ambush laid for them by their foes, and both
+    captured.
+
+    In 1513, just before the battle of Flodden, its walls were at
+    length laid low by James IV., but not until the famous cannon “Mons
+    Meg”—still, I believe, to be seen at Edinburgh Castle—had been
+    brought against it. One of the cannon-balls fired from “Mons Meg”
+    was found, and is still kept with others at the Castle. It is said
+    that the Scots were told of the weakest spot in the fortifications
+    by a treacherous inmate of the castle, who doubtless expected a
+    rich reward for his information. Indeed, the ballad of “Flodden”
+    says he came for it; but the valiant and chivalrous king would give
+    him no reward but that which he said every traitor deserved—a rope.
+
+    Afterwards the castle was restored once more, but its more stirring
+    days were over; and, to-day, it stands a shattered but dignified
+    ruin, overlooking the tranquil river and peaceful woodlands which
+    once echoed so continuously to the clash of arms and the shouts of
+    besiegers and besieged.
+
+    The village of Norham was in Saxon days known as Ubbanford—the
+    Upper Ford of two that were available in those days on the Tweed.
+    There was a church here, too, in Saxon times, for Bishop Ecfrid
+    built one about the year 830, and in it was buried the Saxon king
+    Ceolwulf who became a monk: the present church has a good deal
+    remaining of the one built on the same site by Bishop Flambard,
+    about the same time as the castle. Earl Gospatric, whom William the
+    Conqueror made Earl of Northumberland in return for a considerable
+    sum of money—doubtless thinking that to give a Northumbrian the
+    Earldom would reconcile the North to his rule—is buried in the
+    church porch. Gospatric joined in the resistance of the North to
+    William, but returned to his allegiance later. The Market Cross of
+    Norham stands on the original base.
+
+    From Norham to Tweedmouth the river sweeps forward between
+    picturesque ever-widening banks, and often hidden by a leafy
+    screen, past the village of Horncliffe, beneath the Union
+    Suspension Bridge, one of the first erected of its kind, until at
+    length its bright waters lave the historic walls of
+    Berwick-upon-Tweed, and in the quiet harbour there meet the
+    inrushing tide from the North Sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. DRUM AND TRUMPET.
+
+
+    “The history of Northumberland is essentially a drum and trumpet
+    history, from the time when the _buccina_ of the Batavian cohort
+    first rang out over the moors of Procolitia down to the
+    proclamation of James III. at Warkworth Cross”—_Cadwallader J
+    Bates_.
+
+    This sentence of the historian of Northumberland sums up the story
+    of our northern county no less admirably than tersely, and it would
+    be difficult to find one which should more clearly bring before us
+    the whole atmosphere of north-country history and north-country
+    doings for many centuries.
+
+    Within the limits of this chapter it is impossible to go into the
+    details of every “foughten field” within the county; the most that
+    can be done is to indicate the many and treat in detail only the
+    few. A goodly number have already been alluded to in connection
+    with the place where each occurred.
+
+    After the Roman campaigns, from those of Agricola to those of
+    Theodosius the elder and Maximus, and the legion sent by Stilicho,
+    the earliest battle story is that of the one in Glendale fought by
+    King Arthur. Then the forming of the kingdom of Bernicia with the
+    advent of Ida at Bamburgh was the beginning of a long-protracted
+    struggle between the various little states, each fighting for its
+    life, and surrounded by others equally determined to take every
+    advantage that offered against it. The sons of Ida fought against
+    the celebrated Urien, a Keltic chief, who almost succeeded in
+    dispossessing them of their kingdom of Bernicia. Hussa, one of
+    Ida’s sons, ultimately vanquished Urien’s son Owen, “chief of the
+    glittering West”; and after Hussa’s death Ethelric of Bernicia, as
+    we have seen, overcame the neighbouring chieftain of Deira, thus
+    forming the kingdom of Northumbria. His successor, Ethelfrith, in
+    the year 603 gained a great victory over a large force of northern
+    Britons under a leader named Aedan at a place called Daegsanstan,
+    which is thought to be Dissington, near Newcastle. His further
+    victories were gained outside the limits of our present survey.
+
+    After the long and glorious reign of Edwin, his successor,
+    Ethelfrith’s sons came back to Bamburgh; the eldest, Eanfrid, was
+    slain within a year, and his brother Oswald carried on the struggle
+    against Penda of Mercia. We have seen how he fought against Penda
+    and Cadwallon on the Heavenfield near Chollerford, and gained a
+    victory which obtained for him many years of peace. Penda was
+    finally slain by Oswald’s successor Oswy in a great battle which is
+    supposed to have taken place on the banks of the Tweed.
+
+    Many years afterwards, Sitric, grandson of that Prince Guthred who
+    was once a slave at Whittingham, married a sister of King
+    Athelstan, grandson of Alfred the Great. When Sitric died,
+    Athelstan came northward to claim Northumbria for himself. He
+    captured Bamburgh—the first time that stronghold of the Bernician
+    kings had ever been taken—and arranged for two earls to govern
+    Northumbria for him. They attempted unsuccessfully to oppose a
+    force of Scots under Anlaf the Red, who was joined by two earls of
+    Bretland (Cumbria); and the whole force encamped near a place
+    called Weondune, supposed to be Wandon near Chatton. Athelstan
+    advanced against them and challenged them to a pitched battle on
+    this ground. They agreed, and with much deliberation the course was
+    staked out with hazel wands between a wood and a river (Chillingham
+    woods and the Till). The Scots greatly outnumbered Athelstan’s men,
+    who set up their tents at the narrowest part of the plain, giving
+    their king time to reach a little “burg” (Old Bewick) in the
+    neighbourhood. A running fight followed, which was carried on the
+    next day, and with the help of two brothers, Egil and Thorold, who
+    were Norsemen, it ended in a complete victory for Athelstan. While
+    in the north, King Athelstan gave the well-known rhyming charter to
+    a certain Paulan of Roddam;
+  “I kyng Adelstan giffs hier to Paulan Oddam and Roddam als gud and
+  als fair als evyr thai myne war, and thar to wytness Mald my Wiffe.”
+
+    Shortly after this, at the Battle of Brunanburh, Athelstan
+    vanquished Anlaf Sitricsson and Constantine, king of the Scots. The
+    site of this battle would seem to have been in Northumbria, as it
+    was into the Humber that Anlaf and Constantine sailed with their
+    large fleet; but the precise spot has never been determined.
+
+    In the reign of Knut the Dane, the Scots obtained the whole of
+    Lothian from the Saxon earl of Northumberland, and the vast
+    possessions of St. Cuthbert beyond the Tweed seemed about to be
+    lost to the church of Durham. Accordingly, the clergy called upon
+    all the people of St. Cuthbert from the Tees to the Tweed—all
+    those, that is, who dwelt on lands granted by various donors to the
+    church of St. Cuthbert—to rise and march northward to fight for
+    their lands. This great company set out, in the autumn of 1018, and
+    reached Carham on the Tweed, where they were met by Malcolm king of
+    the Scots. A comet had been seen in the sky for some weeks and the
+    fears inspired by this dread visitant seem to have had more effect
+    upon the Northumbrians than upon the Scots. From whatever cause it
+    arose, when the two forces joined in battle a panic spread among
+    the followers of St. Cuthbert. They were utterly routed, and most
+    of the leading Northumbrians as well as eighteen priests were
+    slain—thus curiously repeating the experience of the earlier battle
+    of Carham.
+
+    For the next three hundred years Northumberland was swept by
+    successive waves of raid and reprisal, in the course of which
+    occurred the two well-known events, the attack of William the Lion
+    of Scotland on Alnwick Castle, and the more famous affair still,
+    the struggle between Percy and Douglas known as the battle of
+    Otterburn, which was fought in “Chevy Chase” (Cheviot Forest). More
+    important poetically than politically, it stands out more vividly
+    in the records of the time than many other conflicts of larger
+    import. The personal element in the fight, the deeds of gallantry
+    recorded, the sounding roll of the chief knights’ names, and the
+    high renown of the two leaders, throw a glamour around this
+    particular contest which is kept alive by the ballads that chant
+    the praises of Percy or Douglas according as the singer was Scot or
+    Saxon. Sir Philip Sidney, that “verray parfit gentil knight” and
+    discriminating _litterateur_, said “I never heard the old song of
+    Percie and Douglas that I found not my hart mooved more than with a
+    trumpet: and yet it is sung but by some blynd Crowder,[11] with no
+    rougher voyce than rude stile! which beeing so evill apparelled in
+    the dust and cobweb of that uncivill age, what wolde it work
+    trimmed in the gorgeous eloquence of Pindare!”
+
+ [11] Crowder = fiddler.
+
+    In the endless warfare of the Borders the second of two short-lived
+    periods of truce had just expired, and an organised raid on a large
+    scale was arranged by the Scots. The main body was to ravage
+    Cumberland; and a smaller, but picked force led by Earls Douglas,
+    Moray, and March came southward by way of Northumberland. But
+    Northumbrian towers and towns knew nothing of their passing; they
+    marched rapidly and by stealth into Durham, having crossed the Tyne
+    between Corbridge and Bywell, and began to harry and lay waste the
+    greener pastures and richer villages of the southern county, the
+    smoke of whose burning homesteads was the first intimation to the
+    unlucky English of the fact that a Scottish host was in their
+    midst.
+
+    The Earl of Northumberland remained at Alnwick in the hope that he
+    might be able to attack the Scots on their homeward journey; but he
+    despatched his sons Henry Hotspur and Ralph in all haste to defend
+    Newcastle. The Scots in due time appeared before the walls.
+  And he marched up to Newcastel And rode it round about; “O wha’s the
+  lord o’ this castel? Or wha’s the lady o’t?”
+  But up spake proud Lord Percy then, And O but he spake hie! “I am the
+  lord o’ this castel, My wife’s the lady gay.”
+
+    Douglas challenged Percy to meet him in single combat, and Percy
+    promptly accepted. In the duel Percy was unhorsed, and Douglas
+    captured his pennon and his gauntlet gloves, embroidered with the
+    Percy lion in pearls. This trophy Douglas vowed he would carry off
+    to Scotland with him, and set it in the topmost tower of his castle
+    of Dalkeith, that it might be seen from afar. “By heaven! that you
+    never shall,” replied Percy; “you shall not carry it out of
+    Northumberland.” “Come and take it, then,” was Douglas’ answer; and
+    Hotspur would have attempted its recovery there and then, but he
+    was restrained by his knights. Douglas, however, said he would give
+    Percy a chance to recover it, and agreed to await him at Otterburn.
+  “Yet I will stay at Otterbourne, Where you shall welcome be; And if
+  ye come not at three dayis end, A fause lord I’ll call thee”
+
+    Next day the Scots left Newcastle and marched northward. They took
+    Sir Aymer de Athol’s castle of Ponte-land, and the good knight Sir
+    Aymer himself, and went on their way, harrying and burning as they
+    went. At Otterburn they halted, and rested all night, making huts
+    for themselves of boughs and branches. The spot they had chosen was
+    a strong one, on the site of a former British camp; and not only
+    was it surrounded by trees, but was near marshy ground as well.
+    Next day they attempted to take Otterburn tower, but without
+    success.
+
+    Meanwhile word was brought to Hotspur that the Scots would spend
+    the night at Otterburn; and he, without waiting for Walter de
+    Skirlaw, Bishop of Durham, who was expected that evening with a
+    strong force, at once set off with 600 spearmen, and a force on
+    foot which is variously given as anything from 800 to 8,000. They
+    covered the thirty-odd miles by the time evening fell: and as the
+    Scots were at supper in their little huts, they were startled by a
+    tumult amongst their grooms and camp-followers, and cries of “a
+    Percy! a Percy!” and the Englishmen were among them. The Scottish
+    leaders had placed their camp-followers and servants at the
+    outermost; part of their encampment, facing the Newcastle road; and
+    Hotspur’s force, ignorant of this, mistook it for the main camp.
+    While they were thus engaged, the Scottish knights were enabled to
+    make a detour around the scene of the first attack, and take the
+    English in the rear. With loud shouts of “Douglas! Douglas!” they
+    fell upon them, and a fierce hand-to-hand struggle began. The moon
+    rose clear and bright, and the quiet evening air was filled with
+    the din of battle, the ring of steel on steel, the crash of axe on
+    armour, the groans of the wounded, and the battle-cries of the
+    combatants on each side. Sir Ralph Percy, pressing too rashly
+    forward, was captured by a newly-made Scottish knight, Sir John
+    Maxwell. The battle was turning in favour of Hotspur, when Douglas
+    sent his silken banner to the front and with renewed shouts of
+    “Douglas!” the Scots pressed forward and overbore their foes.
+    According to Froissart, there was not a man there, knight, squire,
+    or groom, who played the coward. “This bataylle was one of the
+    sorest and best foughten without cowards or faynte hearts; for
+    there was neither knight nor I squire but that did his devoyre and
+    foughte hande to hande.” Great deeds were done, and the fame of
+    none amongst them is greater than that of the gallant Widdrington;
+  “For Witherington my heart is woe, That ever he slaine sholde be! For
+  when his legs were hewn in two He knelt and fought on his knee”
+
+    Douglas rushed into the thickest of the fray, and Hotspur tried to
+    find him, but in the dim light that was difficult, especially as
+    Douglas had, in his haste, come to the fight without helmet or
+    breastplate. Presently he was borne to the ground by three English
+    spears; and as he lay guarded by his faithful chaplain, Sir John
+    and Sir Walter Sinclair, with Sir James Lindsay, came upon him.
+    “How fare you, cousin?” asked Sir John. “But poorly, I thank God,”
+    answered Douglas; “for few of my ancestors died in bed or chamber.
+    I count myself dead, for my heart beats slow. Think now to avenge
+    me. Raise my banner and shout ‘Douglas!’ and let neither my friends
+    nor my foes know of my state, lest the one rejoice and the other be
+    discomforted.” His dying commands were obeyed; and while his
+    battle-cry was raised anew, his dead body was laid by a “bracken
+    bush,” and the fact of his death concealed from friend and foe
+    alike. The furious onslaught of the Scots now carried all before
+    them; and Hotspur fell a captive to the sword of Sir Hugh
+    Montgomery, a nephew of Douglas, after a fierce hand-to-hand
+    encounter. The two chief English leaders being captured, the day,
+    or rather the night, was with the Scots, in fulfilment of an old
+    prophesy that “a dead Douglas should win a field.”
+  “This deed was done at Otterbourne At the breaking of the day; Earl
+  Douglas was buried at the braken bush, And the Percy led captive
+  away.”
+
+    When the fray was over, the two sides treated their captives with
+    knightly courtesy, many being allowed to go to their homes until
+    they recovered from their wounds, on giving their word of honour to
+    send the amount of their ransom, or themselves return to their
+    captors.
+
+    The Bishop of Durham, immediately after having had some refreshment
+    at Newcastle, had set out to join the Percies; but as he and his
+    men neared Otterburn, they met so many fugitives who gave them
+    anything but reassuring accounts of the fortunes of their friends,
+    that half of his force melted away, and the Bishop had perforce to
+    return to Newcastle; it was scarcely to be expected, indeed, that
+    everyone should have that thirst for hard blows which distinguished
+    the knights and their immediate followers. The Bishop, however,
+    made one capture—Sir James Lindsay, who had ridden so far in
+    pursuit of Sir Matthew Redman that he found himself amongst the
+    force advancing under the leadership of the warlike prelate.
+
+    When the Scots retired from their camp, they took the body of
+    Douglas from the “bracken bush” where it lay, and carried it away
+    for burial in Melrose Abbey; and Hotspur, as the price of his
+    ransom, built a castle for Sir Hugh Montgomery.
+
+    After this there was peace on the Borders for the next ten years or
+    so, when the game began again as merrily as ever. When Sir Thomas
+    Gray was absent from his castle of Wark-on-Tweed, attending
+    Parliament, the Scots came down upon it and carried off his
+    children and servants. Sir Robert Umfraville met and checked
+    another company that were harrying Coquetdale. In the year 1400,
+    Henry Bolingbroke himself led an army to Edinburgh; but a guerilla
+    band of Scots, avoiding his line of march, stole behind him and
+    ravaged Bamburghshire.
+
+    Two years after this, a party of Scots under the next Douglas rode
+    into Northumberland, coming nearly as far south as Newcastle.
+    Hotspur set off from Bamburgh, of which castle he was Constable at
+    the time, to intercept them. He awaited them on the banks of the
+    Glen, near Wooler; and the archers of his force went out for forage
+    meanwhile. When the Scots arrived, they found themselves in the
+    presence of an enemy whom they had imagined to be behind them, and
+    they immediately occupied Homildon Hill. The archers, returning,
+    saw the Scottish force on the hill, and began the attack forthwith,
+    letting fly their arrows upon the foe with deadly precision. Flight
+    after flight fell upon the Scots, who were completely bewildered,
+    and seemed incapable of action. A Scottish knight, Sir John
+    Swinton, implored the leaders to charge, passionately exclaiming,
+    “What madness has seized you, my brave countrymen, that you stand
+    here like deer to be shot down? Follow me, those who will! We will
+    either gain the victory, or die like men of courage.”
+
+    On hearing these brave words, Adam de Gordon, Swinton’s deadly foe,
+    felt his hatred turn to admiration, and kneeling before Swinton,
+    begged that he might receive the honour of knighthood from so
+    valiant a hand. The two gallant knights then charged the enemy,
+    followed by a number of the Scots; but the showers of arrows forced
+    them to retreat towards the river, and thither also moved the whole
+    Scottish force, followed still by that grim and deadly hail from
+    the English bows. Hotspur would now have charged, but the Earl of
+    March, his former antagonist, now his friend, restrained his
+    impetuous leader, and persuaded him to let the archers continue
+    their effective work.
+
+    The event proved his wisdom; the Scots were utterly routed by the
+    archers alone. The unfortunate Archibald Douglas added another to
+    his long list of reverses; he was taken prisoner, sorely wounded,
+    as was also Sir Hugh Montgomery, and over four-score others of
+    importance. It was in connection with these prisoners, whom Hotspur
+    refused to deliver up to Bolingbroke, that the quarrel took place
+    which eventually led Northumberland and his son Hotspur openly to
+    throw off their allegiance to Henry Bolingbroke and join in the
+    rebellion of Owen Glendower. Not only did Hotspur refuse to give up
+    Douglas and the others to King Henry, but he wished Henry to ransom
+    his brother-in-law Mortimer.
+  _K. Henry_. But sirrah, henceforth Let me not hear you speak of
+  Mortimer. Send me your prisoners with the speediest means, Or you
+  shall hear in such a kind from me As will displease you.—My lord
+  Northumberland, We licence your departure with your son.— Send us
+  your prisoners, or you’ll hear of it.
+
+    (_Exeunt_ K. Henry, Blunt, _and train_)
+  _Hotspur_. And if the devil come and roar for them I will not send
+  them:—I will after, straight, And tell him so.
+
+  _Worcester_. These same noble Scots That are your prisoners—
+  _Hotspur_. I’ll keep them all; By heaven, he shall not have a Scot of
+  them; No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not; I’ll keep
+  them, by this hand.
+  _Worcester_. You start away, And lend no ear unto my purposes. Those
+  prisoners you shall keep.—
+  _Hotspur_. Nay, I will, that’s flat:— He said he would not ransom
+  Mortimer; Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer; But I will find him
+  when he lies asleep, And in his ear I’ll holla “Mortimer!” Nay, I’ll
+  have a starling shall be taught to speak Nothing but “Mortimer,” and
+  give it him To keep his anger still in motion.
+  _The First Part of_ KING HENRY IV., _Act I., Scene 3_.
+
+    The fight at Homildon Hill took place on a Monday in August, 1402,
+    and the memory of it is kept alive by the name of the “Monday
+    Clough” near Wooler, where the archers commenced the fight.
+
+    More than a hundred years after this, the last, and in many
+    respects the greatest, battle ever fought on Northumbrian soil took
+    place at Flodden. King James IV. of Scotland had several grievances
+    against England, which had rankled in his mind for some time; he
+    had not yet received the full amount of the dowry which had been
+    promised with his wife, Margaret Tudor, sister of Henry VIII.,
+    although they had been married for many years; a Scottish noble,
+    Sir Robert Ker, had been killed in Northumberland, and the slayer
+    could not be found to be brought to justice—he was outlawed, but
+    that seemed to King James very insufficient; a Border raid on a
+    large scale, led by Lord Hume, had met with disastrous defeat on
+    Milfield Plain at the hands of Sir William Bulmer; and Andrew
+    Barton, a notable sea-captain, whom James was looking forward to
+    seeing as one of the best leaders of his new navy, had been killed
+    in a sea-fight by Thomas Howard, Lord Admiral of England. Added to
+    all this, France had appealed to him to invade England in order to
+    force Henry VIII. to abandon his French war; the English monarch
+    was just then conducting the siege of Terouenne, and the Queen of
+    France sent a romantic appeal to James (together with a large sum
+    of money) begging him to march “three feet on to English ground”
+    for her sake.
+
+    No time could have been more favourable in James’ eyes for the
+    enterprise; and in a very short space of time he had an army of
+    100,000 men collected, and marched from Edinburgh to the Tweed,
+    which he crossed near Coldstream. He laid siege to Norham, and
+    captured it after a week’s investment; and thereafter Wark, Ford,
+    Etal, Duddo and Chillingham fell before him. He took up his
+    quarters at Ford Castle, and on marching later to meet Surrey, left
+    it almost in ruins.
+
+    Surrey meantime had gathered a large force from the northern
+    counties, much to James’ surprise, for he had taken it for granted
+    that nearly every English fighting man would be with Henry in
+    Flanders. There were bowmen and billmen from Cheshire and
+    Lancashire under the Stanley banner; and James Stanley, Bishop of
+    Ely, brought the banner of St. Etheldreda, the Northumbrian queen
+    who founded the monastery of Ely. Admiral Sir Thomas Howard brought
+    a band of sailors to join his father at Alnwick. Dacre came with a
+    strong contingent from the western Marches, men from Alston Moor,
+    Gilsland, and Eskdale, and also some from Tynemouth and Bamburgh;
+    and Sir Brian Tunstall with Sir William Bulmer led the men of the
+    Bishopric under the banner of St. Cuthbert.
+
+    From Alnwick Surrey sent a letter pledging himself to meet James by
+    September 9th, and challenging him to battle, a challenge which was
+    promptly accepted by the Scottish king. Marching from Alnwick
+    towards the Scottish army, Surrey encamped on September 6th on
+    Wooler Haughs. James had formed his camp on Flodden Hill, and all
+    Surrey’s devices could not induce him abandon this strong position.
+    Many of his own nobles advised him not to risk a battle, but to
+    withdraw while there was yet time; and some were ready to leave the
+    camp and return home, which thousands of the more undisciplined in
+    his army had done already, being more anxious to carry off their
+    plunder safely than to stay and fight. But James was eager for the
+    contest, and felt himself bound in honour to give battle to Surrey;
+    he answered haughtily those who counselled retreat, and scornfully
+    told Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, that he might go home if he
+    were afraid. The old man sorrowfully left the field, but his two
+    sons remained with their rash but gallant king, and were both
+    slain.
+
+    On the day before the battle took place, Surrey, that “auld crooked
+    carle,” as James called him, marched his men northward across the
+    Till and encamped for the night near Barmoor Wood. To the Scots
+    this looked as though they had gone off towards Berwick, to repeat
+    James’ own manoeuvre, and invade the country in the absence of its
+    king; and they must have thought that there would be little chance
+    of the battle for which James had punctiliously waited taking place
+    on the morrow. But Surrey’s purpose proved to be quite otherwise.
+    On the following morning he sent the vanguard of his army, with the
+    artillery, to make a detour of several miles round by Twizell
+    bridge, where they re-crossed to the south bank of the Till; and
+    coming south-eastward towards Flodden, they were joined by the rest
+    of the army, which had plunged through the stream, swollen by
+    continuous rains, at two points near Crookham. The two divisions
+    met at Branxton, after having waded through a marsh which extended
+    from Branxton nearly to the Till, and which the Scots had thought
+    impassable.
+
+    Seeing that the English were about to occupy Branxton Hill, which
+    would entirely cut him off from communication with Scotland, James
+    was forced to abandon his advantageous position; he gave orders for
+    the camp-refuse to be fired, and under cover of the dense clouds of
+    smoke marched down to forestall Surrey and occupy Branxton ridge.
+    The two armies suddenly found themselves within a few spears’
+    length of each other, and the battle was begun by the artillery on
+    both sides.
+      Sudden, as he spoke, From the sharp ridges of the hill, All
+      downward to the banks of Till Was wreathed in sable smoke.
+      Volumed, and vast, and rolling far, The cloud enveloped
+      Scotland’s war As down the hill they broke; Nor martial shout,
+      nor minstrel tone Announced their march; their tread alone, At
+      times one warning trumpet blown, At times a stifled hum. Told
+      England, from his mountain throne King James did rushing come.
+      Scarce could they hear or see their foes Until at weapon-point
+      they close.
+
+    Many of the raw levies on the English side fled at the first sound
+    of the Scottish cannon; but the master of the ordnance, Lord
+    Sinclair, was killed, and his guns silenced. Then the battle
+    joined, and the first result was that the English right wing under
+    Sir Edmund Howard was scattered and broken before the impetuous
+    charge of the Gordons and Highlanders under the Earl of Huntley and
+    Lord Home. Sir Edmund narrowly escaped with his life; but Lord
+    Dacre bringing up his reserve of horsemen at that moment checked
+    the further advance of the Scots. The two central divisions of the
+    armies engaged each other fiercely, the Earl of Surrey, with his
+    son Sir Thomas Howard commanding the English centre, and King
+    James, with the Earls of Crawford and Montrose that of the Scots.
+    Sir Thomas, after having been so hard pressed as to send the _Agnus
+    Dei_ he wore to his father as a signal for help, afterwards with
+    Sir Marmaduke Constable defeated the Earl of Crawford, whose
+    division was opposed to him. Dacre and Sir Thomas now charged Lord
+    Home and drove him some little way back, but could not dislodge his
+    men entirely from their position. The Earl of Bothwell, who
+    commanded the Scottish reserves, now came up to the help of the
+    king, and the day seemed about to be decided in favour of the
+    Scots, when Lord Stanley, on the English left, exactly reversed the
+    fortunes of the right wing, and scattered and routed the
+    Highlanders led by the Earls of Lennox and Argyle. Then with his
+    Lancashire lads he attacked the rear of the Scottish position, as
+    did also Dacre and Sir Thomas Howard.
+  “They saw Lord Marmion’s falcon fly, And stainless Tunstall’s banner
+  white And Edmund Howard’s lion bright All bear them bravely in the
+  fight, Although against them come Of gallant Gordons many a one, And
+  many a stubborn Highlandman, And many a rugged Border clan With
+  Huntly and with Home. Far on the left, unseen the while, Stanley
+  broke Lennox and Argyle.”
+
+    Nothing now remained for the Scottish centre, hemmed in on all
+    sides, but to make a stubborn last stand; and gallantly did they do
+    it. The flower of Scotland’s chivalry surrounded their brave
+    monarch, and in the falling dusk fought desperately to guard their
+    king.
+  “No thought was there of dastard flight; Linked in that serried
+  phalanx tight, Groom fought like noble, squire like knight, As
+  fearlessly and well. The stubborn spearmen still made good Their dark
+  impenetrable wood, Each stepping where his comrade stood The instant
+  that he fell.”
+
+    As night fell, the fierce struggle continued until the darkness
+    made it impossible to see friend or foe, but the fate of Scotland’s
+    bravest was sealed. The king lay dead, covered with wounds, and
+    around him a heap of slain; those who were able made their way in
+    haste from the field, while the English host encamped where it
+    stood. The more lawless in each army plundered both sides
+    impartially, and when the king’s body was found next day, it too
+    was stripped like many others around it.
+  “Then did their loss his foemen know, Their king, their lords, their
+  mightiest low, They melted from the field as snow Dissolves in silent
+  dew. Tweed’s echoes heard the ceaseless plash While many a broken
+  band, Disordered, through its currents dash To gain the Scottish
+  land; To town and tower, to down and dale, To tell red Flodden’s
+  dismal tale, And raise the universal wail.”
+
+    The tragic effects of that terrible day were long felt in Scotland.
+    Every family of note in the land lost one or more of its members on
+    the fatal field, besides the thousands of humbler beings who fell
+    at the same time. Scotland did not recover from the crushing blow
+    for more than a hundred years; and for many a day the people could
+    not believe that their gallant king was really slain, but continued
+    to hope that he had escaped in the darkness, and would one day
+    return.
+
+    There has recently been erected on Flodden Field a simple cross of
+    stone as a memorial of that tragic day. It was unveiled on
+    September 27th, 1910, by Sir George Douglas, Bart. The inscription
+    on the stone is “To the Brave of both Nations.”
+  THE FLOWERS OF THE FOREST.
+  A LAMENT FOR FLODDEN.
+  I’ve heard the liltin’ at our ewe-milking, Lasses a’ liltin’ before
+  dawn o’ day; But now they are moaning on ilka green loaning— The
+  Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.
+  At bughts,[12] in the mornin’, nae blythe lads are scornin’, Lasses
+  are lonely and dowie and wae; Nae daffin’, nae jabbin’, but sighin’
+  and sabbin’, Ilk ane lifts her leglin[13] and hies her away.
+  In harst, at the shearing, nae youths now are jeering, Bandsters are
+  lyart,[14] and runkled, and gray; At fair or at preaching, nae
+  wooing, nae fleeching[15] The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.
+  At e’en, in the gloaming, nae younkers are roaming ’Bout stacks, with
+  the lasses at “bogle” to play; But ilk ane sits drearie, lamenting
+  her dearie— The Flowers of the Forest are weded away.
+  Dool and wae for the order sent our lads to the Border! The English
+  for ance by guile wan the day; The Flowers of the Forest, that fought
+  aye the foremost, The prime of our land, are cauld in the clay.
+  We’ll hear nae mair liltin’ at our ewe-milkin’; Women and bairns are
+  heartless and wae; Sighing and moaning on ilka green loaning— The
+  Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.
+
+ [12] Bughts = sheep-pens.
+
+ [13] Leglin = milk-pail.
+
+ [14] Lyart = grizzled.
+
+ [15] Fleeching = coaxing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. TALES AND LEGENDS.
+
+
+    Northumberland, as might be guessed from its wild history, is rich
+    in tales of daring and stories of gallant deeds; there are true
+    tales, as well as legendary ones, which latter, after all, may be
+    true in substance though not in detail, in spirit and possibility
+    though not in a certain sequence of facts. Now-a-days we look upon
+    dragons as fabulous animals, and stories of the destruction they
+    wrought, their fierceness and their might are dismissed with a
+    smile, and mentally relegated to a place amongst the fairy tales
+    that delighted our childhood’s days, when the idea of belief or
+    disbelief simply did not enter the question. Yet what are the
+    dragon stories but faint memories of those gigantic and fearsome
+    beasts which roamed the earth in the “dim, red dawn of man”—their
+    names, as we read the labels on their skeletons in our museums,
+    being now the most fearsome things about them! No one can deny that
+    the ichthyosaurus, plesiosaurus, and all the rest of their tribe
+    did exist; and were they to be encountered in these days would
+    spread the same terror around, and find man almost as helpless
+    before them as did any fierce dragon of the fairy tales. That part
+    of the legends, therefore, has its foundation in fact; though from
+    the nature of the case, we certainly do not possess an
+    authenticated account of any particular contest between primitive
+    man and one of these gigantic creatures. That oldest Northumbrian
+    poem, however, the “Beowulf,” chants the praises of its hero’s
+    prowess in encounters of the kind; and the north-country still has
+    its legends of the Sockburn Worm, the Lambton Worm, and the
+    “Laidly” Worm of Spindleston Heugh, the two first having their
+    _venue_ in Durham, and the last in Northumberland. The
+    Spindlestone, a high crag not far from Bamburgh, and Bamburgh
+    Castle itself, form the scene of this well-known legend. The fair
+    Princess Margaret, daughter of the King of Bamburgh was turned into
+    a “laidly worm” (loathly or loathsome serpent) by her wicked
+    stepmother, who was jealous of the lovely maid. The whole district
+    was in terror of this dreadful monster, which desolated the
+    country-side in its search for food.
+  “For seven miles east and seven miles west And seven miles north and
+  south, No blade of grass or corn would grow, So deadly was her mouth.
+  The milk of seven streakit cows It was her cost to kepe, They brought
+  her dayly, whyche she drank Before she wente to slepe.”
+
+    This offering proved successful in pacifying the creature, and it
+    remained in the cave at Spindleston, coming out daily to drink its
+    fill from the trough prepared for it. But the fear of it in no wise
+    diminished, and
+  “Word went east, and word went west, And word is gone over the sea,
+  That a laidly worm in Spindleston Heugh Would ruin the North
+  Countree.”
+
+    The news in due course comes to the ears of Princess Margaret’s
+    only brother, the Childe Wynde, who is away seeking fame and
+    fortune abroad. In fear for his lovely sister, he calls together
+    his “merry men all,” and they set to work to build a ship
+  “With masts of the rowan-tree,”
+
+    a sure defence against the spells of witchcraft; and hoisting their
+    silken sails they hasten homeward.
+  “... ... The wind with speed Blew them along the deep. The sea was
+  calm, the weather clear, When they approached nigher; King Ida’s
+  castle well they knew, And the banks of Bamburghshire.”
+
+    The wicked queen saw the little bark coming near, and knew that her
+    guilt was about to meet its reward. In haste she tried to wreck the
+    vessel, but the rowan-tree masts made her spells of no avail. Then
+    she bade her servants go to the beach and oppose the landing of the
+    Childe and his crew; but the servants were beaten back, and the
+    young knight and his men landed in Budle Bay. The worm came
+    fiercely to the attack, as the Childe Wynde advanced against it;
+    but on meeting him, and feeling the touch of his “berry-brown
+    sword,” it besought him to do it no harm.
+  “‘O quit thy sword, unbend thy brow, And give me kisses three; For
+  though I be a laidly worm No harm I’ll do to thee.
+  O quit thy sword, unbend thy brow, And give me kisses three; If I’m
+  not won ere the sun goes down Won shall I never be.’
+  He quitted his sword, and smoothed his brow, And gave her kisses
+  three; She crept intill the hole a worm, And came out a fayre ladie.”
+
+    The knight clasped his lovely sister in his arms, and, casting
+    around her his crimson cloak, led her back to her home, where the
+    trembling queen awaited them. Her doom was spoken by the Childe
+    Wynde—
+  “Woe be to thee, thou wicked witch; An ill death mayst thou dee! As
+  thou hast likened my sister dear, So likened shalt thou be”
+
+    and he turned her into the likeness of an ugly toad, in which
+    hateful shape she remained to her dying day, wandering around the
+    castle and the green fields, an object of hatred to all who saw
+    her. The “Spindlestone,” a tall crag on which the young knight hung
+    his bridle, when he went further on to seek the worm in the
+    “heugh,” is still to be seen, but the huge trough from which the
+    worm was said to drink has been destroyed.
+
+    There are two legends somewhat similar to each other which are told
+    of a company held in the spell of a magic sleep, to be awakened by
+    certain devices, in which the blowing of a horn and the drawing of
+    a sword are prominent. One is the story of “Sir Guy the Seeker,”
+    and is told of Dunstanborough Castle. Sir Guy sought refuge in the
+    Castle from a storm; and while within the walls a spectre form with
+    flaming hair addressed him,
+  “Sir knight, Sir knight, if your heart be right, And your nerves be
+  firm and true,”
+
+    (fancy “nerves” in a ballad!)—
+  “Sir knight, Sir knight, a beauty bright In durance waits for you.”
+
+    The ballad, written by M.G. Lewis, now describes in a painfully
+    commonplace manner the knight’s further adventures. He and his
+    guide wandered round and round and high and low in the maze of
+    chambers within the castle, until at last a door of brass, whose
+    bolt was a venomous snake, gave them entrance to a gloomy hall,
+    draped in black, which the “hundred lights” failed to brighten. In
+    the hall a hundred knights of “marble white” lay sleeping by their
+    steeds of “marble black as the raven’s back.” At the end of the
+    hall, guarded by two huge skeleton forms, the imprisoned lady was
+    seen in tears within a crystal tomb. One skeleton held in his bony
+    fingers a horn, the other a “falchion bright,” and the knight was
+    told to choose between them, and the fate of himself and the lady
+    would depend upon his choice. Sir Guy, after long hesitation, blew
+    a shrill blast upon the horn; at the sound the hundred steeds
+    stamped their hoofs, the hundred knights sprang up, and the unlucky
+    knight fell down senseless, with his ghastly guide’s words ringing
+    in his ears—
+  “Shame on the coward who sounded a horn When he might have unsheathed
+  a sword!”
+
+    In the morning, the unfortunate Sir Guy awoke to find himself lying
+    amongst the ruins, and forthwith began his ceaseless and unavailing
+    search for the lady he had failed to rescue.
+
+    The legend similar to this in many respects is that of King Arthur
+    and his court at Sewingshields, to which allusion has already been
+    made in the chapter on the Roman Wall. I cannot do better than give
+    this in the words of Mr. Hodgson, who tells the story in his
+    History of Northumberland. “Immemorial tradition has asserted that
+    King Arthur, his queen Guenever, his court of lords and ladies, and
+    his hounds were enchanted in some cave of the crags, or in a hall
+    below the castle of Sewingshields, and would continue entranced
+    there until someone should first blow a bugle-horn that lay on a
+    table near the entrance of the hall, and then with the ‘sword of
+    the stone’ (was this Excalibur?) cut a garter, also placed there
+    beside it. But none had ever heard where the entrance to this
+    enchanted hall was, till the farmer at Sewingshields, about fifty
+    years since, was sitting knitting on the ruins of the castle, and
+    his clew fell, and ran downwards through a rush of briars and
+    nettles, as he supposed, into a subterraneous passage. Full in the
+    faith that the entrance to King Arthur’s hall had now been
+    discovered, he cleared the briary portal of its weeds and rubbish,
+    and entering a vaulted passage, followed in his darkling way the
+    thread of his clew. The floor was infested with toads and lizards;
+    and the dark wings of bats, disturbed by his unhallowed intrusion,
+    flitted fearfully around him. At length his sinking courage was
+    strengthened by a dim, distant light, which as he advanced grew
+    gradually brighter, till all at once he entered a vast and vaulted
+    hall, in the centre of which a fire without fuel, from a broad
+    crevice in the floor blazed with a high and lambent flame, that
+    showed all the carved walls and fretted roof, and the monarch and
+    his queen and court reposing around, in a theatre of thrones and
+    costly couches. On the floor beyond the fire lay the faithful and
+    deep-toned pack of thirty couple of hounds; and on a table before
+    it the spell-dissolving horn, sword, and garter. The shepherd
+    reverently, but firmly, grasped the sword, and as he drew it
+    leisurely from its rusty scabbard, the eyes of the monarch and his
+    courtiers began to open, and they rose till they sat upright. He
+    cut the garter; and as the sword was being slowly sheathed the
+    spell assumed its ancient power, and they all gradually sank to
+    rest; but not before the monarch had lifted up his eyes and hands,
+    and exclaimed—
+  “O woe betide that evil day On which this witless wight was born, Who
+  drew the sword, the garter cut. But never blew the bugle horn!”
+
+    Terror brought on loss of memory, and the shepherd was unable to
+    give any correct account of his adventure, or to find again the
+    entrance to the enchanted hall.
+
+    Another legend is connected with Tynemouth. Just above the short
+    sands was a cave known as Jingling Geordie’s Hole; the “Geordie” is
+    evidently a late interpolation, for earlier mention of the cave
+    gives it as the Jingling Man’s Hole. No one knows how it came by
+    its name; tradition says that it was the entrance to a subterranean
+    passage leading from the Priory beneath the Tyne to Jarrow. In this
+    cave it was said that a treasure of a fabulous amount was
+    concealed, and the tale of this hoard fired a boy named Walter to
+    seek it out, when he heard the tale from his mother. On his
+    attaining to knighthood, he resolved to make the finding of the
+    treasure his particular “quest,” and arming himself, he adventured
+    forth on the Eve of St. John. Making his way fearlessly down into
+    the cave, undaunted by spectre or dragon, as they attempted to
+    dispute his passage, he arrived at a gloomy gateway, where hung a
+    bugle, fastened by a golden cord. Boldly he placed the bugle to his
+    lips, and blew three loud blasts. To his amazement, at the sound
+    the doors rolled back, displaying a vast and brightly-lit hall,
+    whose roof was supported on pillars of jasper and crystal; the glow
+    from lamps of gold shone softly down on gold and gems, which were
+    heaped upon the floor of this magic chamber, and the treasure
+    became the rich reward of the dauntless youth.
+  “Gold heaped upon gold, and emeralds green, And diamonds and rubies,
+  and sapphires untold, Rewarded the courage of Walter the Bold.”
+
+    The fortunate youth became a very great personage, indeed, as by
+    means of his great riches he was “lord of a hundred castles” and
+    wide domains.
+
+    Of a very different character is the story of the Hermit of
+    Warkworth. It is unfortunate that this, the most tragic and moving
+    of all Northumbrian tales, should be most widely known by means of
+    the prosy imitation ballad by Dr. Percy, whose ability as a poet
+    did by no means equal his zeal as a collector of ballads. The hero
+    of the sorrowful tale is said to have been a Bertram of Bothal, who
+    loved fair Isabel, daughter of the lord of Widdrington. Bertram was
+    a knight in Percy’s train, and at a great feast made by the lord of
+    Alnwick the fair maiden and her father were amongst the guests. As
+    the minstrels chanted the praises of their lord, and sang of the
+    valiant deeds by which his noble house had won renown, the heart of
+    Isabel thrilled at the thought of her true knight rivalling those
+    deeds of fame. Summoning one of her attendant maidens, she sent her
+    to Bertram, bearing a helmet of steel with crest of gold. With the
+    helmet the maiden gave her mistress’ message, that she would yield
+    to her knight’s pleadings and become his bride, as soon as he had
+    proved himself a valiant and worthy wearer of the golden-crested
+    helm. Reverently Bertram accepted the commands of his lady, and
+    vowed to prove his devotion wherever hard blows were to be given
+    and danger to be found. The lord of Alnwick straightway arranged
+    for an expedition on to Scottish land, in requital of old scores,
+    and assembled together a goodly company to ride against the Scots.
+    Earl Douglas and his men opposed them, and blows were dealt thick
+    and fast on both sides. Bertram was sorely wounded, after showing
+    wondrous prowess in the fight; but being rescued by Percy, was
+    borne to the castle of Wark upon the Tweed, to recover from his
+    wounds in safety. Isabel’s aged father had seen the young knight’s
+    valour, and promised that the maiden herself should tend his hurts
+    and care for him until he recovered. Day after day passed, however,
+    and still she came not. At last the knight, scarcely able to take
+    the saddle, rode back to Widdrington, tended by his gallant young
+    brother, to satisfy himself of what had become of his lady. They
+    reached Widdrington tower to find it all in darkness; and after
+    repeated knockings the aged nurse came to the gateway and demanded
+    the name of those who so insistently clamoured at the door. Bertram
+    enquired for the lady Isabel; and then, indeed, all was dismay. The
+    nurse, trembling with fear, told the two youths that her mistress
+    had set out immediately on hearing of her lover’s plight,
+    reproaching herself for having led him to adventure his life so
+    rashly, and it was now six days since she had gone. Weary and weak,
+    Bertram rested the night at the castle, and then set out on his
+    search for his lost lady. That they might the sooner search the
+    country round, he and his brother, who loved him dearly, took
+    different directions, one going eastward, and the other north. They
+    put on various disguises as they went, Bertram appearing now in the
+    guise of a holy Palmer, now as a wandering minstrel As he was
+    sitting, despondent and well-nigh despairing, beneath a hawthorn
+    tree, an aged monk came by, and on seeing the supposed minstrel’s
+    face of sorrow, said to him,
+  “All minstrels yet that e’er I saw Are full of game and glee, But
+  thou art sad and woe-begone; I marvel whence it be.”
+
+    Bertram replied that he served an aged lord whose only child had
+    been stolen away, and that he would know no happiness until he had
+    found her. The pilgrim comforted him and bade him hope, telling him
+    that
+  “Behind yon hills so steep and high, Down in a lonely glen, There
+  stands a castle fair and strong, Far from the abode of men.”
+
+    Saying that he had heard a lady’s voice lamenting in this lonely
+    tower, he passed on, giving Bertram the hope that now at last his
+    quest was ended. He made his way to that strong castle, and with
+    his music prevailed upon the porter to let him stay near at hand in
+    a cavern; for the porter refused to admit him to the castle in the
+    absence of his lord, though at the same time giving him food and
+    directing him to the cave. He piped all day and watched all night,
+    and was rewarded by hearing his lady’s voice lamenting within the
+    walls of her prison. On the second night he caught a glimpse of her
+    beauteous form, fair as the moonbeams that shone around the tower.
+    On the third night, worn with watching, he slept, and only awakened
+    as dawn drew nigh. Grasping his weapon, he stole near to the castle
+    walls, when to his amazement, he saw his lady descend from her
+    window by a ladder of rope, held for her by a youth in Highland
+    dress. Stunned at the sight, he could not move to follow them, till
+    they had left behind them the castle where the lady had been held
+    captive, and were about to disappear over the hill. Silently and
+    swiftly then he drew near, and crying furiously, “Vile traitor!
+    yield that lady up!” fell upon the youth who accompanied her, who
+    in his turn fought as furiously as he. In a few moments Bertram’s
+    antagonist lay stretched on the ground; and as he gave him the
+    fatal thrust he cried, “Die, traitor, die!” The lady recognised his
+    voice, and rushing forward, shrieked, “Stay! stay! it is thy
+    brother.” But the sword of Bertram, already descending with the
+    force of rage and fury in the blow, could not be stayed until too
+    late. The fair maid’s breast was pierced by the sword of the knight
+    who loved her, and she sank down by the side of the youth who had
+    delivered her. It was indeed Bertram’s brother, who had succeeded
+    in his search; and the dying maiden found time to tell of his
+    devotion, in rescuing her from this castle of the son of a Scottish
+    lord who fain would have made her his bride, before she, too, lay
+    lifeless by the side of her brave rescuer, leaving her lover too
+    despairing and desolate to seek safety in flight, so that the band
+    of searchers from the castle, seeking their prisoner on the hills,
+    and dreading their lord’s wrath on his return, bore him back with
+    them to the dungeon. Their lord, however, had meantime been taken
+    captive by Percy (Hotspur), who, as soon as he heard of Bertram’s
+    capture, quickly exchanged the Scottish chief for his friend.
+    Bertram’s sorrow lasted for the rest of his days; he gave away his
+    lands and possessions to the poor, and retiring to a lovely spot on
+    the banks of the Coquet, where rocky cliffs overhung the river, he
+    carved out in the living stone a little cell, dormitory, and
+    chapel, and dwelt there, passing his days in mourning, meditation,
+    and prayer. In the chapel, with its gracefully arched roof, he
+    fashioned on an altar-tomb the image of a lady, and at her feet the
+    figure of a hermit, in the attitude of grief, one hand supporting
+    his head and the other pressed against his breast, leaning over and
+    gazing at the lady for ever. The poignant sentence “My tears have
+    been my meat day and night,” is carved over the entrance to the
+    little chapel. Here, in this beautiful spot, almost under the
+    shadow of the castle walls belonging to his noble friend, the
+    sorrowing knight, now a holy hermit, spent the remainder of his
+    life in the little dwelling he had wrought in the living rock. It
+    remains to-day more beautiful, if possible, than ever, overhung by
+    a canopy of waving greenery, and draped with ferns and mosses,
+    their graceful fronds laved by the rippling Coquet whose gentle
+    murmurings fill the still air with music.
+
+    The next tale takes us to the neighbourhood of Belford, and out
+    upon the old post road from London to Edinburgh. In the unsettled
+    times of James the Second’s reign, one Sir John Cochrane of
+    Ochiltree was condemned to death for his part in the rising which
+    was led by the Duke of Argyle. Powerful friends, heavily bribed by
+    Sir John’s father, the Earl of Dundonald, were working in Sir
+    John’s favour, and they had strong hopes of obtaining a pardon. But
+    meanwhile, Sir John lay in the Tolbooth at Edinburgh, and the
+    warrant for his execution was already on its way northward, in the
+    post-bag carried forward by horseman after horseman throughout the
+    length of the way. Could the arrival of the warrant only be delayed
+    by some means, his life might be saved. In this strait, his
+    daughter Grizzel, a girl of eighteen, conceived the desperate idea
+    of preventing the warrant’s reaching its destination. Saying
+    nothing to anyone of her intentions, she stole away from home, and
+    rode swiftly to the Border. Following the road for about four miles
+    on the English side, she arrived at the house of her old nurse; and
+    here she changed her clothes, persuading the old dame to lend her a
+    suit belonging to her foster-brother. Making her way southward, she
+    went to the inn at Belford where the riders carrying the mail
+    usually put up for the night. Here, the same night, came the
+    postman, and the seeming youth watched nervously, but determinedly,
+    for an opportunity of finding out whether the fateful paper was in
+    his bag or not. No slightest chance presented itself, however, and
+    an attempt to obtain the mail-bag during the night failed by reason
+    of the fact that the man slept upon it. One thing she did
+    accomplish, which gave her hope that the encounter for which she
+    was nerving herself might end successfully for her; she managed,
+    unseen, to draw the charges from his pistols. Then the courageous
+    girl rode off through the dark night to select a favourable spot in
+    which to await his coming. For two or three lonely hours she
+    waited, the thought that she was fighting for her father’s life
+    giving her courage. In the dim light of the early dawn she heard
+    the sound of his horse’s hoofs from where she stood in the shadow
+    of a clump of trees; and steeling herself for the part she was to
+    play, and in ignorance of whether he might have found out that the
+    charges had been withdrawn from his pistols and might have
+    re-loaded them, she waited until he was almost abreast of her, and
+    fired at his horse, bringing it down. Before he could extricate
+    himself she was upon him with drawn sword; but promising to spare
+    his life if he would let her have the mail-bag, she seized it and
+    darted away. He attempted to follow to recover his charge, but she
+    reached her horse, and rode off like the wind. When she reached a
+    place of safety and examined the contents of the bag, what was her
+    joy to find that the warrant was there. It was speedily destroyed;
+    and during the time that elapsed before the news of the loss could
+    be sent to London and another one made out, the friends of Sir John
+    succeeded in obtaining his pardon. “Cochrane’s bonny Grizzy” lived
+    to a good old age; and “Grizzy’s clump” on the north road near the
+    little village of Buckton keeps green the memory of her daring
+    exploit.
+
+    “Bonny Grizzy” was a Scottish maid, though her gallant if lawless
+    deed was performed on Northumbrian soil; but there is one
+    Northumbrian maiden whose fame will live as long as the sea-waves
+    beat on the wild north-east coast, and as long as men’s hearts
+    thrill to a tale of courage and high resolve. Grace Darling’s name
+    still awakens in every bosom a response to all that is
+    compassionate, courageous, and unselfish; and the thoughts of all
+    north-country folk bold that admiration for the gentle girl which
+    has been voiced as no other could voice it, in the magical words of
+    Swinburne—
+  “Take, O star of all our seas, from not an alien hand, Homage paid of
+  song bowed down before thy glory’s face, Thou the living light of all
+  our lovely stormy strand, Thou the brave north-country’s very glory
+  of glories, Grace.”
+
+    The story of her gallantry has been many times re-told, but never
+    grows wearisome. The memory of that stormy voyage of the
+    _Forfarshire_, which ended in disaster on the Harcar rocks in the
+    Farne group, remains in men’s minds as the dark and tragic setting
+    which throws into bright relief the gallant action of the father
+    and daughter who dared almost certain death to rescue their
+    fellow-creatures in peril. It was in September, 1838, that the
+    ill-fated vessel left Hull for Dundee; but a leak in the boilers
+    caused the fires to be nearly extinguished in the storm the vessel
+    encountered. It reached St. Abb’s Head by the aid of the sails, but
+    then drifted southward, driven by the storm, and struck in the
+    early morning, in a dense fog, on the Harcar rocks. Nine of the
+    people on board managed to escape in a small boat, which was driven
+    in a miraculous manner through the only safe outlet between the
+    rocks. They were picked up by a passing boat and taken to Shields.
+    Meanwhile a heavy sea had crashed down upon the _Forfarshire_, and
+    broken it in half, one portion, with the greater number of crew and
+    passengers, being swept away immediately. The remaining portion,
+    the fore part of the vessel, was firmly fixed upon the rock. Here
+    the shivering survivors clung all that stormy day, the waves
+    dashing over them continually. The captain and his wife were washed
+    overboard, clasped in each others’ arms; and two little children, a
+    boy of eight and a girl of eleven years of age, died from exposure
+    and the relentless buffeting of the waves, their distracted mother
+    clasping them by the hand long after life was extinct. To a
+    terrible day succeeded a yet more terrible night.
+  “Scarce the cliffs of the islets, scarce the walls of Joyous Gard
+  Flash to sight between the deadlier lightnings of the sea; Storm is
+  lord and master of a midnight evil-starred, Nor may sight nor fear
+  discern what evil stars may be.”
+
+    Until the morning they endured; and in the stormy dawn the keeper
+    of the Longstone lighthouse, William Darling, and his daughter
+    Grace saw them huddled in a shivering heap upon the wave-swept
+    fragments of the wreck. The girl begged her father to try to save
+    them, and to allow her to help in the task, and after some natural
+    hesitation he consented. The brave-hearted mother helped them to
+    launch the boat, and they set forth.
+
+[Illustration: The Wreck of the “Forfarshire”]
+
+  “Sire and daughter, hand on oar and face against the night. Maid and
+  man whose names are beacons ever to the north. ...... all the madness
+  of the stormy surf Hounds and roars them back, but roars and hounds
+  them back in   vain.
+  Not our mother, not Northumberland, brought ever forth. Though no
+  southern shore may match the sons that kiss her mouth, Children
+  worthier all the birthright given of the ardent north, Where the fire
+  of hearts outburns the suns that fire the south.”
+  They reached the rock, where nine persons were still clinging to the
+  wreck, and
+  “Life by life the man redeems them, head by storm-worn head, While
+  the girl’s hand stays the boat whereof the waves are fain.”
+
+    With five of the exhausted survivors the boat returned to the
+    Longstone; and two of the men went back with William Darling for
+    the other four. All were safely housed in the lighthouse and tended
+    by the noble family of the Darlings; but the storm raged for
+    several days longer, and made it impossible for them to be put
+    ashore. When at length they returned to their homes, and the story
+    of the rescue was made known, the whole country was moved by it;
+    and presents of all kinds, money, and offers of marriage poured in
+    upon Grace, who remained quite unmoved by it all, and was still the
+    gentle unassuming girl that she had always been. She refused to
+    leave her home, though she was offered twenty pounds a night at the
+    Adelphi if she would consent merely to sit in a boat for London
+    audiences to gaze upon her. Sad to say, she died of consumption
+    about two years afterwards, after having tried in vain to arrest
+    the course of her sickness by change of air at Wooler and Alnwick;
+    and she sleeps in Bamburgh churchyard, within sound of the sea by
+    which she had spent her short life.
+  “East and west and south acclaim her queen of England’s maids. Star
+  more sweet than all their stars, and flower than all their flowers.”
+
+    The actual boat in which the gallant deed was performed was long
+    preserved at Newton Hall, Stocksfield; but the owners have lately
+    presented it to the Marine Laboratory at Cullercoats.
+
+[Illustration: Drawing of boat]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. BALLADS AND POEMS.
+
+
+    The ballads of Northumberland, as all true ballads should do,
+    partake of the characteristics of the district which is their home.
+    As we should expect, they treat chiefly of warlike themes, of the
+    chieftain’s doughty deeds, the moss-trooper’s daring and skill, of
+    the knight’s courtesies and gallant feats of arms, and the feuds of
+    rival clans; in fact, they portray for us vividly the time of which
+    they treat, and in a few graphic touches bring before us the very
+    spirit of the period. In direct and simple phrases the narrative
+    proceeds, giving with rare power just the necessary expression to
+    the tale.
+
+    These ballads fall naturally into three main divisions. The
+    historical ballad is at its best in the famous “Chevy-Chase,” which
+    has been the delight of gentle and simple for centuries; and the
+    oft-quoted declaration of Sir Philip Sidney concerning it still
+    finds an echo in our own day.
+
+    Of the two best known versions of the ballad, the one here given is
+    the more poetical by far; the other, however, contains the account
+    of the courage of Hugh Widdrington which has made the gallant
+    squire immortal.
+
+    The latter version is as evidently English as the former is
+    Scottish; or rather, each has grown to its present form as the
+    reciters exercised their art to please an English or a Scottish
+    audience. In the one version it is Douglas who takes the offensive,
+    and challenges Percy, waiting for him at Otterbourne; in the other
+    we are told that
+  “The stout Erle of Northumberland A vow to God did make, His pleasure
+  in the Scottish woods Three summer days to take.”
+
+    On the death of Douglas—
+  “Erle Percy took The dead man by the hand, And said, ‘Erle Douglas,
+  for thy life Would I had lost my land!’”
+
+    When the battle is over,
+  “Next day did many widdowes come Their husbands to bewayle; Their
+  bodyes bathed in purple blood They bore with them away; They kist
+  them dead a thousand times Ere they were cladd in clay.”
+
+    It was neither of these versions, however, that so moved the heart
+    of gallant Sidney, but a much older one, beginning
+  “The Perse owt off Northomberlande And a vow to God made he, That he
+  wold hunt in the mountayns Off Chyviat within days iii.”
+
+    Other historical ballads are “The Rising of the North,” “The Raid
+    of the Reidswire,” “Flodden Field,” “Homildon Hils” and “Hedgeley
+    Moor.”
+
+    The next division may be termed semi-historical; that is, they
+    treat of events which actually happened, but which have chiefly a
+    local interest; and these may therefore be said to be more truly
+    Northumbrian than any others. Such are “Jock o’ the Side,” “Johnnie
+    Armstrong,” “Hobbie Noble” and “The Death of Parcy Reed.”
+
+    Of the third class, the romantic ballads, we have not so rich a
+    store; yet “The Gay Goss-hawk,” the “Nut-browne Mayde” and the
+    touchingly beautiful “Barthram’s Dirge” may stand amongst the best
+    of their kind.
+
+    “The Gay Gross-hawk” is one of those delightful and imaginative
+    productions of which there are so many examples, in which birds and
+    hounds share their lords’ and ladies’ secrets, and serve them
+    staunchly in hours of peril; they belong to the times when fairies
+    were still seen holding their moonlight revels, when witches
+    exercised their baleful arts, and fearsome dragons wore still to be
+    met and conquered—“and if you do not believe it,” said Dr. Spence
+    Watson, “I am sorry for you!”
+
+    The “Nut-browne Mayde” is supposed to have been a Lady Margaret
+    Percy, who lived in the reign of Henry VIII.; and the lover to whom
+    she was so faithful, notwithstanding his trial of her love by
+    declaring that he was an outlaw, and “must to the greenwood go,
+    alone, a banished man,” was Henry Clifford, son of the Earl of
+    Westmoreland. The inordinate length of this ballad forbade its
+    inclusion in the present selection; I am sensible that that
+    selection may appear somewhat meagre, but only want of space has
+    prevented the inclusion of others that many of my readers would
+    doubtless have been glad to see.
+
+    Of songs in dialect, Joe Wilson’s “Aw wish yor Muthor wad cum!”
+    stands easily first; and the other, “Sair feyl’d, hinny!” is given
+    as an example of the Northumbrian muse in another mood.
+
+    In conclusion, let me say that of the modern verse every example is
+    from the pen of a Northumbrian.
+  CHEVY CHASE I.
+  It fell about the Lammas tide, When muir-men win their hay, The
+  doughty Douglas bound him to ride Into England to drive a prey.
+  He chose the Gordons and the Graemes, With them the Lindsays, light
+  and gay; But the Jardines would not with them ride, And they rue it
+  to this day.
+  And he has burned the dales o’ Tyne, And part o’ Bamburghshire; And
+  three good towers on Reidswire fells He left them all on fire.
+  And he marched up to New Castel, And rode it round about; “O wha’s
+  the lord of this castel? Or wha’s the lady o’t?”
+  And up spake proud Lord Percy then, And O! but he spake hie! “O I’m
+  the lord of this castel, My wife’s the lady gay.”
+  “If thou art the lord of this castel, Sae weel it pleases me! For ere
+  I cross the Border fells, The tane of us sall die.”
+  He took a lang spere in his hand Shod wi’ the metal free, And for to
+  meet the Douglas there He rode right furiouslie!
+  But oh! how pale his lady looked Frae off the castle wa’, When down
+  before the Scottish speare She saw proud Percy fa’!
+  “Had we twa been upon the green, And never an eye to see, I wad hae
+  had you, flesh and fell, But your sword shall gae wi’ me.”
+  “But gae ye up to Otterbourne And wait there dayis three, And if I
+  come not ere three dayis end, A fause knight ca’ ye me.”
+  “The Otterbourne’s a bonnie burn, ’Tis pleasant there to be; But
+  there is naught at Otterbourne To feed my men and me.
+  “The deer rins wild on hill and dale, The birds fly wild frae tree to
+  tree, But there is neither bread nor kale To feed my men and me.
+  “Yet I will stay at Otterbourne Where you sall welcome be; And if ye
+  come not at three dayis end A fause lord I’ll call thee.”
+  “Thither will I come,” proud Percy said, “By the might of Our Ladye!”
+  “Thither will I bide thee,” said the Douglas, “My troth I plight to
+  thee.”
+  They lighted high on Otterbourne, Upon the bent sae brown; They
+  lighted high on Otterbourne And threw their pallions down.
+  And he that had a bonnie boy, Sent out his horse to grass; And he
+  that had not a bonnie boy, His ain servant he was.
+  And up then spake a little foot-page, Before the peep o’ dawn— “O
+  waken, waken ye, my good lord, The Percy is hard at hand!”
+  “Ye lee, ye lee, ye leear loud! Sae loud I hear ye lee! For Percy had
+  not men yestreen To dight my men and me!”
+  “But I hae dreamed a dreary dream, Beyond the Isle of Skye; I saw a
+  dead man win a fight, An’ I think that man was I.”
+  He belted on his gude braid-sword, And to the field he ran; But he
+  forgot his helmet good, That should have kept his brain.
+  When Percy wi’ the Douglas met I wat he was fu’ fain! They swakked
+  their swords till sair they swat, The blude ran down like rain.
+  But Percy, with his gude braid-sword, That could sae sharply wound,
+  Has stricken Douglas on the brow, Till he fell to the ground.
+  Then he called on his little foot-page And said, “Run speedilie, And
+  fetch my ain dear sister’s son, Sir Hugh Montgomerie.”
+  “My nephew good,” the Douglas said, “What recks the death of ane?
+  Last night I dreamed a dreary dream, And I ken the day’s thy ain.
+  “My wound is deep, I fain wad sleep; Take thou the vanguard of the
+  three, And hide me by the bracken bush That grows on yonder lilye
+  lea.
+  “O bury me by the bracken bush, Beneath the bloomin’ brier; Let never
+  a living mortal ken That ever a kindly Scot lies here.”
+  He lifted up that noble lord, Wi’ the saut tear in his e’e; He hid
+  him in the bracken bush That his merrie men might not see.
+  The moon was clear, the day drew near, The speres in flinders flew,
+  And mony a gallant Englishman Ere day the Scotsmen slew.
+  The Gordons gude, in English blude They steeped their hose and shoon;
+  The Lindsays flew like fire about Till a’ the fray was dune.
+  The Percy and Montgomerie met, And either of other was fain; They
+  swakkèd swords, and sair they swat, And the blude ran doun like rain.
+  “Now yield thee, yield thee, Percy!” he cried; “Or else will I lay
+  thee low.” “To whom sall I yield?” quoth Erle Percy, “Sin I see it
+  maun be so.”
+  “Thou shalt not yield to lord or loon, Nor yet shalt thou yield to
+  me, But thou shalt yield to the bracken bush That grows on yon lilye
+  lea.”
+  “I will not yield to a bracken bush; Nor yet will I yield to a brier;
+  But I would yield to Erle Douglas, Or Hugh Montgomerie if he were
+  here.”
+  As soon as he knew it was Montgomerie He stuck his sword’s-point in
+  the gronde; The Montgomerie was a courteous knight, And quickly took
+  him by the honde.
+  This deed was done at the Otterbourne, About the breaking of the day;
+  Erle Douglas was buried at the bracken bush. And the Percy led
+  captive away.
+  JOCK O’ THE SIDE.
+  Now Liddesdale has ridden a raid, But I wat they had better hae staid
+  at hame; For Michael o’ Winfield he is dead, And Jock o’ the Side is
+  prisoner ta’en.
+  For Mangerton house Lady Downie has gane, Her coats she has kilted up
+  to her knee; And down the water wi’ speed she rins, While tears in
+  spates fa’ fast frae her e’e.
+  Then up and spoke our guid auld laird— “What news, what news, sister
+  Downie, to me?” “Bad news, bad news, for Michael is killed, And they
+  hae taken my son Johnnie.”
+  “Ne’er fear, sister Downie,” quo’ Mangerton, “I have yokes of owsen,
+  twenty and three, My barns, my byres, and my faulds a’ weel filled,
+  I’ll part wi’ them a’ ere Johnnie shall dee.
+  “Three men I’ll send to set him free, A’ harnessed wi’ the best o’
+  steel; The English loons may hear, and drie The weight o’ their
+  braid-swords to feel.
+  “The Laird’s Jock ane, the Laird’s Wat twa, O Hobbie Noble, thou ane
+  maun be! Thy coat is blue, thou has been true Since England banished
+  thee to me.”
+  Now Hobbie was an English man, In Bewcastle dale was bred and born;
+  But his misdeeds they were so great, They banished him ne’er to
+  return.
+  Laird Mangerton them orders gave, “Your horses the wrang way maun be
+  shod; Like gentlemen ye maunna seem, But look like corn-cadgers ga’en
+  the road.
+  “Your armour gude ye maunna show, Nor yet appear like men of weir; As
+  country lads be a’ array’d, Wi’ branks and brecham on each mare.”
+  Sae their horses are the wrang way shod, And Hobbie has mounted his
+  gray sae fine; Jock his lively bay, Wat’s on his white horse behind.
+  And on they rode for the water of Tyne.
+  At the Cholerford they a’ light doun, And there wi’ the help o’ the
+  light o’ the moon, A tree they cut, wi’ fifteen nogs on each side, To
+  climb up the wa’ of Newcastle toun,
+  But when they cam’ to Newcastle toun, And were alighted at the wa’
+  They fand their tree three ells ower laigh, They fand their stick
+  baith short and sma’.
+  Then up and spak the Laird’s ain Jock, “There’s naething for’t; the
+  gates we maun force.” But when they cam’ the gate untill, A proud
+  porter withstood baith men and horse.
+  His neck in twa the Armstrangs wrung; With fute or hand he ne’er
+  played pa! His life and his keys at once they hae ta’en, And cast the
+  body ahint the wa’.
+  Now sune they reach Newcastle jail, And to the prisoner thus they
+  call: “Sleeps thou, or wakes thou, Jock o’ the Side, Or art thou
+  weary of thy thrall?”
+  Jock answered thus, wi’ doleful tone, “Aft, aft I wake—I seldom
+  sleep; But wha’s this kens my name sae weel, And thus to ease my wae
+  does seek.”
+  Then out and spake the gude Laird’s Jock, “Now fear ye na’, my
+  billie,” quo’ he; “For here are the Laird’s Jock, the Laird’s Wat,
+  And Hobbie Noble, come to set thee free.”
+  “Now haud thy tongue, my gude Laird’s Jock, For ever, alas! this
+  canna be; For if a’ Liddesdale were here the night, The morn’s the
+  day that I maun dee.”
+  “Full fifteen stane o’ Spanish iron They hae laid a’ right sair or
+  me; Wi’ locks and keys I am fast bound Into this dungeon dark and
+  dreirie!”
+  “Fear ye nae that,” quo’ the Laird’s Jock; “A faint heart ne’er won a
+  fair ladie; Work thou within, we’ll work without, And I’ll be sworn
+  we’ll set thee free.”
+  The first strong door that they cam’ at, They loosed it without a
+  key; The next chain’d door that they cam’ at They gar’d it a’ to
+  flinders flee.
+  The prisoner now upon his back The Laird’s Jock has gotten up fu’
+  hie; And down the stair, him, irons and a’, Wi’ nae sma’ speid and
+  joy brings he.
+  “Now Jock, my man,” quo Hobbie Noble, “Some o’ his weight ye may lay
+  on me.” “I wat weel no,” quo’ the Laird’s ain Jock; “I count him
+  lighter than a flee.”
+  Sae out at the gates they a’ are gane, The prisoner’s set on
+  horseback hie; And now wi’ speed they’re ta’en the gate, While ilk
+  ane jokes fu’ wantonlie.
+  “O Jock! sae winsomely ’s ye ride, Wi’ baith your feet upon ae side;
+  Sae weel ye’re harnessed, and sae trig, In troth ye sit like ony
+  bride!”
+  The night, tho’ wat, they didna mind, But hied them on fu’ merrilie
+  Until they cam’ to Cholerford brae, Where the water ran baith deep
+  and hie.
+  But when they came to Cholerford, There they met with an auld man,
+  Says, “Honest man, will the water ride? Tell us in haste, if that ye
+  can.”
+  “I wat weel no,” quo’ the gude auld man; “I hae lived here thirty
+  years and three, And I ne’er yet saw the Tyne sae big, Nor running
+  anes sae like a sea.”
+  Then out and spake the Laird’s Saft Wat, The greatest coward in the
+  companie; “Now halt, now halt, we needna try’t, The day is come we a’
+  maun dee.”
+  “Puir faint-hearted thief!” cried the Laird’s ain Jock, “There’ll nae
+  man die but him that’s fey; I’ll guide ye a’ right safely thro’, Lift
+  ye the prisoner on ahint me.”
+  Wi’ that the water they hae ta’en; By anes and twas they a’ swam
+  thro’; “Here we are a’ safe,” quo’ the Laird’s Jock, “And puir faint
+  Wat, what think ye now?”
+  They scarce the other brae had won When twenty men they saw pursue;
+  Frae Newcastle toun they had been sent, A’ English lads baith stout
+  and true.
+  But when the land-serjeant the water saw, “It winna ride, my lads,”
+  says he; Then cried aloud—“The prisoner take, But leave the fetters,
+  I pray, to me.”
+  “I wat weel no,” quo’ the Laird’s Jock; “I’ll keep them a’; shoon to
+  my mare they’ll be. My gude bay mare—for I am sure She has bought
+  them a’ right dear frae thee.”
+  Sae now they are on to Liddesdale, E’en as fast as they could them
+  hie; The prisoner is brought to his ain fireside, And there o’ his
+  airns they mak’ him free.
+  “Now, Jock, ma billie,” quo’ a’ the three, “The day is com’d thou was
+  to dee. But thou’s as weel at thy ain ingle-side, Now sitting, I
+  think ’twixt thou and me.”
+  BARTHRAM’S DIRGE.
+  They shot him dead at the Nine-stane Rig, Beside the Headless Cross,
+  And they left him lying in his blood, Upon the moor and moss.
+  They made a bier of the broken bough The sauch and the aspin grey,
+  And they bore him to the Lady Chapel, And waked him there all day.
+  A lady came to that lonely bower, And threw her robes aside; She tore
+  her ling lang yellow hair, And knelt at Barthram’s side.
+  She bathed him in the Lady-Well, His wounds sae deep and sair; And
+  she plaited a garland for his breast, And a garland for his hair.
+  They rowed him in a lily sheet And bare him to his earth; And the
+  Grey Friars sung the dead man’s mass As they passed the Chapel garth.
+  They buried him at the mirk midnight, When the dew fell cold and
+  still, When the aspin grey forgot to play, And the mist clung to the
+  hill.
+  They dug his grave but a bare foot deep, By the edge of the
+  Nine-stane Burn, And they covered him o’er with the heather-flower,
+  The moss and the lady-fern.
+  A Grey Friar staid upon the grave, And sang till the morning tide;
+  And a friar shall sing for Barthram’s soul While the Headless Cross
+  shall bide.
+  THE FAIR FLOWER OF NORTHUMBERLAND
+  It was a knight in Scotland born, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) Was taken pris’ner and left forlorn, Even by the good Earl of
+  Northumberland.
+  Then was he cast in prison strong, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) Where he could not walk nor lie along, Even by the good Earl
+  of Northumberland.
+  And as in sorrow thus he lay, (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  The Earl’s sweet daughter passed that way, And she the fair flower of
+  Northumberland.
+  And passing by, like an angel bright, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) The prisoner had of her a sight, And she the fair flower of
+  Northumberland.
+  And aloud to her this knight did cry, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) The salt tears standing in her eye, And she the fair flower
+  of Northumberland.
+  “Fair lady,” he said, “take pity on me, (Follow, my love, come over
+  the strand) And let me not in prison dee, And you the fair flower of
+  Northumberland.”
+  “Fair sir, how should I take pity on thee, (Follow, my love, come
+  over the strand) Thou being a foe to our countrie, And I the fair
+  flower of Northumberland?”
+  “Fair lady, I am no foe,” he said, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) “Through thy sweet love here was I stayed, And thou the fair
+  flower of Northumberland.”
+  “Why shouldst thou come here for love of me, (Follow, my love, come
+  over the strand) Having wife and bairns in thy own countrie, And I
+  the fair flower of Northumberland?”
+  “I swear by the Blessed Trinity, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) That neither wife nor bairns have I, And thou the fair flower
+  of Northumberland.”
+  “If courteously thou wilt set me free, (Follow, my love, come over
+  the strand) I vow that I will marry thee, And thou the fair flower of
+  Northumberland.
+  “Thou shalt be lady of castles and towers, (Follow, my love, come
+  over the strand) And sit like a queen in princely bowers, Even thou
+  the fair flower of Northumberland.”
+  Then parted hence this lady gay, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) And got her father’s ring away, And she the fair flower of
+  Northumberland.
+  Likewise much gold got she by sleight, (Follow, my love, come over
+  the strand) And all to help this forlorn knight, And she the fair
+  flower of Northumberland.
+  Two gallant steeds both good and able, (Follow, my love, come over
+  the strand), She likewise took out of the stable, And she the fair
+  flower of Northumberland.
+  And to the goaler she sent the ring, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) Who the knight from prison forth did bring, To meet the fair
+  flower of Northumberland.
+  This token set the prisoner free, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) Who straight went to this fair ladye, And she the fair flower
+  of Northumberland.
+  A gallant steed he did bestride, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) And with the lady away did ride, And she the fair flower of
+  Northumberland.
+  They rode till they came to a water clear, (Follow, my love, come
+  over the strand) “Good sir, how shall I follow you here, And I the
+  fair flower of Northumberland?
+  “The water is rough and wonderful deep, (Follow, my love, come over
+  the strand) And on my saddle I shall not keep, And I the fair flower
+  of Northumberland?
+  “Fear not the ford, fair lady,” quoth he, (Follow, my love, come over
+  the strand) “For long I cannot stay for thee, Even thou the fair
+  flower of Northumberland.”
+  The lady prickt her gallant steed, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) And over the water swam with speed, Even she the fair flower
+  of Northumberland.
+  From top to toe all wet was she, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) “This have I done for love of thee, Even I the fair flower of
+  Northumberland.”
+  Thus rode she all one winter’s night. (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) Till Edenborough they saw in sight, The fairest town in all
+  Scotland.
+  “Now I have a wife and children five, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) In Edenborough they be alive, And thou the fair flower of
+  Northumberland.
+  “And if thou wilt not give thy hand, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) Then get thee home to fair England, And thou the fair flower
+  of Northumberland
+  “This favour thou shalt have, to boot, (Follow, my love, come over
+  the strand) I’ll have thy horse; go thou on foot, Even thou the fair
+  flower of Northumberland.”
+  “O false and faithless knight,” quoth she; (Follow, my love, come
+  over the strand) “And canst thou deal so bad with me, Even I the fair
+  flower of Northumberland?”
+  He took her from her stately steed, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) And left her there in extreme need, And she the fair flower
+  of Northumberland.
+  Then she sat down full heavily, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) At length two knights came riding by, And she the fair flower
+  of Northumberland.
+  Two gallant knights of fair England, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) And there they found her on the strand, Even she the fair
+  flower of Northumberland.
+  She fell down humbly on her knee, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) Crying, “Courteous knights, take pity on me, Even I the fair
+  flower of Northumberland.
+  “I have offended my father dear, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) For a false knight that brought me here, Even I the fair
+  flower of Northumberland.”
+  They took her up beside them then, (Follow, my love, come over the
+  strand) And brought her to her father again, And she the fair flower
+  of Northumberland.
+  Now all you fair maids, be warned by me, (Follow, my love, come over
+  the strand) Scots never were true, nor ever will be, To lord, nor
+  lady, nor fair England.
+  WHITTINGHAM FAIR.
+  Are you going to Whittingham Fair (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and
+  thyme), Remember me to one that lives there, For once she was a true
+  lover of mine.
+  Tell her to make me a cambric shirt, (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and
+  thyme), Without any seam or needlework, Then she shall be a true
+  lover of mine.
+  Tell her to wash it in yonder well, (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and
+  thyme), Where never spring water or rain ever fell, And she shall be
+  a true lover of mine.
+  Tell her to dry it on yonder thorn, (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and
+  thyme), Which never bore blossom since Adam was born. Then she shall
+  be a true lover of mine.
+  Now he has asked me questions three, (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and
+  thyme), I hope he’ll answer as many for me, Before he shall be a true
+  lover of mine.
+  Tell him to buy me an acre of land, (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and
+  thyme), Betwixt the salt water and the sea sand, Then he shall be a
+  true lover of mine.
+  Tell him to plough it with a ram’s horn. (Parsley, sage, rosemary,
+  and thyme), And sow it all over with one pepper corn. And he shall be
+  a true lover of mine.
+  Tell him to shear’t with a sickle of leather, (Parsley, sage,
+  rosemary, and thyme), And bind it up with a peacock feather, And he
+  shall be a true lover of mine.
+  Tell him to thrash it on yonder wall, (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and
+  thyme), And never let one corn of it fall, Then he shall be a true
+  lover of mine.
+  When he has done and finished his work, (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and
+  thyme), O tell him to come and he’ll have his shirt, And he shall be
+  a true lover of mine.
+  O THE OAK AND THE ASH.
+  A North country mayde up to London had strayed, Although with her
+  nature it did not agree. Which made her repent, and often lament,
+  Still wishing again in the North for to be. “O the Oak and the Ash
+  and the bonny Ivy tree, They are all growing green in my North
+  Countrie!”
+  “O fain wad I be in the North Countrie Where the lads and the lasses
+  are all making hay; O there wad I see what is pleasant to me,— A
+  mischief ’light on them enticed me away! O the Oak and the Ash and
+  the bonny Ivy tree, They are all growing green in my North Countrie!”
+  “Then farewell my father, and farewell my mother, Until I do see you
+  I nothing but mourn; Remembering my brothers, my sisters, and others—
+  In less than a year I hope to return. O the Oak and the Ash and the
+  bonny Ivy tree. They are all growing green in my North Countrie!”
+  SAIR FEYL’D, HINNY!
+     “Sair feyl’d, hinny! Sair feyl’d now, Sair feyl’d, hinny, Sin’ aw
+     ken’d thou. Aw was young and lusty, Aw was fair and clear; Aw was
+     young and lusty Mony a lang year. Sair feyl’d, hinny! Sair feyl’d
+     now; Sair feyl’d, hinny, Sin’ aw ken’d thou.
+  “When aw was young and lusty Aw cud lowp u dyke; But now aw’m aud and
+  still. Aw can hardly stop a syke. Sair feyl’d, hinny! Sair feyl’d
+  now, Sair feyl’d hinny, Sin’ aw ken’d thou.
+  “When aw was five and twenty Aw was brave an bauld. Now at five an’
+  sixty Aw’m byeth stiff an’ cauld. Sair feyl’d, hinny! Sair feyl’d
+  now. Sair feyl’d, hinny, Sin’ aw ken’d thou”
+  Thus said the aud man To the oak tree; “Sair feyl’d is aw Sin’ aw
+  kenn’d thee! Sair feyl’d, hinny! Sair feyl’d now; Sair feyl’d, hinny,
+  Sin’ aw ken’d thou.”
+  AW WISH YOE MUTHER WAD CUM!
+  “Cum, Geordy, haud the bairn, Aw’s sure aw’ll not stop lang, Aw’d
+  tyek the jewl me-sel, But really aw’s not strang. Thor’s flooer and
+  coals te get, The hoose-torns thor not deun, So haud the bairn for
+  fairs, Ye’re often deun’d for fun!”
+  Then Geordy held the bairn, But sair agyen his will, The poor bit
+  thing wes gud, But Geordy had ne skill, He haddint its muther’s ways,
+  He sat both stiff an’ num,— Before five minutes wes past He wished
+  its muther wad cum!
+  His wife had scarcely gyen, The bairn begun te squall, Wi’ hikin’t up
+  an’ doon He’d let the poor thing fall, It waddent haud its tung, Tho’
+  sum aud teun he’d hum,— ‘Jack an’ Gill went up a hill’— “Aw wish yor
+  muther wad cum!”
+  “What weary toil,” says he, “This nursin bairns mun be, A bit on’t’s
+  weel eneuf, Ay, quite eneuf for me; Te keep a crying bairn, It may be
+  grand te sum, A day’s wark’s not as bad— Aw wish yor muther wad cum.
+  “Men seldom give a thowt Te what thor wives indure, Aw thowt she’d
+  nowt te de But clean the hoose, aw’s sure. Or myek me dinner an’ tea—
+  It’s startin’ te chow its thumb, The poor thing wants its tit, Aw
+  wish yor muther wad cum.”
+  What a selfish world this is, Thor’s nowt mair se than man; He laffs
+  at wummin’s toil, And winnet nurse his awn;— It’s startin’ te cry
+  agyen, Aw see tuts throo its gum, Maw little bit pet, dinnet fret,—
+  Aw wish yor muther wad cum.
+  “But kindness dis a vast. It’s ne use gettin’ vext. It winnet please
+  the bairn, Or ease a mind perplext. At last—its gyen te sleep, Me
+  wife’ll not say aw’s num, She’ll think aw’s a real gud norse, Aw wish
+  yor muther wud cum!”
+  _Joe Wilson_
+  THE AULD FISHER’S LAST WISH
+  The morn is grey, and green the brae, the wind is frae the wast
+  Before the gale the snaw-white clouds are drivin’ light and fast; The
+  airly sun is glintin’ forth, owre hill, and dell, and plain, And
+  Coquet’s streams are glitterin’, as they run frae muir to main.
+  At Dewshill wood the mavis sings beside her birken nest, At Halystane
+  the laverock springs upon his breezy quest; Wi’ eydent e’e, aboon the
+  craigs, the gled is high in air, Beneath brent Brinkburn’s shadowed
+  cliff the fox lies in his lair.
+  There’s joy at merry Thristlehaugh tie new-mown hay to win; The busy
+  bees at Todstead-shaw are bringing honey in; The trouts they loup in
+  ilka stream, the birds on ilka tree; Auld Coquet-side is Coquet
+  still—but there’s nae place for me!
+  My sun is set, my eyne are wet, cauld poortith now is mine; Nae mair
+  I’ll range by Coquet-side and thraw the gleesome line; Nae mair I’ll
+  see her bonnie stream in spring-bright raiment drest, Save in the
+  dream that stirs the heart when the weary e’e’s at rest.
+  Oh! were my limbs as ance they were, to jink across the green. And
+  were my heart as light again as sometime it has been, And could my
+  fortunes blink again as erst when youth was sweet, Then Coquet—hap
+  what might beside—we’d no be lang to meet’
+  Or had I but the cushat’s wing, where’er I list to flee, And wi’ a
+  wish, might wend my way owre hill, and dale, and lea. ’Tis there I’d
+  fauld that weary wing, there gaze my latest gaze. Content to see thee
+  ance again—then sleep beside thy braes!
+  —_Thomas Doublerday_.
+  A SONNET.
+  Go, take thine angle, and with practised line. Light as the gossamer,
+  the current sweep; And if thou failest in the calm, still deep, In
+  the rough eddy may a prize be thine. Say thou’rt unlucky where the
+  sunbeams shine; Beneath the shadow, where the waters creep Perchance
+  the monarch of the brook shall leap— For fate is ever better than
+  design.
+  Still persevere; the giddiest breeze that blows, For thee may blow
+  with fame and fortune rife. Be prosperous; and what reck if it arose
+  Out of some pebble with the stream at strife, Or that the light wind
+  dallied with the boughs? Thou art successful.—Such is human life!
+  —_Thomas Doubleday_.
+  A VISION OF JOYOUS-GARDE.
+  “And so sir Launcelot brought sir Tristan and La Beate Isoud unto
+  Joyous-gard, the which was his owne castle that hee had wonne with
+  his owne hands.”—_Malory_.
+  “Bamburgh ... the great rock-fortress that was known to the Celts as
+  Dinguardi, and was to figure in Arthurian romance as Joyous Garde ...
+  “—_C.J. Bates_ (History of Northumberland).
+    I wandered under winter stars The lone Northumbrian shore; And
+    night lay deep in silence on the sea. Save where, unceasingly,
+    Among the pillared scaurs Of perilous Farnes, wild waves for ever
+    more Breaking in foam, Sounded as some far strife through the
+    star-haunted gloam.
+    Before me, looming through the night, Darker than night’s sad
+    heart, King Ida’s castle on the sheer crag set Waked darker sorrow
+    yet Within me for the light, Beauty, and might of old loves rent
+    apart, Time-broken, spent, And strewn as old dead winds among the
+    salt-sea bent.
+    Till, dreaming of the glittering days, And eves with beauty
+    starred, Time fell from me as some night-cloud withdrawn, And in
+    enchanted dawn, All in a golden haze, I saw the gleaming towers of
+    Joyous Garde In splendour rise, Tall, pinnacled, and white to my
+    dream-laden eyes.
+    While thither, as in days of old, Launcelot homeward came,
+    War-wearied, and yet wearier of the strife Of love that tore his
+    life;
+    Burning, beneath the cold Armour of steel, a never-dying flame: The
+    fierce desire Consuming honour’s gold on the heart’s altar fire!
+    And thither in great love he brought The fugitives of love, Isoud
+    and Tristram fleeing from King Mark. One day ’twixt dark and dark
+    These lovers, by fate caught In love’s bright web, dreamed with
+    blue skies above Of love no tide Of wavering life may part, or
+    death’s swift sea divide.
+    But Launcelot, in their bliss forlorn, Fled from the laughter clear
+    Of happy lovers, and love’s silent noon; All night beneath the moon
+    He strode, his spirit torn For Guenevere! All night on Guenevere He
+    cried aloud Unto the moonlit foam and every windy cloud.
+
+    Then faded, quivering, from my sight The memory-woven dream. The
+    towers of Joyous Garde shall never more Lighten that desolate
+    shore; No longe’r through the night Wrestling with love, beneath
+    the pale moon gleam That anguished form!— But keen with snow and
+    wind, and loud with gathering storm.
+  _—Wilfrid W. Gibson_.
+  (In “The Northern Counties Magazine,” March, 1901).
+  MY NORTH COUNTRIE.
+  O though here fair blows the rose, and the woodbine waves on high,
+  And oak, and elm, and bracken fronds enrich the rolling lea, And
+  winds, as if in Arcady, breathe joy as they go by, Yet I yearn and I
+  pine for my North Countrie!
+  I leave the drowsing South, and in thought I northward fly, And walk
+  the stretching moors that fringe the ever-calling sea, And am
+  gladdened as the gales that are so bitter-sweet rush by. While grey
+  clouds sweetly darken o’er my North Countrie.
+  For there’s music in the storms, and there’s colour in the shades,
+  And joy e’en in the grief so widely brooding o’er the sea; And larger
+  thoughts have birth amid the moors and lonely glades And reedy mounds
+  and sands of my North Countrie!
+  —_Thomas Runciman_.
+
+[Illustration: Drawing]
+
+ANDREW REID & COMPANY. LIMITED, PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS,
+NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.
+
+[Illustration: SKETCH MAP OF NORTHUMBERLAND SKETCH MAP OF
+NORTHUMBERLAND]
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Northumberland Yesterday and To-day, by Jean F. Terry
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORTHUMBERLAND YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY ***
+
+***** This file should be named 11124-0.txt or 11124-0.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/1/2/11124/
+
+Produced by Miranda van de Heijning, Margaret Macaskill
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
+be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
+law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
+so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
+States without permission and without paying copyright
+royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
+of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
+and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive
+specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this
+eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook
+for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports,
+performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given
+away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks
+not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the
+trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.
+
+START: FULL LICENSE
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
+Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+
+1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
+destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your
+possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
+Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
+by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
+person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
+1.E.8.
+
+1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
+paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this
+agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the
+Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
+of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual
+works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
+States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
+United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
+claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
+displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
+all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
+that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting
+free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm
+works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
+Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily
+comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
+same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when
+you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
+in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
+check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
+agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
+distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
+other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no
+representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
+country outside the United States.
+
+1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
+immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear
+prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work
+on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed,
+performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
+
+  This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+  most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
+  restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
+  under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+  eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
+  United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you
+  are located before using this ebook.
+
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is
+derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
+contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
+copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
+the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
+redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
+either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
+obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm
+trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
+additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
+will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works
+posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
+beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
+any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
+to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format
+other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official
+version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site
+(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
+to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
+of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain
+Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the
+full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+provided that
+
+* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+  the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+  you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
+  to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has
+  agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
+  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
+  within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
+  legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
+  payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
+  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
+  Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
+  Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+  you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+  does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+  License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
+  copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
+  all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm
+  works.
+
+* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
+  any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+  electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
+  receipt of the work.
+
+* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+  distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than
+are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
+from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The
+Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
+Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
+contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
+or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
+other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
+cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
+with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
+with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
+lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
+or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
+opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
+the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
+without further opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO
+OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
+damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
+violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
+agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
+limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
+unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
+remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in
+accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
+production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
+including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
+the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
+or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or
+additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any
+Defect you cause.
+
+Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
+computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
+exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
+from people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future
+generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
+Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
+www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
+U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the
+mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its
+volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous
+locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt
+Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to
+date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and
+official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+
+    Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+    Chief Executive and Director
+    gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
+DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
+state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
+donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be
+freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
+distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of
+volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
+the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
+necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
+edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search
+facility: www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
diff --git a/old/11124-0.zip b/old/11124-0.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a07e57b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-0.zip
diff --git a/old/11124-8.txt b/old/11124-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fd0b299
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,7948 @@
+Project Gutenberg's Northumberland Yesterday and To-day, by Jean F. Terry
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Northumberland Yesterday and To-day
+
+Author: Jean F. Terry
+
+Release Date: February 17, 2004 [EBook #11124]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORTHUMBERLAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Miranda van de Heijning, Margaret Macaskill and PG
+Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: BAMBURGH CASTLE.]
+
+Northumberland Yesterday and To-day.
+BY
+JEAN F. TERRY, L.L.A. (St. Andrews), 1913.
+
+_To Sir Francis Douglas Blake,
+this book is inscribed in admiration of
+an eminent Northumbrian._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.--The Coast of Northumberland
+
+CHAPTER II.--North and South Tyne
+
+CHAPTER III.--Down the Tyne
+
+CHAPTER IV.--Newcastle-upon-Tyne
+
+CHAPTER V.--Elswick and its Founder
+
+CHAPTER VI.--The Cheviots
+
+CHAPTER VII.--The Roman Wall
+
+CHAPTER VIII.--Some Northumbrian Streams
+
+CHAPTER IX.--Drum and Trumpet
+
+CHAPTER X.--Tales and Legends
+
+CHAPTER XI.--Ballads and Poems
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+BAMBURGH CASTLE
+(_From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham_.)
+
+TYNEMOUTH PRIORY
+(_From photograph by T.H. Dickinson, Sheriff Hill_.)
+
+HEXHAM ABBEY FROM NORTH WEST
+(_From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham_.)
+
+THE RIVER TYNE AT NEWCASTLE
+(_From photograph by T.H. Dickinson, Sheriff Hill_.)
+
+NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE
+
+NORTH GATEWAY, HOUSESTEADS, AND ROMAN WALL
+(_From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham_.)
+
+ALNWICK CASTLE
+(_From photograph by J.P. Gibson. Hexham_.)
+
+WRECK OF THE "FORFARSHIRE"
+(_From illustration kindly lent by B. Rowland Hill, Newcastle_.)
+
+SKETCH MAP OF NORTHUMBERLAND
+(_From a Drawing by C.H. Abbey_)
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+
+The following book makes no pretensions to be a mine of deep historical
+research or antiquarian lore; its object will have been achieved, and
+its existence to some extent justified, if haply by its aid some of the
+dwellers in this northern county of ours, with its past so full of
+action, and its present so rich in the memorials of those actions, may
+pass a pleasant hour in becoming acquainted through its pages with the
+happenings which have taken place in their own particular fields, their
+own streets, or by their own riverside.
+
+I am aware that many learned volumes on this subject, representing an
+enormous amount of patient labour and careful research in their
+compilation, are already in existence. To such this little book can in
+no sense be a rival; but there must be many people who have not a
+superabundance of time, to enable them to dig out the information for
+which they wish, from these various sources; nor can they always make
+these volumes their own, to be consulted at leisure.
+
+Northumbrians have always been interested in the records of their own
+county, and are now-a-days not less so than when, some three-and-a-half
+centuries ago, Roger North found them "great antiquarians within their
+own bounds." If to such as these this little book may perhaps bring in a
+more convenient form the information they seek, and help them to become
+better acquainted with the county which inspired Swinburne to write in
+stirring phrases of "Northumberland," and to address the home of his
+people as
+
+  "Land beloved, where nought of legend's dream
+  Outshines the truth"--
+
+I shall be more than satisfied. I would take this opportunity of
+expressing my grateful thanks to the Rev. Canon Savage, of Hexham, for
+information relating to the tomb of Alfwald the Just, in the Abbey,
+given with courteous readiness; to the Rev. Canon Jeffery, of Bywell,
+for similar kindness regarding Bywell St. Peter's; to R.O. Heslop, Esq.,
+whose profound store of learning on the subject of "Northumberland
+words" was in cases of uncertainty my final court of appeal; to E.T.
+Nisbet, Esq., and J. Treble, Esq., to whom I am greatly indebted for
+their goodness in reading my manuscript, and for their generous
+encouragement following thereupon; to C.H. Abbey, Esq., for his kindness
+in executing the map which accompanies these pages; and to Mr. G.P.
+Dunn, of Corbridge, for much helpful criticism, and many suggestions
+which only want of space has prevented my adopting in their entirety.
+
+J.F.T.
+
+_31st May_, 1913.
+
+
+
+
+NORTHUMBERLAND YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+THE COAST OF NORTHUMBERLAND.
+
+  "We'll see nae mair the sea banks fair,
+  And the sweet grey gleaming sky,
+  And the lordly strand of Northumberland,
+  And the goodly towers thereby."
+
+  --_A.C. Swinburne_.
+
+
+Wild and bleak it may be, hard and cruel at times it undoubtedly is,
+but, nevertheless, this north-east coast of ours is at all times
+inspiring, whether half-hidden by storm-clouds, its cliffs and hollows
+lashed by the "wild north-easter," or seen calmly brooding in the warm
+haze of a summer's day, its grey-blue water smiling beneath the
+grey-blue sky, and its stretches of sand and bents edging the sea with a
+border of gold and silver.
+
+In keeping with either mood of nature, the ancient Priory of Tynemouth,
+standing on the sandstone cliffs on the northern bank of the Tyne,
+rearing its grey and roofless walls above the harbour mouth, strikes a
+note that is symbolic of the Northumbria of old and the Northumberland
+of to-day--the note, that is, of the intimate commingling of the romance
+of the warlike past and the romance of the industrial present. Here,
+above the mouth of the river on which so many of the most noteworthy
+advances in industrial science have been made, and out of which sail the
+vessels which are often the last word of the moment in marine
+engineering and construction, stand calmly looking down upon them all
+the fragments of a building which was a century old when John signed
+Magna Charta, and which stands upon the site of another that had already
+braved the storms of nearly five hundred years.
+
+Looking upon the Priory of St. Mary and St. Oswin we are carried back to
+the days when Edwin, the first king of Northumbria to embrace
+Christianity, built a little church here, in which his daughter took the
+veil. King Oswald had the first wooden structure replaced by a stone
+one; and here, in 651, the body of another good king--Oswyn--was brought
+for burial from Gilling, near Richmond in Yorkshire, where, disbanding
+his army, he sacrificed his cause and his life to Oswy of Bernicia, with
+whom he had been about to fight.
+
+[Illustration: THE PRIORY, TYNEMOUTH.]
+
+When the pirate ships of the Danes swept down upon our coasts, the
+Priory of St. Oswin, conspicuous on its bold headland, could not hope to
+escape their ravages. It was destroyed by the fierce invaders; but King
+Ecgfrith[1] of Northumbria restored the shattered shrine. Again, in the
+year 865, it was sacked and burnt, and the poor nuns of St. Hilda, who
+had already fled from Hartlepool to Tynemouth hoping to find safety,
+were ruthlessly slain and earned the crown of martyrdom. It was again
+restored; but, five years later, the destroying hands of the invaders
+fell on the place once more, and for two hundred years the Priory stood
+roofless and tenantless. After the Norman Conquest, Waltheof, Earl of
+Northumberland bestowed it upon the monks of Jarrow. The rediscovery of
+the tomb of St. Oswyn in 1065, had gladdened the hearts of the monks,
+and forthwith the monastery was reared anew over the ashes of its former
+self.
+
+[Footnote 1: Pronounced "Edge-frith."]
+
+Mowbray, the next Earl of Northumberland, re-endowed the building. He
+had quarrelled with the Bishop of Durham, so in order to do him a
+displeasure, he made Tynemouth Priory subordinate to St. Albans instead
+of to Durham and brought monks from St. Albans to dwell there. The new
+buildings were finished in 1110, and the bones of St. Oswyn enshrined
+within them, the right of sanctuary being extended for a mile around his
+resting-place. This right, however, was already in existence, and had
+been appealed to in 1095 by Mowbray himself, who fled here pursued by
+the followers of William Rufus, against whom he had rebelled. The King's
+men disregarded the sanctuary right, captured Mowbray, and sent him
+prisoner to Durham[2]. [Footnote 2: See account of Bamburgh Castle.]
+
+In later days the queens of Edward I. and Edward II. visited Tynemouth
+Priory; and it was from Tynemouth that the foolish King Edward II. and
+his worthless favourite Piers Gaveston fled from the angry barons to
+Scarborough. In the reign of Edward III., after the battle of Neville's
+Cross, David of Scotland was brought here by his captors on his way to
+Bamburgh, from whence he was sent to the Tower.
+
+At the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. the Priory was
+inhabited by eighteen monks with their Prior. They bowed to the King's
+decree and left the monastery; but the church continued to be used as
+the parish church until the days of Charles II., when Christ Church was
+built.
+
+The Priory has many times formed the subject of pictures by famous
+artists, the best known being that of no less a genius than J. M. W.
+Turner; and its picturesque ruins are a well-known landmark to the
+hundreds of voyagers who pass it on their journeys, outward or homeward
+bound. Within the last few years the Priory has been in some measure
+repaired and restored.
+
+There is but little left of Tynemouth Castle, which was built as a
+protection for the monastery against the attacks of the Danes. It stands
+in a commanding position on a neighbouring cliff, and is now used as
+barracks for garrison artillery corps. During the days when Scotland
+harried the English borders, the Priors of Tynemouth maintained a
+garrison here; and later, in Stuart days, Charles I. visited the North,
+and the fortress was strengthened just before the outbreak of the Civil
+War. It was captured, notwithstanding, by Leslie, Earl of Leven, after
+he had left Newcastle. Colonel Lilburn, left in charge as governor,
+shortly afterwards avowed himself on the side of King Charles; but he
+speedily paid for his change of allegiance, for the Castle was re-taken
+by a force from Newcastle under Sir Arthur Hazelrigg, and Lilburn lost
+his life in the fight. The Castle has long been used as a dep�t for the
+storage of arms and ammunition. Behind the Spanish Battery which
+commands the entrance to the Tyne stands a statue of the famous
+North-countryman, Admiral Collingwood.
+
+Connected with Tynemouth, by the fact that a small chantry belonging to
+the Priory once stood there, is St. Mary's Island. One may walk
+unhindered at low tide across the rocks to this favourite place, but
+where the chantry stood there is now a lighthouse with a powerful
+lantern, flashing its welcome light to the seafarers nearing the mouth
+of the Tyne, and extending
+
+  "To each and all our equal lamp, at peril of the sea,
+  The white wall-sided war-ships, or the whalers of Dundee."
+
+
+Between Tynemouth and St. Mary's Island lie Cullercoats, Whitley Bay,
+and Monkseaton, and together these places make practically one extended
+seaside town, stretching for three or four miles along the sea-front,
+and joined by a fine parade which leads to open links at Monkseaton. Of
+these places Cullercoats is most noteworthy. This picturesque fishing
+village, with quaint old houses perched in every conceivable position on
+the curve of its rocky bay, is, needless to say, a favourite camping
+ground for artists. The Cullercoats fishwife, with her cheerful
+weather-bronzed face, her short jacket and ample skirts of blue flannel,
+and her heavily laden "creel" of fish is not only appreciated by the
+brotherhood of brush and pencil, but is one of the notable sights of the
+district. At Cullercoats is struck a note of the most modern of modern
+achievements--the Wireless Telegraphy Station (225 feet); and here, too,
+is situated the Dove Marine Laboratory, looked after by scientists on
+the staff of the Armstrong College at Newcastle.
+
+In fine weather the crowds which pass and repass along the top of the
+bold cliffs which overlook the fine stretch of sands between Cullercoats
+and Monkseaton show how many hundreds of Northumbria's busy workers
+enjoy the fresh breezes from the sea on this pleasant and bracing coast.
+Out at sea, opposite the Parade, vessels built in the busy shipyards on
+the Tyne may be seen doing their speed trials over the measured mile.
+The Peace of St. Oswyn may, in fact, be said to brood over Tynemouth,
+even in these days, for it is an increasing custom for those who can do
+so to remain in Newcastle and other busy centres of toil only during
+business hours, and to leave workshop and office every evening for their
+home by the sea: while the tide of noisy, happy, boisterous
+excursionists has rolled on to Whitley Bay, leaving Tynemouth to its
+old-time sleepy content. Northward to Hartley and Seaton Sluice the
+cliffs are very fine. Hartley, with its bright-looking red-tiled houses,
+once belonged to Adam of Gesemuth (Jesmond) who lived in the reign of
+King John. Coming down to modern times, about thirty years ago a gallant
+Hartley man, Thomas Langley, rescued two successive shipwrecked crews on
+the same day, in one case allowing himself to be lowered over the cliffs
+at a terrible risk in the furious storm.
+
+Seaton Sluice belongs to the ancient family of the Delavals, whose
+house, Delaval Hall, may be seen not far away, peeping from amongst the
+trees which surround it. Seaton Sluice owes its name to the Delaval who
+placed the large sluice gates upon the burn, in order to have a strong
+current which, in rushing down to the sea, would be able to wash the
+mouth of the stream clear from the silt and mud brought in by the
+incoming tide. A later baronet, Sir John Hussey Delaval, made the
+cutting through the solid rock which is so striking a feature of the
+harbour. It was ready for the entrance of vessels in March, 1763.
+
+Delaval Hall is now owned by Lord Hastings, the present representative
+of the Delavals, which family became extinct in the male line early in
+the nineteenth century. The last Delaval, a very learned man, was buried
+in Westminster Abbey in 1814. The Hall was built for Admiral Delaval in
+1707 to the design of Sir J. Vanbrugh, who also designed Blenheim
+Palace, given by the nation to the great Duke of Marlborough about the
+same time.
+
+Hartley Colliery, about half a mile away, has a sad interest as being
+the scene of the terrible accident in 1862, when a number of men and
+boys were imprisoned in the workings owing to the blocking up of the
+only shaft by a mass of d�bris, caused by the fall of an iron beam
+belonging to the pumping engine at the pit-head. Before the shaft could
+be cleared and a way opened to the workings, all the poor fellows had
+died, overcome by the deadly "choke-damp." Joseph Skipsey, the pitman
+poet, in a simple ballad, tells the pathetic story.
+
+  "Oh, father! till the shaft is rid,
+  Close, close beside me keep;
+  My eyelids are together glued,
+  And I,--and I,--must sleep."
+
+  "Sleep, darling, sleep, and I will keep
+  Close by--heigh ho."--To keep
+  Himself awake the father strives.
+  But he--he, too--must sleep.
+
+  "Oh mother dear! wert, wert thou near
+  Whilst--sleep!" The orphan slept;
+  And all night long, by the black pit-heap
+  The mother a dumb watch kept.
+
+From here, northward, the coast is rather dull and uninteresting,
+although the sands are fine, until we reach Blyth, at the mouth of the
+little river of the same name. This town is growing rapidly in size and
+importance; the export of coal has greatly increased since the harbour
+was so much improved by Sir Matthew White Ridley, and now totals some
+millions of tones a year. The river Wansbeck not far north of the mouth
+of the Blyth, in the latter part of its course flows through a district
+begrimed by all the necessary accompaniments of the traffic in "black
+diamonds," and reaches the sea between the colliery villages of Cambois
+and North Seaton.
+
+On the point at the northern curve of Newbiggin Bay stands Newbiggin
+Church, and ancient building, whose steeple, "leaning all awry," is a
+well-known landmark for sailors. The site of this church is in danger
+of being undermined by the waves, and, indeed, part of the churchyard
+crumbled away many years ago; but such defences as are possible have
+been built up around it,--and the danger averted for a time. Newbiggin
+itself is a large fishing village and an increasingly popular holiday
+resort, for it possesses not only good sands but a wide moor near at
+hand which provides one of the best of golf courses; and, also, a short
+distance along the coast, are the attractive Fairy Rocks.
+
+Newbiggin was a town of some importance in Plantagenet days, with a busy
+harbour, and a pier; and in the reign of Edward II. it was required to
+contribute a vessel towards the naval defence of the Kingdom.
+
+Northward from Newbiggin Point is the magnificent sweep of Druridge Bay,
+stretching in a fine curve of ten miles or more to Hauxley Haven. Here,
+the sands of a warm golden colour, the wind-swept bents of silvery-grey,
+and the vivid green of the grassy cliff tops edge the curve of the bay
+with a line of bright and delicate colour, only thrown into greater
+relief by the brown reefs and ridges which stretch out from the rocky
+shores, and by the deep blue-green of the waves rolling inshore in long
+majestic lines, to break into hissing foam on the sharp reefs, or slide
+smoothly up the yellow sands in the centre of the bay. Above, beyond the
+grassy tops of the cliffs, stretch deep woods, with the old pele-tower
+of Cresswell looking out from amongst the trees, fields many-coloured
+with their burden of varying crops, and wide lonely moors, where one may
+walk for half a day without hearing any sound save the wild screaming of
+sea-birds, or the whistle of the wind, with the low boom of the waves
+below sounding a deep-toned accompaniment. The bay is not always so
+peaceful, however, and many wild scenes and terrible shipwrecks have
+taken place here, as everywhere along our wild north-east coast. The
+Bondicar rocks, by Hauxley, and the cruel spikes of the reef at Snab
+Point, near Cresswell, have betrayed many a gallant little vessel to her
+doom. Not, however, without bringing on many an occasion proof of the
+courage which is shown as a matter of course by the fisher folk on our
+coasts. At Newbiggin, and Cresswell, for instance, deeds have been done,
+which, in their simple unassuming heroism, may be taken as typical of
+the hardy race which could count Grace Darling among its daughters.
+
+About thirty years ago, a ship drove ashore off Cresswell one bitter
+night in January, and the fisher folk crowded down to the shore,
+watching with sorrowful eyes the hapless crew clinging to their
+unfortunate vessel, which was slowly being broken up by the waves. There
+was no lifeboat at Cresswell then, and all the men of the village,
+except the old men who were past work, had gone northward, when the
+oncoming storm prevented their return. The women and girls heard the
+cries of the schooner's crew, and mourned to each other their inability
+to help. But one gallant-hearted girl, named Peggy Brown, cried out, "If
+I thowt she could hing on a bit, I wad be away for the lifeboat." But
+between them and Newbiggin, the nearest lifeboat station, the Lyne Burn
+runs into the sea, and spreads widely out over the sands; and the older
+people told Peggy she could never cross the burn in the dark. She set
+off, however, the thought of the drowning men hastening her on. For four
+miles she made her way in the storm and darkness, partly along the
+shore, scrambling over rock's, and wading waist-deep through the Lyne
+Burn and one or two other places where the waves had driven far up the
+sands, and partly across Newbiggin Moor, where the icy wind tore at her
+in her drenched clothing. She pressed on, however, and managed to reach
+the coxswain's house and give her message. The lifeboat was immediately
+run out, and the men reached the wreck in time to save all the crew
+except one, who had been washed overboard.
+
+On another occasion one of the fishermen, named Tom Brown, was preparing
+to go out, with the help of his two sons, in his own fishing coble to
+the aid of a ship in distress on the reef. A carter had come down to the
+beach, the better to watch the progress of events, and, terrified by the
+thundering waves, his horse took fright, and in its plunging drove the
+cart against the little boat, making a hole clear through one side. "Big
+Tom," as he was generally called, merely took off his coat, rolled it
+into a bundle and stuffed it against the hole. Then he beckoned to
+another fisherman, saying to him "Sit on that." The man clambered in,
+and without the loss of another minute these four heroes set off to save
+their fellow creatures' lives, with a broken and leaking boat in a heavy
+sea. And they did it, reaching the brig only just in time, for it went
+to pieces a few minutes after the shivering crew had been safely landed.
+
+Incidents like these, which could be multiplied indefinitely, bring a
+glow of pride to the heart, and a reassuring sense that the degeneration
+of the race is not proceeding in such wholesale fashion--in the country
+districts, at any rate--as the pessimists would have us believe.
+
+At the northern extremity of Druridge Bay is the little fishing village
+of Hauxley, with the chimneys and pit-head engines of Ratcliffe and
+Broomhill Collieries darkening the sky to the south-west. Passing the
+Bondicar rocks and rounding the point we enter the "fairway" for
+Warkworth Harbour and Amble, where a brisk exportation of the coal of
+the neighbourhood is carried on.
+
+Lying out at sea, opposite Amble coastguard station, the white
+lighthouse on Coquet Island keeps watch over the entrance to the
+harbour. Some of the walls of the monastery, which stood on the island
+in Saxon days, can now be seen forming part of the dwelling of the
+lighthouse keeper. For many generations, too, hermit after hermit went
+to dwell on this tiny islet, and St. Cuthbert himself is said to have
+inhabited the little cell at one time. The island was captured by the
+Scots in the Civil Wars of King Charles's reign, and held by them for a
+time.
+
+The situation of Amble, at the mouth of the Coquet, has been looked upon
+as convenient from very early days, for there are signs which tell us of
+a population here at an early period. Several cist-vaens, or ancient
+stone coffins, have been found near the town, and a broken Roman altar
+was unearthed in the neighbourhood. The monastery which stood here, like
+that on Holy Island, was, in later times, inhabited by Benedictine
+monks, who were under the authority of the Prior of Tynemouth. William
+the Conqueror gave the then Prior the right to collect the tithes of the
+little town.
+
+A short distance from Amble, and practically encircled by the Coquet
+which here makes a wide sweep, we come upon Warkworth, prettiest of
+villages, combining the beauties of sea-shore and river scenery, and
+rich in the possession of that romantic castle, the ruins of which carry
+the mind back to Saxon times; for they stand on the site of an older
+fortress erected by Ceolwulf, a Saxon King of Northumbria. He was the
+patron of Bede, who dedicated his "Ecclesiastical History" to his royal
+friend. Ceolwulf built both the fortress and the earliest church at
+Warkworth, and a few stones of this latter building are still to be
+seen. In 737, two years after the death of Bede, this royal Saxon laid
+aside his kingly state and became a monk on Lindisfarne,
+
+  "When he, for cowl and beads, laid down
+  The Saxon battle-axe and crown."
+
+It was when the castle was bestowed by Edward III. upon Lord Percy of
+Alnwick that it became, for more than two hundred years, the chief
+residence of that illustrious family; becoming in the next reign of
+historical value as the home of that Hotspur whose valour and gallantry
+made Henry IV. envy the Earl of Northumberland, in that he "should be
+the father of so blest a son." In Act II., Scene 3 of "Henry IV.," Part
+II., Shakespeare has laid the scene at Warkworth Castle, where Hotspur's
+wife, troubled by her lord's moody abstraction, tries to win from him
+the reason of his secret care. And after the battle of Shrewsbury,
+Rumour, flying with the news of Hotspur's death, says:--
+
+  "Thus have I rumoured through the peasant towns,
+  Between the royal field of Shrewsbury
+  And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,
+  Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,
+  Lies crafty-sick."
+
+Two years after this, the castle was besieged by Henry IV. himself, and
+surrendered to him after a brief bombardment by the newly invented
+cannon. The keep was re-built by Hotspur's son, after the family
+possessions had been restored to him by Henry V., and it is now the only
+remaining part of the castle which is almost perfect. One of the
+half-ruinous towers remaining is called the Lion Tower, from the
+sculptured lion on its walls; while another rejoices in the curious name
+of Cradyfargus. A strange story is told of a blue stone to be seen in
+the courtyard of the castle. Many years ago, so runs the tale, one of
+the custodians of Warkworth Castle dreamed three nights in succession
+that a large treasure was concealed beneath a blue stone in a certain
+part of the castle grounds. He told this dream to a neighbour, and after
+allowing two or three days to pass, finding the dream constantly
+recurring to his mind, he thought he would go to the place indicated,
+and see what he could find. To his disappointment, however, he
+discovered that some one had been there before him; a large hole had
+been dug, and on the edge of it lay the blue stone.
+
+Needless to say, the hole was empty, nor could the keeper discover
+anything about the treasure in the neighbourhood. It is said that a
+certain family in the village became suddenly rich; and, many years
+afterwards, a large and ancient pot, supposed to have been that in which
+the buried treasure had been contained, was found in the Coquet.
+
+The main street of Warkworth leads straight up to the postern gate of
+the castle, and many stirring sights have the successive inhabitants of
+the little village looked upon, as the fortunes of the owners of the
+castle waxed and waned throughout the many centuries in which the lords
+of Warkworth played a notable part in the history of England. They saw
+Henry Percy, entrusted with a share in the safe keeping of the country,
+set out from Warkworth for Durham, to help in winning the victory of
+Neville's Cross.
+
+They saw Hotspur's force set out for the Cheviots to intercept Douglas
+and his followers, which they did at Homildon Hill, near Wooler; and it
+was the quarrel in connection with the prisoners taken on that day which
+led Hotspur and his father openly to throw off their allegiance to
+Henry IV., so that a few months later the peasants of Warkworth saw
+their idolised young lord set out for what was to prove the fatal field
+of Shrewsbury. They saw Hotspur's father, the first Henry Percy to
+receive the title of Earl, (a title which had been given him at the
+coronation of Richard II.) set out with a brave force after Hotspur's
+departure; and they saw his return, almost alone, dejected and broken in
+spirit, having learnt that the help so tardily given had come too late,
+and the life of his gallant son was ended.
+
+They saw the siege train of Henry Bolingbroke laid against the castle,
+directed by Henry in person, provoked into these active measures by the
+open rebellion of father and son, though Northumberland had tried to
+make it appear that he was innocent of any treasonable act. After
+capturing the castle, Bolingbroke bestowed it on his third son, John of
+Lancaster, and the villagers saw the young prince riding in and out
+among them daily so long as he made the castle his home.
+
+Then, in the next reign, they welcomed the return of Hotspur's son,
+Henry, to the home of his fathers, restored to him by Henry V.; and,
+within a short time, saw him bring home his bride, Eleanor Neville,
+daughter of his friend and neighbour, the Earl of Westmoreland.
+
+In the Wars of the Roses, Warkworth Castle saw many changes of fortune,
+as the tide of victory flowed this way and that. The Percies were all
+Lancastrians, though Sir Ralph Percy changed sides twice. The castle
+fell into the hands of the Yorkists, and the great Earl of Warwick, the
+"King-maker" himself, made it his headquarters for a time, while he
+superintended the sieges of Alnwick, Dunstanborough, and Bamburgh, which
+were all invested at the same time. Eventually, after the Wars of the
+Roses concluded, Warkworth was restored, along with the other Percy
+estates, to its original owners.
+
+Finally, the inhabitants of the little village saw the church entered by
+the Jacobites in 1715, when Mr. Buxton, chaplain of the little force,
+prayed for James III. and Mary the Queen-mother; and General Forster,
+dressed as a trumpeter, proclaimed King James III. at the village cross.
+
+A few miles north from the mouth of the Coquet, the little Aln spreads
+over the sandy flats near Alnmouth, and reaches the sea. It has changed
+its course, for at one time it flowed to the south of Church Hill,
+instead of to the north as at present. The town of Alnmouth, viewed from
+the train just before entering Alnmouth Station, looks very picturesque,
+especially if the rare sunshine of an English summer should be lighting
+up the bay, bringing out the vivid red of the tiled roofs against the
+grassy hills fringing the links which lie on their seaward side, and
+lighting up, also, the yellow sands and long lines of sparkling wavelets
+edged with white.
+
+Alnmouth depends for its living on a fleet of fishing boats, and on the
+numbers of visitors who seek its fresh breezes and inviting shores each
+summer. Golfers, indeed, find it pleasant all the year round, as there
+is only a scarcely appreciable interval in the winter months when their
+favourite pastime cannot be followed on the breezy links. On Church
+Hill, now crowned by a few old stones, once stood a Norman church,
+dedicated to St. Valery, which, in its turn, occupied the site of an
+older Saxon building, supposed to have been the church which Bede refers
+to as being at Twyford, where a great synod of clergy was held in the
+year 684, and Cuthbert appointed Bishop of Lindisfarne. It is a matter
+of dispute whether this Twyford was Alnmouth or Whittingham, but the
+two fords at Alnmouth seem to point to a decision in favour of that
+place. The old Norman church, which fell into ruin at the beginning of
+last century, was fired at by the famous pirate Paul Jones; the cannon
+shot, weighing 68 pounds, missed the church, but struck a neighbouring
+farm house, doing great damage.
+
+The coast north of Alnmouth becomes rocky and wild, and very
+picturesque, and the villages along the coast are being sought out by
+holiday makers in increasing numbers, year by year. Boulmer, one of
+these villages, was a famous place for smuggling in the old days, and
+many an exciting scene and sharp encounter took place between the
+smugglers and the King's men. Not far away is Howick Dene, a lovely
+little glen leading down to the sea from Howick Hall, the home of Earl
+Grey.
+
+Cullernose Point, a striking crag, is formed by the outcrop of a portion
+of the Great Whin Sill, which from here can be traced to the south-west,
+and thence right across the county.
+
+At Craster, another fishing village and a favourite holiday haunt, is
+Craster Tower, which has been the home of the family of Craster since
+before the Conquest. Not far to the north is the famous Rumble Churn in
+the rocks below Dunstanborough Castle, where the waves roll in and out
+of the caves and chasms with weird and hollow rumblings. There is
+another Rumbling Churn in the cliffs near Howick.
+
+The famous divine of the Middle Ages, John Duns Scotus, was born in this
+parish--that of Embleton; the group of buildings known as Dunston Hall,
+or Proctor's Steads, is supposed to have been his birthplace, and a
+portrait of the learned doctor is to be seen there.
+
+Dunstanborough Castle stands in lonely grandeur on great whinstone
+crags, close to the very edge of the sea, and on the first sight of it,
+Keats' wonderful lines spring involuntarily to the lips:--
+
+  "Magic casements, opening on the foam
+  Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn."
+
+Forlorn, indeed, though not in exactly the sense conveyed by the poem,
+is this huge fortress now; it abides, says Freeman, "as a castle should
+abide, in all the majesty of a shattered ruin." The primitive cannon of
+the days of the Wars of the Roses began to shatter those mighty walls,
+and, unlike Bamborough, it has never been strengthened since. Simon de
+Montford once owned this estate, and the next lord of Dunstanborough was
+a son of Henry III., to whom Earl Simon's forfeited estate was given.
+His eldest son, Thomas of Lancaster, took part with the barons in
+bringing the unworthy favourite of Edward II., Piers Gaveston, to his
+death. Under the King's anger, Lancaster went away to his Northumbrian
+estate, and began to build this mighty fortress, though he already owned
+the castles of Kenilworth and Pontefract. In the Wars of the Roses,
+Dunstanborough Castle was taken and retaken no less than five times, and
+Queen Margaret found refuge here, as well as at Bamburgh; but apart from
+these occasions, Dunstanborough has not taken nearly so great a part in
+either local or national history as the other Northumbrian castles of
+Bamburgh, Warkworth, and Alnwick, though greater in extent than any of
+them. In 1538 an official report describes "Dunstunburht" as "a very
+reuynous howse"; and the process of dilapidation was soon aided by
+enterprising dwellers in the neighbourhood using the stones of the
+forsaken castle to build their own homesteads.
+
+From the castle northward curves Embleton Bay, in which, after having
+been buried in the sand for ages, a sandstone rock was uncovered by the
+tide, having on its surface, chiselled in rough but distinct lettering,
+the name "Andra Barton." Sir Andrew Barton, daring Scottish sea-captain
+and fearless freebooter, was slain in a sea-fight off this part of the
+coast, in the days of Henry VIII., by the sons of Surrey, one of whom,
+Sir Thomas Howard, was Lord Admiral at the time, and so, in a measure,
+responsible for the defence of the English coast. The loss of his brave
+sea-captain and his "goodly ships" was one of the grievances in the long
+list which led King James IV. to declare war against England, and led to
+the fatal field of Flodden, in which Admiral Sir Thomas Howard and his
+brother took part under the command of their father, the Earl of Surrey.
+
+The wide sweep of grassy common beyond the sands in Embleton Bay is, in
+summer time, covered with a profusion of wild flowers, chief amongst
+them being the wild geranium, or meadow cranes-bill, whose
+reddish-purple blossoms grow in such abundance as to arrest the
+attention of every visitor. A little way back from the sea-shore, in the
+middle of this wide space, lies the village of Embleton, which possesses
+an ancient and interesting church, and a vicarage, part of which is
+formed by an old pele-tower. Embleton would seem to have a reputation to
+keep up in the way of famous churchmen. Duns Scotus has been already
+mentioned; and one of the vicars here was a cousin of Richard Steele,
+the essayist and friend of Addison; and he described the country squires
+of his day in a paper which he contributed to the "Spectator" of that
+date, 1712.
+
+Another Vicar of Embleton, who lived here from 1874 to 1884, was Dr.
+Mandell Creighton, the learned historian, who became Bishop of London.
+
+The well-known journalist, W.T. Stead, was born in the parish of
+Embleton, though his childhood was passed in very different
+surroundings, in the narrow streets and grimy atmosphere of
+Howdon-on-Tyne. His recent death on the ill-fated _Titanic_ will be
+fresh in the minds of all.
+
+Newton-by-the-Sea is reached by a pleasant walk along the sea-shore. (It
+is to be understood that in this journey along the coast we are moving
+northward always). There is here a cheery-looking white-washed
+coastguard station standing on the bold headland of Newton Point.
+
+Past this point is Beadnell Bay, with green and grassy Beadnell just
+beyond Little Rock. The small fishing harbour at Beadnell has the unique
+distinction of being the only harbour on the east coast whose mouth
+faces west, and the short pier, running _inland_ from rocks to shore,
+acts as a breakwater against the heavy easterly or southeasterly seas
+and makes the harbour a safe anchorage for fishing craft or small
+yachts. The rocks around this bay are very interesting, showing the
+various strata very plainly, and containing many fossils. The striking
+cliff called Ebbe's Nook is supposed to have been named after the Saxon
+princess Ebba, sister to King Oswald, and the ruins which were
+discovered on the headland, to be all that is left of a chapel erected
+to her memory.
+
+At Seahouses is an extensive fish-curing establishment, a fact which
+proclaims itself unmistakably as you near the village, especially if the
+day chance to be at all warm. A little distance from the shore is
+another fishing village, North Sunderland, and northward from Seahouses
+is the inn called The Monkshouse, from the fact that it once belonged to
+the community on Lindisfarne.
+
+Bamburgh Castle, magnificently placed on a lofty crag rising
+perpendicularly from the greensward on the west or landward side, and
+almost as steeply from the sea which washes the north and east sides,
+lies like a majestic lion on its mighty rock "brooding on ancient
+fame." The voices of children at play on the sands below sound faint and
+far in the still air; the sea birds, with the summer sunshine flashing
+on their outspread wings, sweep round and round; in the far distance a
+trail of smoke low down on the horizon marks the track of a passing
+steamer; and near at hand, southward a little way from the castle cliff,
+the rocky islets of the Farne group lie drowsily asleep on the
+gently-heaving swell of the grey-blue waters. Behind the castle lies the
+pretty old-fashioned village with its quaint hostelries and grove of
+trees; and from the higher parts of the new golf-links the player may
+look round on a view which would be difficult to match, comprising as it
+does, the Farne Islands and Dunstanborough to the south, and northward,
+Holy Island, with its castle and abbey and the bluish haze of smoke
+lying over Berwick; while, on the western skyline, on a clear day, may
+be seen the rounded caps of the Cheviots.
+
+The beginnings of Bamburgh take us back more than a thousand years, to
+that long-ago summer of 547, when the _cyuls_ (keels) of the marauding
+Bernician chieftain Ida and his followers grounded on the shore of our
+Northland, and the work of conquest began. Ida was not slow to grasp the
+importance of such a commanding site as this isolated mass of basaltic
+crag, and the rude stronghold which crowned it. It became in time a
+formidable fortress, and remained for centuries the headquarters of the
+kings of the North.
+
+Here reigned Ida and his sons--six of them--for more or less short and
+stormy periods, and Ethelric of Bernicia, who vanquished the
+neighbouring prince of Deira, and thus reigned as the first king of
+Northumbria as Northumbria. The Celtic name of the fortress was
+Dinguardi, or Dinguvardy; and tradition has it that this was Sir
+Lancelot's castle of Joyeuse Garde, where he had often feasted the
+Knights of the Round Table, and where he, at last, came home to die. The
+fact that Bamburgh is the only pre-Conquest castle in Northumberland
+disposes of the claim of Alnwick.
+
+"My fair lords," said sir Launcelot, "wit ye well, my careful body will
+into the earth; I have warning more than I will now say; therefore, I
+pray you, give me my rights." So when he was houseled and eneled, and
+had all that a Christian man ought to have, he prayed the bishop that
+his fellows might bear his body unto Joyous Gard.
+
+Some men say Anwick, and some men say to Bamborow; "how-beit," said sir
+Launcelot, "me repenteth sore; but I made mine avow aforetime, that in
+Joyous Gard I would be buried; and because of breaking of mine vow, I
+pray you all lead me thither." Then was there weeping and wringing of
+hands among all his fellows.
+
+And so, within fifteen days, they came to Joyous Gard, and there they
+laid his corpse in the body of the quire, and read many psalters and
+prayers over him and about him.... And right thus, as they were at their
+service, there came sir Ector de Maris, that had sought seven years all
+England, Scotland and Wales, seeking his brother sir Launcelot.... Then
+went sir Bors unto sir Ector, and told him how there lay his brother sir
+Launcelot dead.
+
+And then sir Ector threw his shield, his sword, and his helm from him;
+and when he beheld sir Launcelot's visage, he fell down in a swoon; and
+when he awoke, it were hard for any tongue to tell the doleful
+complaints that he made for his brother. "Ah! sir Launcelot," said he,
+"thou wert head of all Christian knights!" "And now, I dare say," said
+sir Bors, "that sir Launcelot, there thou liest, thou wert never matched
+of none earthly knight's hands; and thou wert the courtliest knight that
+ever bare a shield; and thou wert the truest friend to thy lover that
+ever bestrod horse; and thou wert the truest lover of a sinful man that
+ever loved woman; and thou wert the kindest man that ever stroke with
+sword; and thou wert the goodliest person that ever came among press of
+knights; and thou wert the meekest man, and the gentlest, that ever eat
+in hall among ladies; and thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal
+foe, that ever put spear in the rest."
+
+Then there was weeping and dolor out of measure.
+
+  --_Malory's Morte d'Arthur_.
+
+Ethelfrith, who succeeded Ethelric, gave the fort to his second wife,
+Bebba, after whom it was named Bebbanburgh, which soon became Bamburgh.
+
+In the days of King Edwin, who succeeded Ethelfrith, Bamburgh was the
+centre of a kingdom which extended from the Humber to the Forth, and as
+Northumbria was at that time the most important division of England, the
+royal city of Bernicia was practically the capital of the country. The
+reign of King Oswald, though shorter than that of Edwin, was equally
+noteworthy from the fact that in his days the gentle Aidan settled in
+Northumbria, and king and monk worked together for the good of their
+people, and Bamburgh became not only the seat of temporal power but the
+safeguard and bulwark of the spiritual movement centred on the little
+isle of Lindisfarne. On the accession of Edwin, Oswald, son of
+Ethelfrith, had fled from Bernicia and taken refuge with the monks of
+Iona, living with them till the time came for him to rule Northumbria in
+his turn. As soon as possible after the inevitable fighting for his
+political existence was over, he sent to Iona for a teacher to come and
+instruct his people in the truths he had learned; and a monk named
+Corman was sent. He, however, was unable to make any impression on the
+wild and warlike Saxons of the northern kingdom, and he soon returned to
+Iona with the report that it was useless to try to teach such obstinate
+and barbarous people. One of the brethren, listening to his account,
+ventured to ask him if he were sure that all the fault lay with the
+people. "Did you remember," said he, "that we are commanded to give them
+the milk first? Did you not rather try them with the strong meat?" With
+one accord the brethren declared that he who had spoken such wise words
+was the man best fitted for the task, and the gentle Aidan was sent to
+Oswald's help. In such a fashion came the Gospel to Northumbria, and
+Aidan became the first of the long roll of saints whose deeds and lives
+had such incalculable influence on Northumbrian history. From Aidan's
+arrival in 635 until the death of Oswald the relations between the king
+and the monk who had settled on Medcaud or Medcaut, soon to be known as
+Lindisfarne, and later as Holy Island, were those of friend to friend
+and fellow-worker, rather than those of king and subject.
+
+After the death of Oswald, his conqueror Penda, the fierce King of the
+Mercians, harried Northumbria, and appearing before the walls of
+Bamburgh prepared to burn it down. Piles of logs and brushwood were laid
+against the city and the fire was applied. Aidan, in his little cell on
+Farne Island, to which he had retired, saw the clouds of flame and smoke
+rolling over the home of his beloved patron. Raising his hands to
+Heaven, he exclaimed, "See, Lord, what ill Penda is doing!" Scarcely had
+he uttered the words, when the wind changed, and drove the flames away
+from Bamburgh, blowing them against Penda's host, who thereupon ceased
+all further attempts against the city.
+
+Not long after this, Aidan was at Bamburgh, when he was seized with
+sudden illness, and died with his head resting against one of the wooden
+stays of the little church. Penda came again the next year, and this
+time both village and church were burnt, all except, says tradition, the
+beam of wood against which Aidan had rested in his last moments.
+
+When the Danish ships appeared off our shores, in the two centuries
+following, Bamburgh was attacked and plundered several times. In the
+days of William Rufus, as we have seen, Robert de Mowbray, Earl of
+Northumberland, rebelled against the Red King, in company with his
+uncle the Bishop of Coutances, Robert of Normandy, and William of St.
+Carileph, Bishop of Durham. Rufus marched into Northumberland, but the
+quarrel was adjusted for the time; though private strife between the two
+Bishops led to Mowbray's driving the monks of Durham from the Priory at
+Tynemouth and replacing them by monks from St. Albans.
+
+Later, however, Mowbray disobeyed a summons from the Red King, who once
+more marched into Northumberland. He reached Bamburgh, and invested it,
+but failed to make any impression on that impregnable stronghold, within
+whose walls were Mowbray and his young wife, the Countess Matilda, and
+his nephew, who was Sheriff of Northumberland. Rufus, finding all
+attempts to carry the fortress useless, began to build a wooden fort,
+called a _Malvoisin_, or "Bad neighbour"; and so anxious was he to have
+it speedily erected that he made knights and nobles as well as his
+men-at-arms take part in the work.
+
+Mowbray, from the battlements, called out to many of these by name,
+openly taunting those who had secretly promised to join him, or had
+expressed themselves as in sympathy with his disobedience. His words
+gave great amusement to Rufus and the nobles who were truly loyal, and
+much mortification and vexation to those whom he so ruthlessly exposed.
+Rufus left the "Bad neighbour" to continue the siege and went southward.
+
+Mowbray, led to believe that Newcastle would receive him, and take his
+part, stole away from Bamburgh by sea, and reached Tynemouth. On
+proceeding to Newcastle, however, he found he had been mistaken, and
+hurriedly fled hack to Tynemouth, pursued by his enemies. He held out
+against them for a day or two, but was then captured and taken to
+Durham. Meanwhile the high-spirited Countess held Bamburgh against all
+assailants; but Mowbray's capture gave Rufus an advantage he was not
+slow to use. Returning to the North, he ordered Mowbray to be brought
+before the walls of Bamburgh, and threatened to put his eyes out if the
+Countess did not immediately surrender. Needless to say, she preferred
+to give up the castle, and Mowbray's reign as Earl of Northumberland was
+over.
+
+Thereafter Bamburgh was visited by various sovereigns in turn, when
+their affairs brought them to the northerly parts of their kingdom. When
+Balliol, tired of long years of conflict, surrendered most of his rights
+to Edward III., it was at Bamburgh that the convention was concluded. In
+this reign the castle was greatly strengthened.
+
+In the Wars of the Roses, Bamburgh was held for the queen by the
+Lancastrian nobles of the north country--Percy and Ros--with the Earl of
+Pembroke and Duke of Somerset; but was obliged on Christmas Eve, 1462,
+to capitulate to a superior force. The next year the Scots and the
+queen's French allies surprised it, and re-captured it for Henry VI. and
+his courageous queen; but Warwick, "the King-maker," came upon the
+scene, and after a stout resistance the garrison surrendered.
+
+When the Union of the Crowns took place in 1603, Bamburgh was no longer
+necessary as a defence against the Scots, and its defences were
+neglected. The Forsters, into whose hands it passed in the days of James
+I., were a spendthrift family, and gradually wasted their rich estate,
+until in 1704 it had to be sold, and was bought by Lord Crewe. He was
+Bishop of Durham at the time, having been promoted to that position by
+Charles II., who liked his handsome figure and pleasing manners. When at
+the age of fifty-eight, he wished to marry Dorothea Forster, daughter of
+Sir William Forster, of Bamburgh, the lady, who was many years younger,
+refused him at first; but some years later he renewed his suit, and this
+time was accepted. When the Forster estates were sold and their debts
+paid, there was scarcely anything left for the heirs--Lady Crewe and her
+nephew, Thomas Forster, who afterwards became the General of the
+ill-fated Jacobite rising in 1715, and whose escape after his capture
+was contrived by his high-spirited sister, Dorothy Forster the second.
+
+Lord Crewe, in his will, left a great part of his fortune to found the
+Bamburgh Trust, for which his name will ever be remembered. The most
+notable of the trustees, Archdeacon Sharp, administered the moneys in so
+wise and beneficent a manner that to him most of the credit is due for
+the real usefulness of the Crewe charities. These include a surgery and
+dispensary; schools; the relief of persons in distress; the clothing and
+educating of a certain number of girls; the maintenance of a lifeboat,
+life-saving apparatus, and everything necessary for the relief of
+ship-wrecked persons. A lifeboat, kept in the harbour at Holy Island, is
+always ready to go out on a signal from Bamburgh Castle.
+
+The castle was extensively restored and repaired by the late Lord
+Armstrong; but, sad to say, since his death it has been stripped of many
+of its treasures. The church, dedicated to St. Aidan, stands at the west
+end of the village; but there is no vestige remaining of the one built
+in Saxon times, the present building having been erected when Henry II.
+was king. In the churchyard is the grave of Grace Darling, and many
+hundreds come to look on the last resting place of the gentle girl who
+was yet so heroic, when her compassionate heart nerved her girlish frame
+to the gallant effort on behalf of her fellow-creatures in dire peril,
+when she
+
+  ".... rode the waves none else durst ride,
+                 None save her sire."
+
+The beautiful monument over her grave is by Raymond Smith, and is an
+exact duplicate of the original one, also by him, which was being
+injured so much by the weather that it was removed to a position inside
+the church. The duplicate was commissioned by Lord (then Sir William)
+Armstrong.
+
+The island on which yet stands the lighthouse which was Grace's home is
+the Longstone, almost the farthest seaward of the rocky group of the
+Farnes, lying almost opposite Bamburgh. The Longstone is only about four
+feet above high-water mark, so that in stormy weather the lighthouse is
+fiercely assailed by the heavy seas, and the keepers are often driven
+for refuge to the upper chambers. To the Longstone might with truth be
+attributed the opening lines of Kipling's poem, "The Coastwise
+Lights":--
+
+  "Our brows are bound with spindrift, and the weed is on our knees,
+  Our loins are battered 'neath us by the swinging, smoking seas;
+  From reef, and rock, and skerry, over headland, ness, and voe,
+  The coastwise lights of England watch the ships of England go."
+
+There are about twenty of these little islets to be seen at low tide,
+and very curious are some of their names--The Megstone, The Crumstone,
+The Navestone, The Harcars, The Wedums, The Noxes (Knokys), and The
+Wawmses. The largest, Farne Island, is the nearest to the coast, and is
+the one to which St. Aidan retired, and on which St. Cuthbert made
+himself a cell, and where he lived for some years, leaving Lindisfarne
+(Holy Island) very often for months together, to dwell alone on this
+almost bare rock and devote himself to holy meditation and prayer.
+
+To this island came King Ecgfrith of Northumbria with Archbishop
+Trumwine and other representatives of the Synod to beg the hermit to
+accept the Bishopric of Hexham; and it was on this island that St.
+Cuthbert died, the monks who had gone to look after him signalling the
+news of his death to his brethren at Lindisfarne by means of torches.
+The island is rocky and precipitous, with deep chasms between the high
+cliffs; and when a north wind blows, the columns of foam and spray, from
+the waters dashing into the chasms and over the tops of the cliffs, may
+be seen from the mainland rising high into the air.
+
+Before the first lighthouse was built on Farne Island, in 1766, a coal
+fire was kindled every night on the top of the tower-like building used
+as a fort. This method of warning passing vessels had been used
+continuously since the days of Charles II. In great contrast to this is
+the modern lighthouse, with its acetylene gas lights and its automatic
+flash apparatus.
+
+Close to Stapel Island are the three high basaltic pillars, of rock
+called the Pinnacles. On all these islands sea-birds breed, but
+especially on the Pinnacles, the Big and Little Harcar, and the islet
+called the Brownsman.
+
+Thousands and thousands of them perch and chatter on the rocks and fly
+screaming in the air, amongst them being guillemots, kittiwakes, gulls,
+terns, cormorants, puffins, and eider-ducks, for which latter St.
+Cuthbert is said to have had great affection; certainly they are the
+gentlest of these wild sea-fowl.
+
+Bidding farewell to the rocky Farnes, we sail past Budle Bay, into which
+runs the Warenburn and the Elwick burn, and underneath whose sandy flats
+is the buried town of Warnmouth, once a busy seaport, to which Henry
+III. granted a charter. Approaching Lindisfarne, "Our isle of Saints,
+low-lying on the blue breast of the curling waters, is hushed and silent
+in the lightly-purple mists of morning, like the wide aisles of a great
+cathedral at daybreak, before the feet and tongues of sightseers disturb
+the solemn stillness. The tideway is covered with water, and the
+footprints of the pilgrims who came yesterday to the shrine of St.
+Cuthbert have passed into oblivion like footmarks on the sands of time."
+(_Galloway Kyle_.) The modern pilgrim to Holy Island generally takes
+train to Beal station, and from there walks to the seashore, and crosses
+the long stretch of sand between Holy Island and the mainland. The
+governing factor in the possibility or otherwise of making the journey
+is the state of the tide, for these sands are entirely covered by the
+sea twice a day, so that Holy Island can only be said to be an island at
+high tide.
+
+  "For with the flow and ebb, its style
+  Varies from continent to isle;
+  Dry-shod, o'er sands, twice every day
+  The pilgrims to the shrine find way;
+  Twice every day the waves efface
+  Of staves and sandall'd feet the trace."
+
+There are dangerous quicksands on the way, too, and a row of stakes
+points out the proper course to be taken.
+
+We have already seen that St. Aidan settled on Lindisfarne and have
+treated of him in connection with Bamburgh. After his death another monk
+of Iona, Finan, succeeded him and carried on his work; and after Finan
+came Colman, who resigned after the Synod of Whitby had decided to keep
+Easter according to southern instead of northern usage. St. Cuthbert was
+Prior of Lindisfarne at this time. Later, the seat of the bishopric was
+removed from Lindisfarne to York, when it was held by that restless and
+able prelate, Wilfrid, for a time. Then the bishopric was divided and a
+see of Hexham formed, as well as that of Lindisfarne, which included
+Carlisle, out of the northern portion of the diocese of York.
+
+St. Cuthbert was bishop of Lindisfarne for two years, having exchanged
+sees with bishop Eata, who went to Hexham. The stone coffin in which St.
+Cuthbert's body was pieced, after his death on Farne Island, was buried
+on the right side of the altar in the Abbey of Lindisfarne, which by
+this time had arisen on the little island. A later bishop, Edfrid,
+executed a wonderful copy of the Gospels, which was illuminated by his
+successor, Ethelwald. Another bishop enclosed it in a cover of gold and
+silver, adorning it with jewels; and, later, a priest of Lindisfarne,
+Aldred, wrote between the lines a translation into the vernacular, and
+added marginal notes. This precious manuscript, a wonderful example of
+the beautiful work done in monastic houses in the north so many
+centuries ago, is now in the British Museum, where it is known as the
+"Durham Manuscript."
+
+When the pirate keels of the Danes appeared off our coasts about the end
+of the eighth century, Lindisfarne Abbey was one of the first points of
+attack; and in 793 it was plundered of most of its wealth, and many of
+the monks were slain. For nearly a century afterwards it was left in
+peace, but in 875 the Danish ships appeared again approaching from the
+south, where they had just sacked Tynemouth Priory. The bishop,
+Eardulph, last of the Lindisfarne prelates, and the brethren hastily
+collected their most treasured possessions, and with the body of St.
+Cuthbert, the bones of St. Aidan, and other precious relics, they fled
+from their island home, and journeyed north, west, and south for many
+years before they found a resting place at Chester-le-Street near
+Durham. For seven years they carried with them the body of St. Cuthbert;
+and it is said that the final choice of a resting place for the body of
+their beloved saint was indicated to them by supernatural means as they
+approached Durham.
+
+In 1069 William the Conqueror marched northward to visit with sternest
+punishment the hardy north-men, who were so long in submitting to his
+authority; and the monks of Durham fled before the advance of the
+relentless Norman, carrying with them, as before, the body of St.
+Cuthbert. They reached Lindisfarne in safety to find the Abbey in the
+ruinous state in which it had been left by the Danes two centuries
+earlier. Thus, once again, the body of St. Cuthbert rested on the little
+island where so many years of his life had been spent.
+
+In 1070 the brethren returned to Durham and in 1093 the building was
+begun, almost simultaneously, of the present glorious Cathedral of
+Durham and a new Priory and Church on Lindisfarne, and a strong
+resemblance may be traced between the two buildings The Abbey was
+deserted on the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII., and
+gradually fell into ruins.
+
+The Castle, which stands on a lofty whinstone rock at the south-east
+corner of the island, is a conspicuous object for many miles, whether
+viewed by land or sea. It is supposed to have been built in the reign of
+Henry VIII., at a time when defences were commanded to be made to all
+harbours. If the Castle has had any appreciable share of romantic
+incidents in its history, the records thereof seem to be unknown; but
+one which has come down to us is the account of its daring capture by an
+ardent North-country Jacobite, Lancelot Errington, in 1715. The
+garrison consisted of seven men, five of whom were absent. Errington,
+who was master of a small vessel lying in the harbour, discovered this,
+and immediately made his way to the Castle accompanied by his nephew,
+and overpowered the two men who were left in charge, turning them out of
+the Castle. He then signalled to the mainland for reinforcements, but
+none were forthcoming. A company of King's men came instead and
+re-occupied the place, Errington and his nephew escaping, to wander
+about in the neighbourhood for several days, hiding from pursuit, before
+they got clear away. The Castle was for many years the home of the
+coastguardsmen, who must have found it a most advantageous position for
+their purpose, as they had an uninterrupted view of miles of coast line.
+
+Northward from Holy Island, but on the mainland, lies Goswick, from
+whose red sandstone quarries came the material for building the Abbey of
+Lindisfarne. Further north we come in sight of the coal pits and smoke
+of Scremerston, while beyond it, Spittal and Tweedmouth bring us right
+up to Berwick-on-Tweed itself, that grey old Border town which has seen
+so many turns of fortune, and been harried again and again, only to draw
+breath after each wild and cruel interlude, and go calmly on its quiet
+way until it was once more called upon to fight for its very existence.
+
+Though definitely forming part of English soil since 1482, it is not
+included in any English county, but, with about eight square miles
+around it, forms a county by itself. Hence the addition, to any Royal
+proclamation, of the well-known words "And in our Town of
+Berwick-upon-Tweed."
+
+Sir Walter Scott's description of the Northumbrian coast, in his poem of
+Marmion may well be recalled here. It will be remembered that the
+Abbess of Whitby, with some of her nuns, was voyaging to Holy Island,
+and we take up the description when
+
+  ".... the vessel skirts the strand
+  Of mountainous Northumberland;
+  Towns, towers, and halls successive rise,
+  And catch the nuns' delighted eyes.
+  Monkwearmouth soon behind them lay,
+  And Tynemouth's Priory and bay. They
+  marked, amid her trees, the hall Of lofty Seaton Delaval;
+  They saw the Blyth and Wansbeck floods
+  Rush to the sea through sounding woods;
+  They passed the tower of Widdrington,
+  Mother of many a valiant son;
+  At Coquet-isle their beads they tell
+  To the good saint who owned the cell.
+  Then did the Alne attention claim,
+  And Warkworth, proud of Percy's name;
+  And next they crossed themselves, to hear
+  The whitening breakers sound so near,
+  Where, boiling through the rocks, they roar
+  On Dunstanborough's caverned shore.
+  Thy tower, proud Bamburgh, marked they there,
+  King Ida's castle, huge and square,
+  From its tall rock look grimly down
+  And on the swelling ocean frown.
+  Then from the coast they bore away
+  And reached the Holy Island's bay.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  As to the port the galley flew,
+  Higher and higher rose to view
+  The castle with its battled walls,
+  The ancient monastery's halls,
+  A solemn, huge, and dark-red pile
+  Placed on the margin of the isle.
+
+  In Saxon strength that abbey frowned,
+  With massive arches, broad and round.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  On the deep walls, the heathen Dane
+  Had poured his impious rage in vain;
+  And needful was such strength to these,
+  Exposed to the tempestuous seas,
+  Scourged by the winds' eternal sway,
+  Open to rovers fierce as they.
+  Which could twelve hundred years withstand
+  Winds, waves, and northern pirates' hand."
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+NORTH AND SOUTH TYNE.
+
+  "On Kielder-side the wind blaws wide;
+  There sounds nae hunting horn
+  That rings sae sweet as the winds that beat
+  Round banks where Tyne is born."
+   --_A.C. Swinburne_.
+
+Between Peel Fell and Mid Fell, almost the farthest western heights of
+the Cheviot Hills, a little mountain stream takes its rise, and flows to
+the south and east. This little burn is the North Tyne, the beginnings
+of that stream which, deep, dark, and swift at its mouth, bears the
+mighty battleships there built to carry the war-flags of the nations
+round the world. In the wild and lovely district where the North Tyne
+takes its rise, is Kielder Castle, a shooting box belonging to the Duke
+of Northumberland.
+
+This neighbourhood is the scene of two romantic ballads; that of the
+"Cowt (colt) of Kielder" and the Ettrick Shepherd's ballad of "Sir David
+Graeme." The deadly enemy of the young "Cowt," so called from his great
+strength, is Lord Soulis of Hermitage Castle, on the Scottish side of
+the border. The Cowt, with his followers, was enticed into the Castle,
+where Lord Soulis purposed his death; but the gigantic youth burst
+through the circle of his foes and escaped. The evil Brownie of the
+moorland, however, gave to Lord Soulis the secret which safeguarded the
+young Cowt. His coat of mail was sword-proof by a spell of enchantment,
+and he wore in his helmet rowan and holly leaves; but these would all be
+of no avail against the power of running water. The Cowt was pursued
+until, in crossing a burn, he stumbled and lost his helmet, and ere he
+recovered, his enemies were upon him, and they held him under water
+until he was drowned.
+
+Not far from the mouth of the Bell Burn, which here runs into the Tyne,
+a circle of stones outside an ancient burial ground is known as the
+Cowt's Grave.
+
+  "This is the bonny brae, the green,
+  Yet sacred to the brave,
+  Where still, of ancient size, is seen
+  Gigantic Kieldar's grave.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Where weeps the birch with branches green
+  Without the holy ground,
+  Between two old grey stones is seen
+  The warrior's ridgey mound.
+
+  And the hunters bold of Kieldar's train,
+  Within yon castle's wall,
+  In a deadly sleep must aye remain
+  Till the ruined towers down fall."
+
+In the ballad of "Sir David Graeme," by James Hogg, the lady of the
+story watched out of her window in vain for the coming of her "noble
+Graeme," who had vowed that the hate of her father and brothers would
+not keep him from coming to carry off his fair lady on St. Lambert's
+night.
+
+  "The sun had drunk frae Kieldar Fell
+  His beverage o' the morning dew;
+  The deer had crouched her in the dell,
+  The heather oped its bells o' blue.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  The lady to her window hied,
+  And it opened o'er the banks o' Tyne;
+  An' "O! alack," she said, and sighed,
+  "Sure ilka breast is blythe but mine?"
+
+Her forebodings prove only too true, for her lover's faithful hound
+seeks her out, and with mournful looks induces her to follow him over
+Deadwater Fell, and guides her to a lonely spot where the body of the
+gallant Graeme, slain by her brothers, is lying.
+
+In the neighbourhood of these desolate Fells are to be found many traces
+of ancient British Camps.
+
+The little mountain streams which here help to swell the stream of the
+North Tyne are, on the south side, the Lewis and Whickhope Burns, and on
+the north, the Plashetts and Hawkhope Burns. On both sides of the Tyne,
+near the Whickhope and the Hawkhope Burns are many remains of an ancient
+pre-historic forest, the largest being near the Whickhope Burn where the
+abnormally thick stems of trees may be seen.
+
+The little village of Falstone is set amongst trees, in the midst of
+pleasant meadows, a welcome relief from the bare fells and moorlands
+around it; yet this wild scenery has a distinct fascination of its own,
+and adds not a little to the charm of the varied landscape within the
+bounds of our northern county. At Falstone a fragment of an ancient
+cross was discovered, with an inscription carved upon it--in Roman
+letters on one side and in the Runes of the Anglo-Saxons on the other.
+The inscription states that a certain Eamer set up the cross in memory
+of his uncle Hroethbert, and asks for prayers for his soul. The
+existence of a similarly inscribed cross is not known, so that the
+Society of Antiquaries, in whose keeping this cross rests, has in it
+probably a unique treasure.
+
+The Tarset Burn, upon which stands the village of Thorneyburn, runs into
+the Tyne not far from Falstone, and reminds us of the old Border-riding
+days, when the rallying-cry of the men of the district in many a feud
+with neighbouring clans was--"Tarset and Tarret Burn, Hard and
+heather-bred, yet-yet-yet." Near the spot where the Tarset Burn joins the
+Tyne is a grassy hill on which once stood Tarset Castle, a stronghold of
+that Red Comyn whom Bruce slew in the little chapel at Dumfries, and of
+whose death Bruce's friend Kirkpatrick said he would "mak' siccar"!
+
+The village of Charlton, on the north bank of the Tyne, and the mansion
+of Hesleyside on the other, carry the mind back to the old reiving
+plundering days, for it was at Hesleyside that the incident of the
+ancient spur of the Charlton's took place, doubtless many a time and
+oft, when the good lady of Hesleyside served up the spur at dinner as a
+gentle hint that the larder was empty, and it behoved her lord to mount
+and away to replenish the same, preferably with stock from the Scottish
+side of the border, or if not, a neighbour's cattle would serve equally
+well.
+
+The Charltons, Robsons (possibly the lineal descendants of "Hroethbert"
+of the ancient cross) and Armstrongs, held almost undisputed sway over
+this region, and the district teems with reminders of their prowess and
+traditions of their exploits. The men of Tynedale (the North Tyne) and
+Redesdale were known as the fiercest and most lawless in all that wild
+district. Redesdale is a district of monotonous, almost dreary,
+moorlands, and wild, bare fells, where sheep graze on what scanty
+provender the bleak hills afford, finding better fare, however, in the
+valleys near the river banks, where the pasture is fresh and green.
+
+Bellingham is to-day the most considerable village of the neighbourhood;
+it stands conveniently at the foot of the hills where the little Belling
+Burn, or Hareshaw Burn, joins the main stream. In Hareshaw woods is the
+beautiful Hareshaw Linn, where the stream falls down through a break in
+the sandstone cliffs, and forms a picturesque waterfall, fringed with
+ferns and trees and cool mosses. It well repays one for the walk of a
+mile or so through tangled underwoods by the side of the burn.
+Bellingham gives its mime to the family of de Bellingham, whose chief
+seat, however, is now in Ireland and no longer in the little
+north-country town.
+
+The massive church here, with its roof of stone, bears eloquent
+testimony to the need for fireproof buildings in a village so near to
+Scotland in the days of Border warfare. Outside the churchyard wall is
+the well of St. Cuthbert, or "Cuddy's Well," which was greatly venerated
+in early days, and many stories are told of the miraculous power of its
+waters. Inside the churchyard a grave is pointed out as the burial place
+of the robber whose tragic end was told by James Hogg in his gruesome
+story of "The Long Pack."
+
+The village itself is plain and bare, as might be expected from a
+settlement which would probably find that unattractiveness in either
+wealth or appearance was a tolerable safeguard.
+
+Below Bellingham the North Tyne is joined by its longest and most noted
+tributary, the Rede Water, which also rises in the Cheviots. Rising in
+the hills north of Carter Fell, it flows south-east, through a wild
+region, passing, while still high up amongst the hills, the little
+village of Byrness, and the new reservoir at Catcleugh, where a supply
+of pure water is stored for the use of the dwellers in distant
+Newcastle. On its way to the Tyne, it passes many an old pele-tower, and
+the Roman stations of Bremenium (Rochester) and Habitancum, near
+Woodburn. The ancient Roman road of Watling Street crosses the Rede at
+Woodburn, leading from Habitancum to Bremenium.
+
+Many mountain streams, clear and sparkling, or peaty and brown, join the
+Rede Water on its way, amongst others the little Otter Burn, by whose
+banks took place that stirring episode in the constant quarrels between
+the Douglases and Percies known as "Chevy Chase," from which the fierce
+battle-cries ring down the five centuries that have passed since that
+time, with sounds that echo still.
+
+The pretty village of Redesmouth (or Reedsmouth) stands where the Rede
+Water enters the North Tyne, and a few miles further on the rapid little
+Houxty Burn pours its peaty waters into the main stream.
+
+On the right bank of the Tyne stands Wark, conveniently placed at one of
+the most important fords of the Tyne in former days. Like other towns
+and villages so placed on different streams throughout the country, the
+advantages of its situation have evidently been appreciated by the
+successive inhabitants of the land, for there are traces of its
+occupation by Celt, Roman, and Saxon; and, later, the town was the most
+considerable in Upper Tynedale. During the time that this part of
+England was ceded to the Scottish Kings, David and Alexander, it was at
+Wark that the Scottish law courts for Tynedale held their sittings. The
+mound called the Mote Hill, near the river, marks the spot where, in all
+probability, the ancient Celtic inhabitants met together to administer
+the rude justice of prehistoric times, and to make the laws of their
+little settlement, which grew to much greater proportions in later
+years. In fact, it is supposed that the Kirkfield marks the site of a
+church which stood in the midst of the once extensive town.
+
+A little way up the Wark Burn, above the bridge, there may be seen some
+upright stems of Sigillaria in the exposed face of the cliffs. On the
+opposite side of the river from Wark is Chipchase Castle, one of the
+finest mansions in Northumberland, standing in the midst of the
+beautifully wooded and picturesque scenery which, from this point
+onwards is characteristic of the North Tyne. Of the former village of
+Chipchase scarcely a trace remains, though its name, if nothing else,
+shows that here has been a village or small town, important enough to
+have its well-known, market; for "Chip," like the various "Chippings"
+throughout England is derived from the Anglo-Saxon _ciepan_--to buy and
+sell, to traffic. In the reign of Henry II., Chipchase was the property
+of the Umfravilles of Prudhoe; but later it passed into the hands of the
+well-known Northumbrian family of Heron.
+
+Not far from Chipchase Castle are the famous Gunnerton Crags, formed by
+an out-crop of the Great Whin Sill. These lofty cliffs have been the
+site of a considerable settlement of the ancient British tribes who
+dwelt in the district in such numbers, as is evident from the scores of
+camps, which may be traced all over this part of Northumberland. The
+naturally strong position on the Gunnerton Crags, would be certain to
+commend itself to a people, the first requisite of whose dwelling places
+was strength and consequent safety.
+
+At Barrasford the making of the railway cutting led to the opening up of
+a large barrow, or burial place, of the ancient Britons; and a single
+"menhir," supposed to be the solitary survivor of a large group of these
+huge stones, stood near the village school some years ago.
+
+Passing Chollerton and Humshaugh, embowered amongst spreading trees, we
+arrive at Chollerford, the prettiest village of North Tyne, lying near
+the river where it was crossed by the Roman Wall. From the bridge which
+spans the Tyne at Chollerford one of the finest views of the river, both
+up and down the stream, is to be seen; and to watch the swift brown
+stream, after a flood or a freshet, foaming through the arches is an
+exhilarating sight. The bridge itself is a modern one, for we know that
+all the bridges on the Tyne, except that of Corbridge, were swept away
+by the great flood of 1771.
+
+In 1394, that prince of bridge-builders, Bishop Walter de Skirlaw of
+Durham, granted thirteen days' indulgence to all who should assist in
+rebuilding the bridge at Chollerford; so that already there was one here
+which had evidently fallen into disrepair. Yet, in the ballad of "Jock
+o' the Side," the rescuers, with Jock in their midst, reach Chollerford,
+and, after some anxious questioning of an old man as to whether the
+"water will ride," are compelled to swim the Tyne in flood, which their
+pursuers, coming up, will not attempt to do. Now Bishop Skirlaw's
+bridges did not usually disappear; those of Yarm, Shincliffe, and
+Auckland have stood until to-day, with occasional repairs. Are we then
+reluctantly to question the truth of "Jock o' the Side"? Surely, if the
+choice remain of the accuracy of the ballad or the fact of the bridge,
+it is the duty of all leal North-country people to swear by the ballad.
+Perhaps the good Bishop did not personally oversee the rebuilding of
+Chollerford Bridge: more probably the Wear and Tees do not come down
+with the angry impetuosity of the Tyne in flood!
+
+The remains of the great Roman camp of Cilurnum (The Chesters) may be
+seen here within Mrs. Clayton's park. This was the largest military
+station in Northumberland, Corstopitum, which is very much larger, being
+more of a civil settlement. At some little distance below the present
+bridge some of the piers of the old Roman bridge are still to be seen
+when the river is low.
+
+Eastward from Chollerford is the little church of St. Oswald, standing
+where the battle of Heavenfield took place. When Penda of Mercia, and
+the British Prince Cadwallon, were warring against Northumbria, the
+greatest Northumbrian King, Edwin, was defeated and slain by them; and
+on their return to the attack, Ethelfrith's eldest son, called back from
+exile to take the vacant throne, and rule in his father's seat of
+Bamburgh, also fell before their fierce onslaught. His brother Oswald
+now took command of the Bernicians and prepared to lead them against the
+foe. Oswald posted his men in a strong position on the north side of the
+great Wall; and, setting up a huge cross of wood, called upon all his
+followers to bow before the God of whom he had learnt during his exile
+in Iona, and to pray to Him for victory. His army obeyed, and, in the
+battle which followed, Oswald's forces were completely victorious. The
+Mercians, and their allies, the western Britons, were routed, and driven
+out of Bernicia, and Cadwallon was pursued as far as the Denise Burn,
+and there slain. The Denise Burn is supposed to have been the Rowley
+Burn, which flows into the Devil's Water, on whose banks stands Dilsten
+Castle. Some time later, on the spot where Oswald's Cross had stood, a
+church was erected and dedicated to the royal Saint. It was served from
+Hexham Abbey.
+
+After passing Wall, which, however, is not quite so near the Roman Wall
+as Chollerford is, we come to the pretty village of Warden, nestling
+beneath the woods of Warden Hill; and here, just above Hexham, the North
+Tyne unites with its sister river in the rich meadow lands which lie
+near the old town.
+
+The South Tyne has journeyed from Cross Fell, where it takes its rise,
+northward through a corner of Cumberland, past Garrygill and Alston,
+until it enters Northumberland where the Ayle Burn on the one hand, and
+the Gilderdale Burn on the other, flow into it. Here is Whitley Castle,
+where was a small Roman station called Alio, and Kirkhaugh Church,
+charmingly placed on the bank of the river, which continues its course
+northward past Slaggyford, Knaresdale, Eals, and Lambley, till it flows
+past the fine Castle of Featherstone, and the ruins of Bellister, where
+it turns eastward to Haltwhistle.
+
+The little streams which enter the South Tyne up to this point flow
+through wild and romantic glens, two of them owning the Celtic names of
+_Glen Cune_ and _Glen Dhu_.
+
+The family of Featherstonehaugh is one of the oldest in the North; and
+it was concerning the death of one of this family--Sir Albany
+Featherstonehaugh, who was High Sheriff of Northumberland in the days of
+Henry VIII.--that Mr. Surtees, the antiquary, wrote the well-known
+ballad, which, when Surtees gave it him, deceived even Sir Walter Scott
+into thinking it genuinely ancient. The first verse of the ballad shows
+with what a verve and swing the lines go.
+
+  "Hoot awa', lads, hoot awa'
+  Ha' ye heard how the Ridleys, an' Thirlwalls, an' a'
+  Ha' set upon Albany Featherstonehaugh;
+  And taken his life at the Deadmanshaw?
+  There was Willimoteswick,
+  And Hard-riding Dick,
+  An' Hughie o' Hawdon, an' Will o' the Wa'
+  I canno' tell a', I canno' tell a'
+  And mony a mair that the de'il may knaw."
+
+The ruins of Bellister Castle stand against a sombre background of
+woods, only a little way from Haltwhistle. The Castle once belonged to
+the Blenkinsopp family, who also owned Blenkinsopp Castle, about two
+miles away. The name was formerly spelt Blencan's-hope--the hope being
+valley or hollow--and the Castle, like many other places, has its
+legendary "White Lady."
+
+Haltwhistle is a little straggling town lying on both sides of the main
+road above the South Tyne, where it is joined by the Haltwhistle Burn.
+By going up the valley of this pretty little stream we shall arrive near
+the Roman station of AEsica, on the Wall. The town of Haltwhistle is
+peaceful enough now, but it had a stirring existence in the days when
+Ridleys, Armstrongs, and Charltons, to say nothing of the men of
+Liddesdale and Teviotdale, had so strong a partiality for a neighbour's
+live-stock and so ready a hand with arrow and spear. In the old ballad
+of "The Fray of Hautwessel," we are told that
+
+  "The limmer thieves o' Liddesdale
+  Wadna leave a kye in the haill countrie,
+  But an[3] we gi'e them the cauld steel,
+  Our gear they'll reive it a' awaye,
+  Sae pert they stealis, I you saye.
+  O' late they came to Hautwessel,
+  And thowt they there wad drive a fray.
+  But Alec Ridley shot too well."
+  [Footnote 3: But an = unless.]
+
+The most notable feature of present-day Haltwhistle is the finely placed
+parish church, of which the chancel is the oldest part, having been
+built in the twelfth century, so that it was already an old church when
+Edward I. rested here for a night in 1306, on his way to Scotland for
+the last time. When William the Lion of Scotland returned from his
+captivity, after being taken prisoner at Alnwick in 1174, he founded the
+monastery of Arbroath in thanksgiving for his freedom, and bestowed on
+the monks the church of Haltwhistle.
+
+All that remains of the old Castle, or "Haut-wysill Tower," is the
+building standing near the Castle Hill, which latter has been fortified
+by earthworks. The Red Lion Hotel is a modernised pele-tower. The
+general aspect of the place is singularly bare and bleak; but from
+several points in the town, notably from the churchyard terrace, fine
+views of the river valley may be obtained.
+
+Henshaw (Hethinga's-haugh) is a little village which King David of
+Scotland, when he was Lord of Tynedale, gave to Richard Cumin and his
+wife, who afterwards bestowed it on the Cathedral of Durham. It lies by
+the side of the main road to Bardon Mill, which is the most convenient
+station for travellers to alight at who wish to visit the Roman Wall and
+the Roman city of Borcovicus, and the Northumberland lakes. Some little
+distance up the hill from Bardon Mill station is a very pretty little
+village whose name speaks eloquently of other invaders than the
+Romans--the village of Thorngrafton (the "ton" or settlement on Thor's
+"graf" or dyke). Near at hand there are quarries from which the Romans
+obtained much building material for the Wall; and in one of these old
+quarries some workmen discovered a bronze vessel full of Roman coins, a
+few of gold, but most of silver. This was known as the "Thorngrafton
+Find," and the interesting story of it is told by Dr. Bruce.
+
+On the opposite side of the South Tyne from Henshaw, Willimoteswick
+Castle stands on the level plains which are as characteristic of the
+south bank of the river as are the steep slopes of the north bank. One
+of the towers of this old Castle yet remains, and forms part of the more
+modern farm-house which stands there. Willimoteswick was long in the
+possession of the Ridleys, and it is generally accepted as having been
+the birthplace of Bishop Ridley, though Unthank Hall, nearer to
+Haltwhistle, and also a home of that family, disputes the honour. The
+Bishop, who suffered death at the stake in the troublous times of Queen
+Mary, in touching letters bids farewell to his Cousin at Willimoteswick
+and his sister and her children at Unthank.
+
+On the same side of the Tyne is Beltingham Church, with some wonderful
+old trees in the churchyard, and Ridley Hall, which takes its name from
+that family, although not now occupied by them. Here the Allen flows
+into the South Tyne, and nowhere in the whole of the county is there a
+more beautiful and romantic scene. By the side of the stream the Ridley
+woods stretch for a mile or two, and the delightful mingling of graceful
+ferns, overhanging trees, tall, rugged cliffs, flowering plants, and
+sparkling waters forms a succession of lovely scenes throughout their
+length, which, with the play of lights and shadows on the dimpled
+surface of the stream, and frequent glimpses of grassy glades and cool
+green alleys, make a walk through these enchanting woods an
+unforgettable delight.
+
+The Allen Burn, which gives its name to the beautiful district of
+Allendale, is, like the Tyne, formed by the junction of two streams, the
+East and West Allen, which rise near each other in hills on the border
+of Northumberland and Durham, down the opposite slopes of which run the
+little streams which feed the Wear. After flowing apart for some miles,
+the East and West Allen unite not far from Staward railway station. Both
+rivers flow, for the first part of their course, through a wild and
+hilly region, rich, however, in minerals. On the East Allen are the
+towns of Allenheads, formerly a busy centre of the lead-mining industry,
+and Allendale Town, which lies about 1,400 feet above the sea-level.
+
+As the lead-mining industry has decreased, Allendale has turned its
+attention to other methods of living, and now caters for the army of
+visitors who, each summer, climb its hills and wander through its woods
+and lanes, and by its riverside, as did the Allendale maid whose memory
+is perpetuated in the simple lines of the little poem, "Lucy Gray of
+Allendale."
+
+  "Say, have you seen the blushing rose,
+  The blooming pink, or lily pale?
+  Fairer than any flower that blows
+  Was Lucy Gray of Allendale.
+
+  Pensive at eve, down by the burn,
+  Where oft the maid they used to hail,
+  The shepherds now are heard to mourn
+  For Lucy Gray of Allendale."
+
+Not far from the village of Catton, the name of "Rebel Hill" reminds us
+that it was a vicar of Allendale, Mr. Patten, who joined young
+Derwentwater in the rising of "The Fifteen," and was appointed chaplain
+of the little army. He met some half-dozen men of the neighbourhood at
+this hill, when they set off together to join the rest of the forces at
+Wooler.
+
+On the West Allen is the lonely little hamlet of Ninebanks, with
+Ninebanks Tower, concerning which little is known with certainty; and on
+this stream also are two of the most strikingly beautiful places in
+Northumberland--the delightfully picturesque village of Whitfield, and
+the well-known Staward-le-Peel.
+
+The ruins of the "Pele" tower stand on a high grassy platform,
+safeguarded on three sides by tall cliffs and tumbled boulders; the
+remains of a ditch may also be traced. From this point a splendid view
+of the river valley, with its steep precipices, overhanging pinewoods
+intermingled with trees of less sombre hue, and the bright course of the
+river, may be obtained. At a point a little higher up the valley, where
+the waters of the stream are held back by some huge rocks, they form a
+deep pool, and then flow onwards through a narrow gorge called Cyper's
+Linn. Following the stream now until it has merged its waters in those
+of the South Tyne, we turn eastward with the main stream and come to
+Haydon Bridge.
+
+This considerable village, gradually growing to the proportions of a
+small town, lies on both sides of the river, which is here crossed by
+the substantial bridge from which the village takes its name; for the
+original village of Haydon stood at some distance up the hill on the
+north side of the stream. On the hillside may still be seen the ruins of
+the old church, in which services are occasionally held in the summer
+time. The chancel, apparently dating from the twelfth century, and a
+later little chapel to the south of it, are all that are left of the
+building. Some very quaint inscriptions are to be seen in the
+churchyard, and there are many sculptured grave-covers within the
+church. Many of the stones used in the building have evidently been
+brought from the great Wall, or probably from the Roman station of
+Borcovicus, some six or seven miles to the north; and what a rush of
+bewildering fancies crowds upon one's mind on first discovering that the
+font was originally a Roman altar!
+
+The old church must have looked down on many a wild and curious scene in
+the days when Scot and Englishman sought only opportunities to do each
+other an injury, and the river-valleys were the natural passes through
+which the tide of invasion, raid, and reprisal flowed.
+
+In the beginning of the reign of Edward III., about 24,000 Scots, under
+Douglas and Murray, crossed the Tyne near Haydon Bridge, and rode on to
+plunder the richer lands that lay to the south and west. They reached
+Stanhope and encamped there for a time. The young king set out
+northwards with a great army to punish these marauders, and he was told
+by his scouts that they had hastily left Stanhope on his approach. He
+and his army pushed on quickly until they reached Bardon Mill; and,
+crossing the Tyne, marched down to Haydon Bridge, expecting the Scots to
+return by the way they went. It was miserable weather, and the feeding
+of so many thousands of men was no little problem. They scoured all the
+country round for provisions, getting the most from the Hexham Abbey
+lands. Meanwhile it rained and rained, and no Scots appeared. After a
+week of waiting, Edward, in great disappointment, went to Haltwhistle,
+while his followers reconnoitered in all directions. Finally, he had the
+mortification of learning that the Scots were still at Stanhope, but
+before anything more could be done, they betook themselves back to
+Scotland by a different route, and there was nothing left for Edward but
+to give up the expedition in despair.
+
+The bridge at Haydon appears to have been the only one for some distance
+up and down the river in the sixteenth century, for we read of its being
+barred and chained, on various occasions of marauding troubles in
+Tynedale, to prevent the free-booters re-crossing the river.
+
+In the days of Charles I. Colonel Lilburn marched to Haydon Bridge in
+command of some troops of the Roundheads, on his way to join their
+comrades at Hexham as a counter-move to the operations of the Royalist
+troops in the North. Little more than thirty years after this, when the
+days of Cromwell's power had come and gone, and Charles II. ruled at
+Whitehall, the old Grammar School was founded at Haydon Bridge in 1685
+by a clergyman, the Rev. John Shafto. Various changes have taken place
+in the school from time to time, necessitated by the gradual changes and
+educational needs of the passing years; and now, like the Grammar School
+of Queen Elizabeth at Hexham, it has been entirely re-constituted to
+meet modern requirements. John Martin, the famous painter of "The Plains
+of Heaven," received the beginnings of his education at this school. He
+was born at East Land Ends farm in 1789. In after years the authorities
+of Haydon Bridge Reading Room, wishing no doubt to afford a perfect
+example to future generations of the truth of the proverb concerning a
+prophet and his own country, refused some of Martin's pictures, which
+the gifted painter himself offered to them--an act which their
+successors have doubtless regretted.
+
+At a little distance along the Langley Road, which leads past the
+school, a memorial cross is standing. It was erected in 1883 by the late
+Mr. C.J. Bates, the historian of Northumberland, to the memory of the
+last of the Derwentwater family, whose castle of Langley he purchased.
+The inscription on the cross reads:--"To the memory of James and
+Charles, Viscounts Langley, Earls of Derwentwater, beheaded on Tower
+Hill, London, 24th February, 1716, and 8th December, 1746, for loyalty
+to their lawful sovereign."
+
+A striking testimony, this, to the fact that freedom in England is a
+reality, and not merely a name. In what other land would an inscription
+such as this have been allowed to remain for more than twenty-four
+hours?
+
+A couple of miles or more down the South Tyne is Fourstones, so called
+because of four stones, said to have been Roman altars, having been used
+to mark its boundaries. A romantic use was made of one of these stones
+in the early days of "The Fifteen." Every evening, as dusk fell, a
+little figure, clad in green, stole up to the ancient altar, which had
+been slightly hollowed out, and, taking out a packet, laid another in
+its place. The mysterious packets, placed there so secretly, were
+letters from the Jacobites of the neighbourhood to each other; and the
+little figure in green was a boy who acted as messenger for them. No
+wonder that the people of the district gave this altar the name of the
+"Fairy Stone."
+
+Between Haydon Bridge and Fourstones are both freestone and limestone
+quarries, which latter have supplied many fossils to visitors of
+geological tastes. Halfway between Fourstones and Hexham, the two
+streams of North and South Tyne unite, and flow together down to the old
+town of Hexham, with its quaintly irregular buildings clustering in
+picturesque confusion round its ancient Abbey, which dominates the
+landscape from whatever point we approach.
+
+Warden Village, already mentioned, lies in the angle formed by the
+meeting of the two streams, and has an ancient church which, however,
+has been largely rebuilt. From High Warden, near at hand, a delightful
+view may be obtained for a long distance up the valleys of North and
+South Tyne. On the summit of this hill there are the remains of a
+considerable British camp, showing that they had seized upon this point
+of vantage, and though the ancient British name has not come down to us,
+it is evident from the Saxon name of Warden (_weardian_) that Saxons as
+well as Britons were fully alive to the merits of the situation,
+"guarding" the valley at such a commanding point.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+DOWN THE TYNE.
+
+
+The town of Hexham, standing on hilly ground overlooking the Tyne,
+immediately below the point at which the North and South Tyne unite, and
+spreading from thence down to the levels all round, is one of the most
+ancient in the kingdom. To write of Hexham with any measure of fulness
+would require much more space than can be given to it within the limits
+of a small book; only a mere summary can be offered here. Britons,
+Romans, and Saxons, in turn, have dwelt on and around the hill which, in
+Saxon days, was to be crowned with Wilfrid's beautiful Abbey, which, we
+read, surpassed all others in England at that time for beauty and
+excellence of design and workmanship; nor was there another to equal it
+anywhere on this side of the Alps.
+
+The name of Hexham is generally understood to be derived from the names
+of two little streams, the Hextol and the Halgut, now the Cowgarth and
+the Cockshaw Burns, which here flow into the Tyne; or, as Mr. Bates
+suggests, it may have been the "ham" of "some forgotten Hagustald,"
+which the name perpetuates. In any case its name was Hagustaldesham when
+King Ecgfrith (or Egfrid) of Northumbria gave it to his queen,
+Etheldreda, who wished to take the veil. Queen Etheldreda, however,
+preferred to go to East Anglia, which was her home; she retired to a
+convent at Ely, and bestowed the land at Hagustaldesham on Wilfrid, a
+monk of Lindisfarne, clever, ambitious and hardworking, who had become
+Bishop of York, which meant Bishop of all Northumbria.
+
+Wilfrid had been to Rome, and seen the churches of that city and of the
+lands through which he travelled; and, on his appointment to power, he
+set himself to make the churches of his diocese worthy to compare with
+those of older civilizations. He did much to the cathedral of York, and
+built that of Ripon; but the Abbey of Hexham was his masterpiece. He
+built a monastery and church, dedicating the latter to St. Andrew, for
+it was in the church of St. Andrew at Rome that, kneeling, he felt
+himself fired with enthusiasm for his work, in the same church from
+which Augustine had set out on his journey to Britain some fifty years
+before. The year 674 is generally accepted as the date on which this
+noble Abbey was founded.
+
+Wilfrid lived in great splendour at York, and ruled his immense diocese
+with a firm hand; in fact, he was the first of that line of great
+ecclesiastics who have moved with such proud, and oft-times turbulent,
+progress through the pages of English history. King Ecgfrith's second
+wife, Ermenburga, was jealous of the great power and magnificence of the
+Northumbrian prelate, and through her influence, Archbishop Theodore was
+induced to divide the huge diocese of Northumbria into four
+portions--York, Hexham, Ripon and Withern in Galloway. Wilfrid,
+naturally indignant, found all his protests disregarded, and immediately
+set out for Rome, to obtain a decree of restitution from the Pope. It
+was given to him, but little cared the Northumbrians for that. Wilfrid
+was imprisoned for nine months, and then banished from Northumbria.
+
+He went southwards and dwelt in Sussex, where his genius for hard work
+found scope in a mission to the Saxons of the south lands, and where he
+built and founded more churches and monasteries. Readers of "Rewards
+and Fairies" will have made acquaintance with Wilfrid in his Sussex
+wanderings and hardships. On his recall to the North by King Aldfrith,
+he returned to Hexham. On the death of Aldfrith, the new King, Edwulf,
+banished Wilfrid once more, ordering him to leave the kingdom within six
+days; but the friends of Aldfrith's young son, whom Edwulf had
+dispossessed, obtained the ascendancy, and Wilfrid was re-instated in
+his Abbeys of Hexham and Ripon.
+
+While on his way back from Rome, on his last visit, Wilfrid had a severe
+illness, but was granted a vision in which he was told that he had four
+years more to live, and that he must build a church to the honour of the
+Blessed Virgin. The little church of St. Mary, which stood close to the
+walls of the great Abbey of Hexham, was erected in fulfilment of this
+command.
+
+In the Abbey church itself, all that was known for centuries of the
+original work of Wilfrid was the famous crypt, which is almost unique,
+that of Ripon, also the work of Wilfrid, being the only one like it; but
+recent excavations have brought much more of the ancient cathedral to
+light, and laid bare, not only its original plan, but some of the walls,
+and part of the very pavement trodden by the feet of Wilfrid and his
+fellows so many centuries ago. The tomb of Wilfrid, however, is not at
+Hexham, but at his other foundation of Ripon.
+
+The ancient Abbey suffered much at the hands of the Danes, and in later
+years from the ravages of the Scots, having been burnt several times,
+notably in 1296, when 40,000 Scots ravaged the North of England,
+plundering, burning, and laying waste wherever they went, exactly as the
+Danes had done four hundred years before. Some of the stones of the old
+Abbey yet bear traces of the fires by which the ancient building was so
+often nearly destroyed, and in these frequent conflagrations all
+records, charters, etc., of the Abbey, from which might have been
+compiled a complete history, not only of the Abbey but of much of the
+provincial and national history of the times, were lost.
+
+The Abbey was restored and rebuilt again and again, but for varying
+reasons was without a nave for some hundreds of years. Within the last
+ten years, however, a complete restoration has been carried out, under
+the loving, and, what is more to the point, the capable superintendence
+of Canon Savage and his colleagues, in the spirit and manner, as nearly
+as possible, of the beautiful portions already standing; and several
+disfiguring so-called "restorations" of nineteenth century work, which
+could only detract from the beauty and dignity of the noble building,
+have been removed entirely. This work was completed in 1908, and all who
+have the honour of our famous county at heart must rejoice that its
+noblest church is at last more worthy of its own high rank and glorious
+past.
+
+Among the many deeply interesting objects to be seen in the Abbey is the
+stone Sanctuary seat--the Frid Stool, or seat of peace--at which
+fugitives, fleeing from their enemies, might find refuge. It is believed
+that this was the "Cathedra" of St. Wilfrid himself. The arms and back
+of the chair are ornamented with a twisted knot-work pattern. The right
+of Sanctuary extended for a mile round the Abbey, the boundaries being
+marked by crosses, one at each point of the compass at that distance.
+
+
+[Illustration: HEXHAM ABBEY FROM NORTH WEST]
+
+Other treasures of the Abbey are the beautiful Old Rood Screen, dating
+from the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century;
+some wonderful old paintings, especially the portraits of the early
+Bishops of Hexham, Alcmund, Wilfrid, Acca, Eata, Frithbert, Cuthbert,
+and John, which date from the fifteenth century; the mediaeval carved
+and painted pulpit, and the tomb of good King Alfwald of Northumbria.
+Many of the stones used by Wilfrid's builders were of Roman workmanship,
+and seem to have come from the Roman city of Corstopitum, at Corbridge.
+An inscription on one of these old stones in the crypt takes us back
+some centuries before even Wilfrid's time, for it commemorates the
+Emperor Severus and his two sons, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Caracalla)
+and Publius Septimius Geta, and has the name of the latter erased, as
+was done on all similar inscriptions throughout the Empire, by order of
+the inhuman Caracalla, after his murder of his brother.
+
+A very interesting feature of the building is the stone stairway in the
+South transept, by which the monks ascended to their dormitories above.
+
+Quite near to the Abbey, at the other side of the Market Place, the
+ancient Moot Hall claims attention. The modern visitor to the old town
+walks beneath the gloomy archway, with its time-worn stones, which forms
+the basement over which the Moot Hall stands. Another building, grim and
+dark, near at hand, is the Old Manor House, in which the business
+connected with the ancient Manor of Hexham was transacted.
+
+An old foundation in the town was the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School,
+which, after having fallen into desuetude for many years, has been
+revived in a form appropriate to modern needs, and housed in a worthy
+building, formally opened by Sir Francis Blake on November 2nd, 1910.
+The site on which the new Grammar School of Queen Elizabeth stands is
+one of the finest in the county, commanding, as it does, an
+uninterrupted view of the river valley for some distance, and of the
+rising ground beyond.
+
+At the beginning of last century, Hexham was famed for its
+glove-making: but that industry has forsaken the town for many years.
+Now, Hexham is surrounded by acres of market-gardens, from which the
+produce of Tynedale is carried far and wide.
+
+The spacious stretch of level meadow-land below Hexham, rising gradually
+up to the swelling ridges beyond, is said to have been the scene which
+John Martin had in mind when he painted the "Plains of Heaven"; though
+the level reaches above Newburn, unencumbered with buildings in John
+Martin's time, and then a scene of quiet pastoral beauty, also claim
+that honour.
+
+Flowing now between well ordered gardens, green meadows, and ferny
+banks, brawling musically over shingly shallows, or crooning gently
+between fringing woods, the Tyne rolls onward to Corbridge, receiving on
+its way the Devil's Water, a sparkling stream which flows through scenes
+of enchanting beauty, whether between rugged cliffs and heather clad
+hills as in its upper course, through the graceful overhanging trees and
+cool green recesses of Dipton woods or between rich meadows and green
+pasture-land where it loses itself in the bosom of the Tyne.
+
+There is no more delightful experience than to wander through the woods
+of Deepdene (Dipton) on a summer's day, when it requires no stretch of
+the imagination to believe oneself in an enchanted forest, or, on
+hearing a crackle of twigs, or faint sounds of the outside world
+filtering through the green solitudes, to turn round expecting to see a
+maiden on a "milk-white steed," or one of the Knights of the Round Table
+come riding by, in bravery of glistening armour and gay surtout, and to
+find oneself murmuring, "Now, Sir Gawain rode apace, and came unto a
+right fair wood, and findeth the stream of a spring that ran with a
+great rushing, and nigh thereunto was a way that was much haunted. He
+abandoneth his high-way, and goeth all along the stream from the spring
+that lasteth a long league plenary, until that he espieth a right fair
+house and right fair chapel enclosed within a hedge of wood."
+
+On the green meadows of Hexham Levels and near Dilston Castle--two spots
+of more than ordinary historical interest--the Lancastrian cause
+received, in 1464, a blow from which it never rallied, though the
+courageous Queen fought gallantly till the final disasters at Barnet and
+Tewkesbury. The general of her forces, the Duke of Somerset, was
+beheaded in Hexham market-place, and, together with several others of
+rank and station, buried at Hexham. The well-known incident of Queen
+Margaret's escape into Dipton, or Deepdene woods, where she and young
+Prince Edward met with robbers, and afterwards escaped by the aid of
+another member of that fraternity, took place a year before this, after
+the first battle of Hexham in 1463. The year had been one of constant
+warfare between York and Lancaster in the north, the Castles of Alnwick
+and Bamburgh having fallen into the hands of Queen Margaret's friends
+once more, after having been raptured by Edward of York the year before;
+the Scots with Margaret and King Henry VI., had besieged Norham, but
+were put to flight by the Earl of Warwick and hid brother, Lord
+Montague; the royal fugitives sought safety at Bamburgh, whence the
+Queen, with Prince Edward, sailed for Flanders, leaving King Henry in
+the Castle where he was in no immediate danger; Warwick, with his
+forces, retired southward again, and the gentle King remained in his
+rocky stronghold, and enjoyed there nine months of unwonted peace.
+Shortly after this, the Duke of Somerset deserted the cause of York for
+that of Lancaster, and became the leader of the Queen's forces. In
+April, 1464, he and Sir Ralph Percy opposed, at Hedgeley Moor, the
+troops of Lord Montague journeying northward to escort the Scottish
+delegates who were coming to York to make terms with Edward of York. Sir
+Ralph Percy was slain, exclaiming as he fell "I have saved the bird in
+my bosom"--that enigmatic sentence which has given rise to so much
+conjecture, but which is generally held to mean that he had saved his
+honour, by dying at last, after so many changes of front, in the service
+of that King and Queen to whom he originally owed allegiance. "Percy's
+Cross," marking the site of his death, may be seen by the side of the
+railway near Hedgeley Station, on the Alnwick and Wooler line.
+
+The rest of the force dispersed, and made their way to Hexham; and Lord
+Montague marching upon them from Newcastle, a sharp engagement took
+place on the Levels, near the Linnels Bridge, with the result, as we
+have seen, of the defeat and death of Somerset, and the overthrow of
+Queen Margaret's hopes in the north, where she had had a strong
+following.
+
+The historical interest centred on Dilston Castle brings us to much
+later times, and enshrines a story which possesses a pathetic interest
+beyond that of any other place in Northumberland. Originally the home of
+the family of D'Eivill, later Dyvelstone (which explains the name
+"Devil's Water") Dilston Castle came into the possession of the
+Radcliffes by marriage, and in the days of the Commonwealth the
+Radcliffe of the day forfeited his estates on account of his loyalty to
+the house of Stuart. Charles II. restored them, and the close attachment
+between the houses of Stuart and Radcliffe continued until the fortunes
+of both were quenched in disaster and gloom. The figure of the young
+and gallant James Radcliffe, last Earl of Derwentwater, holds the
+imagination no less than the heart as it moves across the page of
+history for a brief space to its tragic end. Though born in London, in
+June 1689, young Radcliffe passed his childhood and youth in France in
+the closest companionship with James Stuart, son of the exiled James II.
+At the age of twenty-one he returned to his home in Northumbria, and
+took up his residence there, his charming manners, kind heart, and
+openhanded hospitality speedily endearing him to all classes. His
+servants and tenants, in particular, were passionately devoted to him.
+In the words of the old ballad of "Derwentwater"--
+
+  "O, Derwentwater's a bonnie lord,
+  And golden is his hair,
+  And glintin' is his hawkin' e'e
+  Wi' kind love dwelling there."
+
+On his marriage in 1712, the young bride and bridegroom remained for two
+years at the home of the bride's father, and preparations were made for
+restoring the glories of Dilston on an extensive scale. On
+Derwentwater's return to his beautiful Northumbrian seat in 1714, the
+death of Queen Anne had excited the hopes of all the friends of the
+house of Stuart, and plots and secret meetings were being planned
+throughout Scotland and the north of England, the objective being the
+restoration of the exiled Stuarts to the throne. Derwentwater took
+little part in these attempts to organise rebellion for some time, but
+at length was drawn into the dangerous game, as he was too valuable an
+asset to be passed over by the Jacobite party.
+
+At last rumours of the projected rising reached London, and a warrant
+was issued for the arrest of Derwentwater, even before it was known
+whether he had actually joined the plotters, his well-known friendship
+with the exiled Prince making it almost certain that he would be an
+important figure in any movement on their behalf. For the next few weeks
+the young Earl found himself obliged to remain in hiding, finding safety
+in the cottages of his tenants, and in the houses of friends and
+neighbours. Finally, though his good sense warned him that he was
+embarking on an almost hopeless enterprise, he decided to throw in his
+lot with the Jacobites.
+
+Tradition has it that his decision was brought about by the taunts of
+his Countess, who, like the rest of the Jacobite ladies, was more
+enthusiastic than the men. Throwing down her fan, she scornfully offered
+that to her husband as a weapon, and demanded his sword in exchange. The
+immediate result was seen on that October morning when Derwentwater and
+his little band of followers rode over the bridge at Corbridge with
+drawn swords, on their way to Beaufront, which was their first
+rendezvous; and from there proceeded to Greenrigg, near the great Wall,
+which had been appointed as a general meeting-place.
+
+There they were joined by Mr. Forster, of Bamburgh, with his contingent,
+and a few from the surrounding district. Rothbury next saw the little
+army, which was joined on Felton Bridge by seventy Scots; and thereafter
+Warkworth, Alnwick, and Morpeth heard James Stuart proclaimed King under
+the title of James III.
+
+Newcastle was to have been their next objective, but, hearing that the
+city had closed its gates, and intended to hold out for King George, the
+Jacobite force, after some indecision, returned northward to Rothbury,
+where they were joined by a large company of Scottish Jacobites under
+Lord Kenmure. Northward again they marched to Kelso, where more than a
+thousand Scots joined forces with them.
+
+The little army numbered now almost 2,000, and a council was held to
+determine what their next step should be. On its being resolved to enter
+England, some hundreds of the Highlanders returned home, leaving an army
+of about 1,500 to march southwards to Lancashire. On their way they put
+to flight at Penrith a motley force which was raised to oppose them;
+and, elated with a first success, moved forward to Preston, grievously
+disappointed on the way at the failure of the people of Lancashire to
+rise with them, for they had been given to understand that thousands in
+that county were only awaiting an opportunity to declare for "King
+James."
+
+At Preston they barricaded the principal streets, and repulsed General
+Willis; but the arrival of General Carpenter from Newcastle changed the
+face of affairs. Young Derwentwater had fought valiantly and worked
+arduously at the barricades, but Forster--whose appointment as General
+had been made in the hope of attracting other Protestant gentry to the
+Jacobite cause--offered to submit to General Carpenter under certain
+conditions. Carpenter's reply was a demand for unconditional surrender,
+and the hopeless little tragi-comedy was played out. The last scene took
+place on Tower Hill three months later, when the gallant young Earl,
+then only twenty-six years old, laid down the life which, after all, had
+been spent in the service of others, with no selfish purpose in view,
+and which was offered him, together with wealth and freedom, if he would
+forsake his faith and throw aside his allegiance to the house of Stuart.
+Refusing to purchase life at such a price, he was condemned, and
+executed on Tower Hill on February 24th, 1716.
+
+His brother Charles, who had been by his side throughout the rising,
+had the good fortune to escape from Newgate Prison, and passed most of
+his life abroad. Thirty years later, on his return to take up arms on
+behalf of James' son Charles--"bonnie Prince Charlie"--when he also drew
+the sword in an attempt to regain the throne of his fathers, Radcliffe
+was captured and beheaded. (For account of a monument to the memory of
+these two brothers see in previous chapter paragraph relating to Haydon
+Bridge.)
+
+The story of General Forster's escape from Newgate is told by Sir Walter
+Besant, as all readers of his novel, "Dorothy Forster" know, though the
+author has taken those minor liberties with unimportant facts which are
+by common consent allowable in fiction.
+
+James Radcliffe's friends were allowed to have his body, though they
+were forbidden to carry it home for burial; for such were the love and
+esteem borne for the young Earl in the hearts of all his North-country
+friends and dependents, that the authorities feared a disturbance of the
+peace should his body be brought amongst them while their rage and grief
+were still at their height. Notwithstanding the prohibition, however,
+the body was brought secretly to Dilston, and buried in the vault of the
+chapel, which, with the ruined tower, are all that remain of the home of
+the Radcliffes. Standing amidst luxuriant foliage, and overlooking a
+romantic dell, the ruins of tower and chapel remain as they fell into
+decay on the death of their luckless owners. The confiscated estates
+were bestowed on Greenwich Hospital, whose agents administer them still,
+with the exception of certain portions purchased from time to time by
+various landowners. No other family took the place of the Radcliffes in
+the deserted halls; but tradition holds that the unfortunate Earl and
+his sorrowful lady still revisit their ancient home. The Earl's body is
+now at Thorndon, in Essex. Below is Surtees' beautiful ballad, "Lord
+Derwentwater's Farewell."
+
+
+
+
+  LORD DERWENTWATER'S FAREWELL
+
+  "Farewell to pleasant Dilston Hall,
+  My father's ancient seat;
+  A stranger now must call thee his,
+  Which gars my heart to greet.
+  Farewell each kindly well-known face
+  My heart has held so dear;
+  My tenants now must leave their lord
+  Or hold their lives in fear.
+
+  No more along the banks of Tyne
+  I'll rove in autumn grey;
+  No more I'll hear, at early dawn,
+  The lav'rocks wake the day;
+  Then fare thee well, brave Witherington,
+  And Forster ever true;
+  Dear Shaftsbury and Errington,
+  Receive my last adieu.
+
+  And fare thee well, George Collingwood,
+  Since fate has put us down;
+  If thou and I have lost our lives,
+  Our king has lost his crown.
+  Farewell, farewell, my lady dear,
+  Ill, ill thou counsell'dst me;
+  I never more may see the babe
+  That smiles upon thy knee.
+
+  And fare thee well, my bonny gray steed,
+  That carried me aye so free;
+  I wish I had been asleep in my bed
+  The last time I mounted thee;
+  The warning bell now bids me cease,
+  My trouble's nearly o'er;
+  Yon sun that rises from the sea
+  Shall rise on me no more.
+
+  Albeit that here in London Town
+  It is my fate to die;
+  O carry me to Northumberland,
+  In my father's grave to lie.
+  There chant my solemn requiem
+  In Hexham's holy towers;
+  And let six maids of fair Tynedale
+  Scatter my grave with flowers.
+
+  And when the head that wears the crown
+  Shall be laid low like mine;
+  Some honest hearts may then lament
+  For Radcliffe's fallen line.
+  Farewell to pleasant Dilston Hall,
+  My father's ancient seat;
+  A stranger now must call thee his,
+  Which gars my heart to greet."
+
+Near to Corbridge the waters of the Tyne lave the ancient piers of the
+old Roman bridge which led to Corstopitum, the most considerable of the
+Roman stations in this region. The recent careful excavations have laid
+bare the evidence of what must have been a most imposing city, and many
+treasures of pottery, coins and ancient jewellery and ornaments,
+together with large quantities of the bones of animals, some of them
+identical with the wild cattle of Chillingham, have been brought to
+light. The famous silver dish known as the Corbridge Lanx, which was
+found at the riverside by a little girl in 1734, had evidently been
+washed down from Corstopitum. It is now preserved at Alnwick Castle.
+The antiquity of Corbridge is thus superior to that of Hexham, as far as
+may be known; but on the other hand, while Hexham in Saxon times grew to
+power, Corbridge declined. Yet, in its time, it was more than the home
+of a famous Abbey; it was a royal city, albeit the date of its elevation
+to royal rank coincided with the decline of the kingdom of which it was
+the final capital. When the fierce and ruthless internal quarrels, which
+rent Northumbria after Edbert's glorious reign, had weakened it so that
+it fell a prey to the gradual encroachments of its northern neighbours,
+the once royal city of Bamburgh was left in the hands of a noble Saxon
+family, and the court was removed to Corbridge, which remained the abode
+of the kings of Northumbria until Northumbria possessed royal rank no
+longer. The tale of the two hundred years during which Corbridge was the
+capital city is a tale of red slaughter and ruin, murder and bitter
+feud, not against outside foes, but between one family and another,
+noble against king, king against relatives of other noble houses,
+amongst which might possibly be found the thegn to succeed him, or to
+murder him in order to bring about his own more speedy elevation to a
+precarious throne.
+
+So much was this the case, that Charles the Great, at whose court the
+learned Northumbrian, Alcuin, was secretary, said that the Northumbrians
+were worse than the invading heathen Danes, who, by this time, had begun
+their ravages in the land. Amongst the rulers of Northumbria in those
+days, the name of Alfwald the Just, who was called "the Friend of God,"
+shines out with enduring light across the stormy darkness of that
+terrible period; yet even his just and merciful rule and noble life
+could not save him from the hand of the assassin. He was buried with
+much mourning and great pomp in the Abbey at Hexham; and during the
+recent excavations the fact of a Saxon interment was verified as having
+taken place beneath the beautiful tomb which tradition has always held
+to be that of King Alfwald the Just. This fact also helped to
+demonstrate the extent of the original Abbey.
+
+There was a monastery at Corbridge in the year 771, which is supposed to
+have been founded by St. Wilfrid. Of the four churches which were
+erected in later times, only one survives--the parish church of St.
+Andrew, which occupies the site of the early monastery. In this ancient
+church may be seen part of the original Saxon work, and many stones of
+Roman workmanship are built up in the structure.
+
+Like most other old churches in the north, it suffered severely at the
+hands of the Scots, and, as at Hexham Abbey, traces of fire may be seen
+on some of the stones.
+
+King David of Scotland, on his invasion of England in 1138, which was to
+end at the "Battle of the Standard," at Northallerton, encamped at
+Corbridge for a time, and terrible cruelties were committed in the
+district by his followers. In the next century, King John turned the
+little town upside down in his efforts to find treasure which he was
+convinced must be concealed somewhere in the houses; but his search was
+fruitless. In the days of the three Edwards, during the long wars with
+Scotland, Corbridge suffered terribly, being fired again and again; on
+one occasion, in 1296, the destruction included the burning of the
+school with some two hundred hapless boys within its walls.[4] [Footnote
+4: _See_ Bates, p. 149.]
+
+Those heroes of our childhood's days, William Wallace and Robert Bruce,
+were far from guiltless in these cruelties, though in justice to them
+personally, the wild and lawless character of the men who formed their
+undisciplined hosts must be remembered; and we know that Wallace tried
+to save the holy vessels in Hexham Abbey, but, as soon as his back was
+turned, they were swept away in the very presence of the officiating
+priest.
+
+During these terrible years most of Northumberland was a desolate waste;
+and divine service had almost ceased to be performed between Newcastle
+and Carlisle, even Hexham being deserted for a time. After the battle of
+Bannockburn, matters were worse, if possible, and all the north lay in
+fear of the Scots, but from time to time spasmodic efforts at
+retaliation were made by the boldest of the Northumbrian landowners. In
+the reign of Edward III., however, many of these great landowners
+thwarted the King's designs by making a traitorous peace with their
+turbulent neighbours.
+
+David II. of Scotland encamped at Corbridge for a time during his second
+attempt to invade England but this expedition ended in his defeat and
+capture at Neville's Cross. Thereafter the north had rest for some
+years, and Corbridge seems to have been left in peace. The Wars of the
+Roses passed it by; and the Civil Wars in Stuart days also, except for
+an unimportant skirmish; and the only part Corbridge saw of the Jacobite
+rising of "The Fifteen" was the little cavalcade from Dilston which
+clattered over the old bridge on its way to Beaufront. That bridge is
+the same which we cross to-day; the date of its erection, 1674, may be
+seen on one of its stones, and it was the only one on the Tyne which
+withstood the great flood of 1771, when even the old Tyne Bridge at
+Newcastle was swept away.
+
+Quite close to the church there is an old pele-tower, which is in an
+excellent state of preservation, little of it having disappeared except
+the various floors. The vicars of Corbridge must have been often
+thankful for such a refuge at hand, where they could bid defiance to
+marauding bands, whether of Scottish or English nationality. In the
+Register of the parish church may be seen a most interesting entry,
+showing the Earl of Derwentwater's signature as churchwarden.
+
+At a little distance from Corbridge, to the northward, is the fortified
+manor-house of Aydon Castle, standing embowered in trees where the Cor
+burn runs through a little rocky ravine, down whose steep sides Sir
+Robert Clavering threw most of a marauding band of Scotsmen who had
+attacked the grange; the place known as "Jock's Leap" obtained its name
+from one of the Scots who escaped the fate of his comrades by his leap
+for life across the ravine. The Castle, or hall, as it is variously
+called, has not suffered such destruction as might have been expected,
+seeing that it dates from the thirteenth century; but the thickness of
+its walls, and the arrow-slits and narrow windows are obvious proof of
+the necessity for defence which existed when it was first erected in the
+days of Edward I. Many features of great interest, notably the ancient
+fireplaces, remain in the interior of the building.
+
+Returning down the Cor burn to the Tyne, our way lies eastward by the
+side of the river, which here, after splashing and sparkling over the
+shallows below Corbridge, narrows again to a deeper stream of swifter
+current, and flows between green meadows and leafy woods, fern-clad
+steeps and level haughs, all the way down to Ryton, where the
+picturesque aspect of the river ceases, and it becomes an industrial
+waterway. On this reach of the river are several places of considerable
+interest.
+
+Riding Mill, a pretty village in a well-wooded hollow, enclosed by steep
+hills which rise ever higher and higher to the moors by Minsteracres and
+Blanchland, stands where Watling Street, or Dere Street, leading down
+the long slope of the country from Whittonstall, on reaching the Tyne
+turned westward to Corstopitum. Further down the stream is Stocksfield,
+where the aged King Edward I. halted on his last journey into Scotland,
+on that expedition which was to have executed a summary vengeance upon
+the Scots; he journeyed forward by slow stages, but was taken ill at
+Newbrough, where he stayed for some time, before continuing his journey
+by Blenkinsopp, Thirlwall, and Lanercost to Carlisle.
+
+On the opposite side of the stream from Stocksfield is the lovely
+village of Bywell, a "haunt of ancient peace," "sleeping soft on the
+banks of the murmuring Tyne." This little peaceful spot was at one time
+a very busy centre of life and industry on a small scale; in the Middle
+Ages the inhabitants drove a thriving trade in all the necessities for a
+people who spent a great part of their lives upon horseback, especially
+in the making of the ironwork required--"bits, stirrups, buckles, and
+the like, wherein they are very expert and cunning." The Nevilles, lords
+of Raby and earls of Westmoreland, held Bywell at this time; before that
+it was in the hands of the Balliols, of Scottish fame, who, like the
+Bruces, were Norman knights high in favour with their kings, Norman and
+Plantagenet, though they afterwards became their most determined foes.
+
+Long before the advent of the Normans, a church was built here by St.
+Wilfrid, and in it--St. Andrew's or the "White" Church--Egbert, twelfth
+bishop of Lindisfarne, was consecrated by Archbishop Eanbald in the year
+803. More than a thousand years afterwards, in 1896, an Ordination
+service was again held at Bywell, in St. Peter's church, when five
+deacons were ordained by Bishop Jacob. And in times yet more remote
+than Wilfrid's age, Roman legionaries crossed the Tyne at this point
+over a bridge of their own construction, of which the piers might be
+seen until our own day. Bywell, too, had its "find" of Roman silver; in
+1760 a silver cup was found in the Tyne, bearing the inscription
+"Desidere vivas" around the neck of the vessel.
+
+When the Nevilles were lords of the manor of Bywell, they began to build
+a castle here, which, however, was left unfinished; the ancient tower
+still standing, with its picturesque draping of ivy, was the gate-house
+of the intended fortress. On the rebellion of the northern earls in
+1569, Westmoreland's forfeited lands passed to the crown, so that Bywell
+was held by Queen Elizabeth for a year or two, until she sold the estate
+to a branch of the Fenwick family.
+
+Bywell is unique in Northumberland in possessing two churches side by
+side yet in different parishes. The town of Bywell, we are told by the
+same authority before quoted, lay in a long line by the north bank of
+the Tyne, and was "divided into two separate parishes" even then, so
+that there ought to be traces of former buildings westward from the
+present village. In connection with the two churches which adjoin each
+other so closely, tradition tells the well-known story of the two
+quarrelsome sisters who could not agree on the building of a church and
+therefore each built one. One might have imagined, with some show of
+reason, that there being two parishes, the two churches were placed
+there in sheltering proximity to the castle, were it not for the fact
+that the churches were in existence long before the stronghold of the
+Nevilles was contemplated.
+
+St. Andrew's, called the "White" church from the fact of its being
+served in later days by the White friars, is the more ancient of the
+two. As we have seen, a church erected by St. Wilfrid stood on this
+site, and a goodly portion of the Saxon work remains in the tower. The
+hagioscope, or "squint" in this church, and the "leper" window in St.
+Peter's are interesting relics of the Middle Ages.
+
+St. Peter's, or the "Black" church which once belonged to the
+Benedictines or Black friars, is of much later date than its neighbour,
+though still an ancient building, being supposed to date from the
+eleventh century. Its most interesting possessions are two very old
+bells, bearing Latin inscriptions, one announcing "I proclaim the hour
+for people rising, and call to those still lying down," and the other
+reading "Thou art Peter."
+
+Bywell suffered greatly in the flood of 1771, when the bridge was swept
+away, many houses destroyed, several people drowned, and both churches
+greatly damaged.
+
+It is not surprising that this tranquil little village--"the retreat of
+the old doomed divinities of wood and fountain, banished from their
+native haunts," to quote Mr. Tomlinson's happy phrase--has always been
+beloved of artists, many of whom have transferred to their canvasses the
+beauties of its mingled scenery of graceful woods and sparkling waters,
+ancient fortress, peaceful meadows, and gray old towers. Many noteworthy
+and fine old trees are to be found in and around this artists' haunt.
+
+On the opposite side of the river, Bywell's younger sister, Stocksfield,
+grows apace, reaching out towards the lulls and along the eastward
+lanes, though not as yet in such measure as to cover the hillsides with
+any semblance of a town, being still almost hidden amongst the profusion
+of trees that clothe most of the district in their leafy greenery. On
+the north bank of the stream the village of Ovingham now rises into
+view, its name telling us plainly that there was a settlement here in
+Saxon times "the home of the sons of Offa"; and the slope above the
+river is fittingly crowned by the ancient church of St. Mary, whose
+tower, with its curiously irregular windows, is the work of the Saxon
+builders of the original church. The rest of the building, except some
+Saxon work at the west end of the nave, dates from early Norman days.
+Here is the burial place of the famous brothers John and Thomas Bewick,
+who were born at Cherryburn House, just across the river. In this
+delightful spot the boy Thomas Bewick grew up, absorbing unconsciously
+the natural beauties that are to be found here by the Tyne and in the
+little ravine through which the Cherry Burn flows, which beauties he so
+lovingly reproduced on his engraving blocks later in life.
+
+At the fords of Ovingham, Eltringham, and Bywell, the Scots under
+General Leslie crossed the Tyne in 1644, and made their way into Durham,
+leaving six regiments to watch Newcastle.
+
+The picturesque ruins of Prudhoe Castle, whose lofty towers dominate the
+valley for some distance up and down the stream, stand on a commanding
+rocky ridge above the Tyne. The lands of Prudhoe were given, soon after
+the Norman Conquest, to one of Duke William's immediate followers,
+Robert de Umfraville; and it was Odinel de Umfraville who built the
+present castle in the twelfth century. Its strength was soon put to the
+test, for a few years after it was built William the Lion of Scotland
+found that the place baffled all his attempts to capture it. In his
+anger he determined to reduce the fortress of Odinel, who had spent much
+time at the Scottish court in his youth, the Kings of Scotland being at
+that time lords of Tynedale. The attempt ended in total failure, the
+greatest harm the Scots did on that occasion being to destroy the
+cornfields and strip the bark from the apple trees near the Castle;
+while, a day or two afterwards, Odinel de Umfraville, with Glanvile and
+Balliol, captured the Scottish monarch himself at Alnwick.
+
+Another Umfraville, Richard, quarrelled with his neighbour of Nafferton,
+on the opposite side of the river, for having begun to erect a fortress
+much too near Umfraville's own. He sent a petition to the King on the
+subject and King John commanded Philip de Ulecote's building operations
+to cease. The unfinished castle, known as Nafferton Tower, remains to
+this day as Philip's masons left it so many centuries ago.
+
+Sir Ingram de Umfraville was by the side of Edward II. at Bannockburn,
+when, before the battle, Bruce ordered his men to kneel in prayer.
+Edward looked on the kneeling host, and turning to Umfraville, exclaimed
+"See! Yon men kneel to ask mercy." "You say truth, sire," answered the
+knight of Prudhoe; "they ask mercy--but not of you."
+
+The last Umfraville, who died in 1381, left a widow, the Countess Maud,
+who married a Percy of Alnwick, and so the castle passed into the hands
+of that family, in whose possession it still remains.
+
+When Odinel de Umfraville was building the keep of his castle, every one
+in the neighbourhood was pressed into the service, and all lent their
+aid except the men of Wylam. Wylam had been given to the church of St.
+Oswyn at Tynemouth, and, as was customary, was freed by charter from the
+duty of castle building, or any other feudal service excepting such as
+were rendered to the Prior of Tynemouth as occasion arose. So, in spite
+of the angry surprise of the lord of Prudhoe, the Wylam men quietly held
+to their charter, and not all Odinel's threats or persuasions moved them
+one whit.
+
+The Stanley Burn, which enters the Tyne close to Wylam railway station,
+divides this part of the county of Durham from Northumberland, so that
+from Wylam to the sea the south side of the Tyne is in the county of
+Durham. The most noteworthy object at Wylam, or, to be precise, a little
+way along the old post-road, leading to Newcastle from Hexham, is the
+red-tiled cottage in which George Stephenson was born in 1781. It stands
+on the north bank of the Tyne, where it can be distinctly seen from
+passing trains. Its neighbour cottage has been repaired and re-roofed,
+but Stephenson's cottage remains unaltered.
+
+Mr. Blackett, who owned Wylam Colliery at the beginning of the
+nineteenth century, took the keenest interest in the question of
+locomotives, and had tried more than one on his estate before George
+Stephenson brought them to the point of practical use. At Newburn, just
+four miles down the Tyne, George Stephenson passed many years of his
+youth; here he learned to read and write, when he was old enough to earn
+a man's wage and could afford the few pence necessary; and here, in the
+parish church, may be seen, with an interval of twenty years between
+them, the entries of his two marriages.
+
+Newburn is important nowadays for its steel works, within whose
+workshops is incorporated an old building formerly known as Newburn
+Hall; but in days long past its importance arose from its being on the
+ford of the Tyne nearest to Newcastle. This ford was frequently made use
+of, notably by the Scots in the reign of Charles I. Their chief camping
+ground is pointed out to us by the name of Scotswood, which also
+describes what Scotswood was like in those days--a great contrast to its
+present appearance, when the lines of brick and mortar stretching out
+uninterruptedly from Newcastle make it practically one with that town.
+In 1640, the Scottish army, under General Leslie, faced the Royalist
+troops, under Lord Conway, on the south side of the river. The Scots
+mounted their rude cannon on Newburn Church tower, and the English
+raised earthworks along the bank of the river, which was here fordable
+in two places. The two armies calmly watered their horses on opposite
+banks of the stream all the next morning, but a shot at a Scottish
+officer from the English ranks precipitated the battle; and the Scottish
+army, having made a breach in both earthworks with their artillery,
+waded across the fords and drove the Royalist troops up the bank, after
+one spasmodic rally, which, however, failed to check the Scottish
+advance. The way was now open for the Scottish army to continue down the
+south bank of the Tyne and attack Newcastle from Gateshead. It had been
+Lord Conway's task to prevent this, but owing to his incapacity or want
+of whole-hearted enthusiasm for his cause, he failed entirely.
+
+Not until 1644, however, was a Scottish attack on Newcastle actually
+made, for on this occasion Leslie, as we have already seen, led his men
+across the fords higher up the river and marched southwards. The
+earthworks thrown up by Conway's troops may still be seen on Stella
+Haughs.
+
+It is supposed that the Romans had a fort here, commanding the passage
+of the river; indeed it would have been strange had this not been the
+case, for the Romans were not the people to disregard any point of
+strategical importance, especially one so near their stations of Pons
+Aelii and Condercum. Many stones of Roman workmanship have been used in
+the building of the Newburn church.
+
+From this point to its mouth, nearly fifteen miles away, both banks of
+the Tyne present an unbroken scene of industry. Between the steel works
+of Newburn and the iron and chemical works, the brick and tile works of
+Blaydon and past the famous yards of Elswick, down to the wharves and
+shipyards of North and South Shields, the Tyne rolls its swift dark
+waters through a scene of stirring activity; the air is dusky with soot
+and smoke, and reverberant with the clang of hammers and the pulsing
+beat of machinery. Some old and world-famed works have been closed or
+removed, like Hawks' and Stephenson's, but others, many others, have
+opened; and the map of the positions of Tyne industries, published under
+the auspices of the Newcastle and Gateshead Chamber of Commerce, is a
+record of resolute toil and brilliant achievement in the many aspects of
+industrial life represented on the river.
+
+And, apart from the mere prosperity and commercial supremacy of the
+district, there is another cause for pride in the many notable
+inventions which hail from Tyneside; from the locomotive and the
+"Geordie" lamp of Stephenson, the hydraulic machinery and the big guns
+of Armstrong, to the wonderful turbine engines of Parsons; the invention
+of water-ballast, too, belongs to the Tyne, for it was the idea of a
+Gateshead man, and first used at Jarrow.
+
+And, in connection with ships and seafarers, though not in any
+commercial sense, we may proudly recall the fact that the first Lifeboat
+was launched on the Tyne and named after the river; and the first
+Volunteer Life Brigade was formed at Tynemouth. The Worth Eastern
+Railway is carried across the Tyne by the Scotswood Bridge; and it was
+on this part of the river that the boat-races, for which the Tyne was
+once famous, were rowed. At Newcastle, the river is bridged by four huge
+structures--The Redheugh Bridge, the new King Edward VII. bridge, the
+High Level, and Swing Bridges,--all connecting Newcastle with the sister
+town of Gateshead. An interesting sight it is to see the Swing Bridge
+gradually turning on its central pivot, until it lies in a straight line
+up and down the stream, allowing some huge liner to pass, or some new
+battleship, fresh from Elswick, to sail down the river, on its way to
+make its trial trip over the "measured mile" in the open sea at the
+mouth of the river, and thereafter to take its place among the armaments
+of the nations.
+
+The High Level Bridge allows ships of any height to pass under its lofty
+and graceful arches, which look so light, but are yet so strong. This
+splendid bridge is an enduring monument of Robert Stephenson, whose work
+it was; and the story of its erection, at the cost of nearly half a
+million of money, makes most interesting reading. It took nearly two and
+a half years to build, and was opened for traffic in 1849--little more
+than three years after the first pile was driven in. A few months later,
+in 1850, the newly built Central Station, with its imposing portico, was
+opened by Queen Victoria.
+
+Passing down the Tyne from Newcastle, which requires separate notice,
+and Walker, with its reminiscences of "Walker Pit's deun weel for me,"
+we arrive at Wallsend, which in twenty-five years has grown from a
+colliery village with a population of 4,000 to a town of 23,000
+inhabitants. Here are great shipbuilding and repairing yards, chemical
+works and cement works; here, too, are Parsons' Steam Turbine Works,
+where was designed and built the little "Turbinia," on which tiny vessel
+the early experiments were made with the new engines; and here are the
+famous mines which have made "Best Wallsend" a synonym for best
+household coal all over the land. These mines, after having been closed
+for many years, were reopened at the beginning of the century, and now
+turn out upwards of one thousand tons of coal per day.
+
+The church of St. Peter, at Wallsend, is little more than a hundred
+years old; the old Church of Holy Cross, now long disused, was built
+towards the end of the twelfth century. But Wallsend itself, as all the
+world knows, is of much greater antiquity, for was it not, as its name
+proclaims, situated at the end of the Great Wall? Its name then,
+however, was not Wallsend but Segedunum.
+
+Willington Quay, further down the river, was, for a time, the home of
+George Stephenson, and here his son, Robert, was born. At Howdon, which
+used to be known as Howdon Pans, from the salt-pans there, the painter
+John Martin and his brothers once worked when boys, being employed in
+some rope-works. Here, too, the Henzells, a family of refugees who
+settled in the district in the days of Elizabeth, founded some glass
+works, for which industry the Tyne has been famous from that day to
+this.
+
+[Illustration: THE RIVER TYNE AT NEWCASTLE (showing Swing Bridge open).]
+
+Before the railway on the south side of the river was laid down,
+passengers who wished to reach Jarrow had to alight at Howdon and cross
+the river; and a racy dialect song--"Howdon for Jarrow" with its refrain
+of "Howdon for Jarra--ma hinnies, loup oot"--commemorates the fact.
+Willington Quay and Howdon carry on the line of shipbuilding yards to
+Northumberland Dock and the staithes of the Tyne Commissioners, where
+the waggon ways from various collieries bring the coal to the water's
+edge. Tyne Dock, just opposite, and the Albert Edward Dock near North.
+Shields, provide abundance of shipping accommodation, besides what is
+afforded by the river itself; and now the river flows between the steep
+banks of North and South Shields. As the names declare, these two
+growing and prosperous towns once consisted of a few fishermen's huts,
+or "shielings"; but that was long ago, when the north shore of the Tyne
+was owned by the Prior of Tynemouth, and the southern shore by the
+Bishop of Durham, and the citizens of Newcastle complained to King
+Edward I. that these two ecclesiastics had raised towns, "where no town
+ought to be," and that "fishermen sold fish there which ought to be sold
+at Newcastle, to the great injury of the whole borough, and in detriment
+to the tolls of our Lord the King." These quarrels between Newcastle and
+the other settlements on the Tyne continued with varying results, until
+in the days of Cromwell, Ralph Gardiner of Chirton, a little village
+close to North Shields, took up the cudgels for the growing towns; and
+by dint of great perseverance, and in spite of much persecution and
+ill-will, succeeded in getting most of the unjust privileges of their
+stronger neighbour abolished.
+
+There were salt-pans, too, on both sides of the mouth of the Tyne, which
+were worked in connection with the monasteries from very early days; and
+Daniel Defoe, when he visited the north in 1726, declared that he could
+see from the top of the Cheviot "the smoke of the salt-pans at Sheals,
+at the mouth of the Tyne, which was about forty miles south of this."
+
+North Shields clings haphazard to the steep bank of the Tyne, and
+spreads away up and beyond it, reaching out towards Wallsend on the
+river shore and Tynemouth along by the sea, the older parts by the
+river looking black and grimy to the last degree; but there is a silver
+lining to this very black cloud--not visible, it is true, but distinctly
+audible--in the great shipbuilding and repairing works known as Smith's
+Dock, one of the largest concerns of the kind in Great Britain, where so
+many hundreds of men earn their daily bread; and in the fishing
+industry, which was the foundation of the town's prosperity, and bids
+fair to be so for many years to come, as it is increasing year by year.
+The Fish Quay at North Shields is a sight worth seeing; and, in the
+herring season, it is increasingly frequented by Continental buyers.
+
+The fortunes of South Shields and Jarrow, though these towns are not in
+Northumberland, are yet so bound up with the story of the Tyne that no
+one would ever think of that river without them. Especially is this the
+case with Jarrow, which "Palmer's" has raised from a small colliery
+village to a large and flourishing town. In those famous yards,
+everything that is necessary for the building of the largest ironclad,
+from the first smelting of the ore until the last rivet is in place, can
+be done. All Northumbria--Northumbria in the ancient and widest sense
+of the word--owes a debt of gratitude to Jarrow, for was it not the home
+of Bede? The monk of Jarrow, who spent all his long life in the same
+monastery by the Don, coming to it when he was a child of ten, made that
+spot of Northumbrian ground famed to the farthest limits of the
+civilized Europe of his day; and scholars from all over the Continent
+came to learn at the feet of the Northumbrian teacher. Beloved and
+revered by all, and in harness to the last hour of his busy life, he
+died in the year 735, just one hundred years after the coming of Aidan
+to Lindisfarne. "First among English scholars, first among English
+theologians, first among English historians, it is in the monk of
+Jarrow that English literature strikes its roots."--_J.R. Green_.
+
+The Jarrow of to-day, and all its neighbours of industrial Tyneside,
+possess no beauty of aspect such as the towns that are more fortunately
+situated on the upper reaches of the river; they are muffled in clouds
+of smoke and soot, and darkened by the necessities of their toil in
+grimy ores and the ever-present coal. But no one who has ever looked on
+these smoky reaches of the Tyne with a seeing eye, or steamed down the
+river on a day either of gloom or sunshine, can refuse to acknowledge
+that it has a certain grandeur, a stern beauty of its own, that can stir
+the heart and the imagination more deeply than any mere prettiness.
+
+From the numberless hives of activity on both sides of the river clouds
+of smoke roll heavily upward, and jets of steam from panting machinery
+leap up in momentary whiteness on the dark background; the white wings
+of flocks of wheeling gulls flash in the occasional sunshine which
+lights up the scene, and between the clouds there are glimpses of blue
+sky. Towards sunset, the evening mists drape the darkening banks and
+crowded shipping in a soft robe of gray, which, together with the
+glowing sky behind, produces most wonderful Turneresque effects; and the
+fall of night on the river only changes the aspect without diminishing
+the interest of the scene. The blaze from a myriad workshops and forges
+glows against the darkness, the lamps twinkle overhead on the steep
+banks, and the lights from wharf and steamer are reflected in a thousand
+shimmering lines on the dark water, which flows on soundlessly, like the
+river of a dream.
+
+On a day of wind and sun all these beauties are intensified a
+thousandfold; the smoke is blown hither and thither in flying clouds,
+the current seems to rush more swiftly, and a sense of vigorous life
+permeates the whole scene, giving to the beholder a feeling of keen
+exhilaration, as of new life rushing through his veins. Especially is
+this the case on reaching the mouth of the river and meeting the dancing
+waters of the open harbour, where the twin piers of South Shields and
+Tynemouth reach out sheltering arms. Within the wide bay they enclose,
+the storm-driven vessel may always find comparatively smooth water, how
+wildly soever the waves may rage and roar outside.
+
+It is difficult to believe that so lately as the years 1858-60, the
+"bar" at the mouth of the Tyne was an insuperable obstacle to all but
+vessels of very moderate draught; and that ships might lie for days, and
+sometimes weeks, after being loaded, before there came a tide high
+enough to carry them out to sea. The river was full of sand-banks, and
+little islands stood here and there--one in mid-stream, where the
+ironclads are now launched at Elswick. Three or four vessels might be
+seen at once bumping and grounding on the "bar" unable to make their way
+over. Well might the old song say--
+
+  "The ships are all at the bar,
+  They canna get up to Newcastle!"
+
+An old map of the Tyne shows a number of sand-banks down the lower
+reaches of the river, with ships aground on each, of them.
+
+But the River Tyne Commissioners have changed all that, and their
+implement of warfare has been the hideous but necessary dredger. No
+longer need vessels of heavy tonnage desert the Tyne for the Wear, as
+they were perforce driven to do during the first half of the nineteenth
+century, for the Wearsiders had set about deepening and widening their
+river long before the Tynesiders did the same by theirs. Considerable
+and continuous pressure had to be brought to bear on the civic
+authorities at Newcastle before they finally took action; but having
+once done so, the future of the Tyne was assured. Now it ranks second
+only to the Thames in the actual number of vessels entering and leaving,
+and owns only the Mersey its superior in the matter of tonnage.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.
+
+  "Her dusky hair in many a tangle clings
+  About her, and her looks, though stern and cold,
+  Grow tender with the dreams of by-gone days."
+
+  --_W.W. Tomlinson_.
+
+The outward signs of "by-gone days," in the Newcastle of to-day, with
+the one notable exception of the Castle, must be diligently sought out
+amongst the overwhelming mass of what is often called "rampant
+modernity," of which the town to-day chiefly consists. The modernity,
+however, is not all bad, as this favourite phrase would imply; much of
+it is doubtless regrettable and a very little of it perhaps inevitable;
+but no one will deny either the modernity or the beauty of Grey Street,
+one of the finest streets in any English town; or the fine appearance of
+Grainger Street, Blackett Street, Eldon Square, or any other of the
+stately thoroughfares with which Grainger and Dobson enriched the town
+within the last eighty years--no one, that is, who has learned to "lift
+his eyes to the sky-line in passing along a thoroughfare" instead of
+keeping them firmly fixed at the level of shop windows.
+
+The grim old building which, when it was new, gave its name to the town,
+is one for which no search needs to be made; its blackened and time worn
+walls are seen from the train windows by every traveller who enters the
+city from the south. So near is it to the railway, that in the
+ultra-utilitarian days of sixty or seventy years ago, it narrowly
+escaped the ignoble fate of being used as a signal-cabin. It was
+rescued, however, by the Society of Antiquaries, and carefully preserved
+by them--more fortunate in this respect than the castle of Berwick, for
+the platform of Berwick railway station actually stands on the spot once
+occupied by the Great Hall of the Castle.
+
+The site of the New Castle, on a part of the river bank which slopes
+steeply down to the Tyne, had been occupied centuries before by a Roman
+fort, constructed by order of the Emperor Hadrian, who visited Britain
+A.D. 120. He also constructed a bridge over the Tyne at this spot, fort
+and bridge receiving the name of Pons Aelii, after the Emperor (Publius
+AElius Hadrianus). This became the second station on the Great Wall
+erected by Hadrian's orders along the line of forts which Agricola had
+raised forty years before. This station shared the fate of others on the
+abandonment of Britain by its powerful conquerors, who had now for more
+than two hundred years been its no less powerful friends and protectors.
+Pons Aelii fell into ruins; but so advantageous a site could not long be
+overlooked, and we read of a Saxon settlement there, apparently that of
+a religious community, from which fact it was known as Monkchester. All
+the records of this period seem to have perished, for we hear nothing of
+the settlement during the Danish invasions; but a Saxon town of some
+kind was evidently in existence at the time of the Conquest, though in
+1073 three monks from the south who came to York, and, obtaining a guide
+to "Muneche-cester," sought for some religious house in that settlement,
+could find none, and were prevailed upon by the first Norman Bishop of
+Durham, Walcher, to stay at Jarrow. The years from 1069 to 1080 were
+evil years for Northumberland, for at the first-named date the Conqueror
+devastated the North, and left neither village nor farm unscathed; and,
+as the desolated land was beginning to recover again, Odo of Bayeux and
+Robert of Normandy relentlessly laid it waste once more, partly in
+revenge for the murder of Bishop Walcher at Gateshead, and partly to
+punish Malcolm of Scotland for his invasion of Norman territory.
+
+It was on his return from this expedition, which had penetrated as far
+north as Falkirk, that Robert, by his father's orders, raised a
+stronghold on the Tyne on the site of the old Roman fort, in the year
+1080. His brother, William Rufus, erected a much stronger and better
+one, the Keep of which, re-built by Henry II., stands to-day dark and
+grim, looking out over river and town, as it has stood since the Red
+King ruled the land, and, like his father, the Conqueror, found it
+desirable to have a stronghold at this northern point of his turbulent
+realm, around which a town might grow up in safety.
+
+The roof and battlements of the Keep are modern, but the rest of it--the
+walls, 12 to 18 feet thick; the dismal dungeon, or guard chamber, with
+iron rings and fetters still fastened to the walls and central pillar;
+the beautiful little chapel, with its finely-ornamented arches; the
+little chambers in the thickness of the walls; the well, 94 feet deep,
+sunk through the solid masonry into the rock beneath; the arrow slits in
+the walls; the stones in the roof scored with frequent bolts from the
+besiegers' crossbows, one of which bolts is firmly embedded in the wall
+opposite one of the narrow windows; the ancient weapons and armour--all
+these breathe of the days when the Red King's castle took its part in
+the doings of our hardy ancestors in those stormy times in which they
+lived and fought.
+
+The last time the old Keep was called upon to act as fortress and refuge
+in time of war was in Stuart days, after the ten weeks siege of
+Newcastle by the Scottish General Leslie, Earl of Leven, in 1644, when
+brave "Governor Marley" and his friends held out in the castle for a few
+days longer, after the town was taken. In memory of this stout defence
+and long resistance King Charles gave to the town its motto--_Fortiter
+defendit triumphans_, which Bates gives as having originally been
+_Fortiter defendendo triumphat_--"She glories in her brave defence."
+
+Two of the original fireplaces still remain in the Castle, and there are
+besides many objects of great interest which have been bestowed there
+from time to time for safe keeping; and many more are to be seen at the
+Black Gate, formerly the chief entrance to the Castle Hall and its
+surroundings. The Great Hall of the Castle, in which John Baliol did
+homage to Edward I. for the crown of Scotland, stood on the spot now
+covered by the Moot Hall. The Black Gate, the lower part of which is the
+oldest part of the building, which has many times been altered and
+repaired, is now used as a museum. There were nearly a dozen rooms in
+it, and not so many years ago the Corporation of Newcastle let these out
+in tenements, until this building also was rescued from degradation by
+the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries, who took down most of the dividing
+walls, and converted it into a museum. Here may be seen stored many
+sculptured stones, altars, and statues, which have been brought from the
+various Roman stations in the north.
+
+Around the walls of one room are to be seen facsimiles of the famous
+Bayeux tapestry; there is also a model of the Castle as originally
+built, and there are many more exhibits and loans of the very greatest
+interest.
+
+Of the walls of Newcastle only fragments remain, the most considerable
+portion being found between Westgate Road and St. Andrew's Churchyard;
+here are also remains of several of the watch-towers that stood at
+intervals around the walls--the Heber Tower, the Mordaunt or Morden
+Tower, and the Ever Tower. Between the two first named towers may be
+seen a little doorway, walled up, once used by the Friars, who obtained
+from Edward II. permission to make the doorway in order that they might
+the more easily reach their gardens and orchards outside; but they had
+to be ready to build it up at a moment's notice on the approach of an
+enemy. One of the towers--the Carliol or Weaver's Tower--was pulled down
+to make room for the Central Free Library, opened in 1881. Many little
+fragments of the Castle wall are to be seen near the High Level Bridge,
+incorporated in other walls, as far as the South Postern of the Castle,
+which is said to be the only remaining Norman postern in England and is
+the oldest remaining part of the Castle.
+
+The old streets of Newcastle are fast disappearing to make room for the
+ever-increasing needs of commerce; at the moment of writing it is being
+proposed to pull down more of the historic street called the Side, to
+make room for new printing offices. At the head of this curious old
+street, which curves downward from the Cathedral to the river, stood the
+birthplace of Cuthbert Collingwood, who was to become Admiral Lord
+Collingwood, and second in fame only to Nelson himself. Both this house
+and the one where Thomas Bewick had his workshop, near the Cathedral,
+have gone to make room for new buildings.
+
+At the foot of this street, where it curves to the river front, is the
+Sandhill, facing the Swing Bridge. Here are several old houses
+remaining, with many-windowed fronts, looking out on the river. One of
+these was the house of Aubone Surtees, the banker, whose daughter
+Bessie, in 1772, stole out of one of those little windows, and gave
+herself into the keeping of young Jack Scott, who was waiting for her
+below. The adventurous youth became Lord Chancellor of England, and is
+best known as Lord Eldon; his brother William became Lord Stowell, and
+was for many years Judge of the High Court of Admiralty.
+
+Opposite the old houses of the Sandhill, close to the river bank, is the
+old Guildhall, greatly altered in appearance from the time when John
+Wesley preached from its steps to the keelmen and fishermen of the town.
+It was here that a sturdy fishwife put her arms round him, when some
+boisterous spirits in the crowd threatened him with ill-usage, and,
+shaking her fist in their faces, swore to "floor them" if they touched
+her "canny man."
+
+This spot, where the Swing Bridge unites the lower banks of the stream,
+seems always to have been the most convenient point for crossing the
+river, for the present bridge is the fifth that has spanned the Tyne at
+this point: Hadrian's bridge, Pons Aelii; a mediaeval bridge destroyed
+by fire in 1248; the Old Tyne Bridge, swept away in the flood of 1771;
+the successor of this, which was found too low to allow of the passage
+of such large vessels as were able to sail up the Tyne after the
+deepening of the river bed; and the present Swing Bridge, which is
+worked by hydraulic machinery, the invention of Lord Armstrong. We do
+not know how long Hadrian's bridge lasted, but William the Conqueror,
+when returning from his expedition into Scotland in 1071, was obliged to
+camp for a time at "Monec-cestre," as the Tyne was in flood, and there
+was no bridge.
+
+Some ancient houses are to be found in Low Friar Street, one of which,
+with winged heads and dolphins carved on it, is said to be the oldest
+house in Newcastle. Turning up an opening on the west side of this
+street, all that is left of the ancient Blackfriars' Monastery may be
+seen; some of its rooms are used as the meeting places of various Trade
+Guilds, and the rest form low tenement houses, in the walls of which are
+many Gothic archways and ancient window-openings built up. Over the door
+of the Smith's Hall is a carving of three hammers, and the
+inscription:--
+
+  "By hammer and hand
+  All artes do stand."
+
+This Hall was formerly the Great Hall of the monastery; and here Edward
+Baliol did homage to Edward III. for his crown of Scotland. Nun Street,
+leading out of Grainger Street, reminds us of the days when the Nunnery
+of St. Bartholomew stood in this part of the town, and the Nun's Moor
+was part of the grounds belonging to the establishment. In High Friar
+Street, which was not then the dilapidated lane it now appears, Richard
+Grainger was born.
+
+Another part of the town which has fallen from its former high estate is
+the Close, which lies along the river front, westward from the Sandhill.
+Here, at one time, lived many of the principal inhabitants of
+Newcastle--Sir John Marley, Sir William Blackett, Sir Ralph Millbank,
+and others equally important; and here, too, was the former Mansion
+House of the city, where the Mayors resided, and where they could
+receive distinguished visitors to the town. Amongst those who have been
+entertained there were the Duke of Wellington and the first King of the
+Belgians. But in 1836 the Corporation of Newcastle sold the house, with
+the furniture, books, pictures, plate, and everything else it contained.
+
+Eastward from the Sandhill is Sandgate, immortalised in the "Newcastle
+Anthem"--The Keel Row. Its present appearance is very different from the
+green slope and sandy shore of former days; the keelmen, too, have
+vanished, and their place in the commercial economy of the Tyne is taken
+by waggon-ways and coal-shoots. The old narrow alleys of the town,
+called "chares," are fast disappearing; the best known is Pudding Chare,
+leading from Bigg Market to Westgate Road. Many and various are the
+explanations that have been offered to account for its curious name, but
+the true one does not seem yet to have appeared.
+
+Pilgrim Street owes its name to the fact that it was the route of the
+pilgrims who came in great numbers to visit the little chapel or shrine
+of Our Lady of Jesmond, and St. Mary's Well. In Pilgrim Street was the
+gateway of a stately mansion, surrounded by beautiful gardens, called
+Anderson Place, from a Mr. Anderson who bought it from Sir Thomas
+Blackett in 1783. It had been built by another Mr. Anderson in the reign
+of Queen Elizabeth, on the site where once stood the monastery of the
+Grey Friars; he, however, had named his mansion "The Newe House." In
+this house Charles I. lived when a prisoner in Newcastle. Anderson Place
+no longer exists, but the Newcastle of to-day has a constant reminder of
+its last owners, for Major George Anderson, son of the Mr. Anderson who
+purchased it in 1783, gave to the Cathedral of St. Nicholas the great
+bell--known on that account as "The Major"--whose deep reverberant
+"boom" can be heard for a distance of ten miles. The bell was re-cast in
+1891, and in 1892 a new peal of bells was consecrated by Canon Gough.
+
+Westgate Road is another interesting street; the old West Gate stood
+near the site of the present Tyne Theatre, and from this point onward
+the street follows, almost exactly, the line of the Roman Wall.
+
+Some noteworthy houses in Newcastle are--No. 17, Eldon Place, where
+George and Robert Stephenson lived in the years 1824-25; No. 4, St.
+Thomas' Crescent, where the celebrated artist, Wm. Bell Scott lived when
+he was headmaster of the School of Art, and to whom Swinburne wrote a
+fine memorial poem; the Academy of Arts, in Blackett Street, built for
+the exhibition of pictures by those well-known painters T.M. Richardson
+and H.T. Parker, and for a short period the home of the Pen and Palette
+Club, which, both here and in its new home at Higham Place, has
+entertained many people distinguished in letters, art, and travel who
+have visited the town of late years; and No. 9, Pleasant Row, the
+birthplace of Lord Armstrong, which has only recently been destroyed to
+make way for the N.E.R. Company's new ferro-concrete Goods Station in
+New Bridge Street.
+
+The list of important buildings in Newcastle, exclusive of the churches,
+is a long one; one of the most prominent is the Library of the Literary
+and Philosophical Society, familiarly known as the "Lit. and Phil.,"
+which stands at the lower end of Westgate Road, a little way back from
+the roadway. It is built on the site of the town house of the Earls of
+Westmoreland; and its fine Lecture Theatre was a gift to the Society
+from Lord Armstrong. It is the centre of the intellectual life of the
+city as a whole, apart from the work of the justly famed Armstrong
+College, a teaching institute of University rank. This was formerly
+known as the Durham College of Science, and, with the Durham College of
+Medicine, forms part of the University of Durham.
+
+Other seats of learning in the town are the Rutherford College, in Bath
+Lane, and the Royal Grammar School, which dates from the reign of Henry
+VIII. It was reconstituted by Queen Elizabeth, and has had many changes
+of abode. At one time it occupied the buildings of the Convent of St.
+Mary, which covered the space where Stephenson's monument now stands.
+While the Grammar School was located there, the boys Cuthbert
+Collingwood, William Scott, and John Scott, who afterwards became so
+famous, attended it; and other distinguished scholars were John Horsley,
+author of _Britannia Romana_, and John Brand and Henry Bourne, the
+historians of Newcastle. The school is now situated in Eskdale Terrace
+and its splendid playing fields stretch across to the North Road.
+
+One of the most interesting buildings in Newcastle is the Hancock Museum
+of Natural History, at Barras Bridge. It contains a matchless collection
+of birds, and some unique specimens of extinct species; also the
+original drawings of Bewick's _British Birds_, and other works of his.
+The famous Newcastle naturalist, John Hancock, presented his wonderful
+collection, prepared by himself, to the museum. Here, too, is a complete
+set of fossils from the coal measures, including some fine specimens of
+Sigillaria. These are only a few of the treasures contained in the
+museum, which was built chiefly through the generosity of the late Lord
+and Lady Armstrong, Colonel John Joicey of Newton Hall, Stocksfield, and
+Mr. Edward Joicey of Whinney House.
+
+The new Victoria Infirmary, on the Leazes, is a magnificent building,
+and was opened by King Edward VII. in 1906. It was erected by public
+subscription, and when �100,000 had been subscribed, the late Mr. John
+Hall generously offered a like sum on condition that the building should
+be erected either on the Leazes or the Town Moor. Arrangements were made
+to do so, and another �100,000 given by the present Lord and Lady
+Armstrong.
+
+But fine as all these buildings are, the pride of Newcastle is one much
+older than any of them--the Cathedral church of St. Nicholas, with its
+exquisitely beautiful lantern steeple. This wonderful lantern was the
+work of Robert de Rhodes, who lived in the fifteenth century. The arms
+of this early benefactor of the church may yet be seen on the ancient
+font. The present church was finished in the year 1350, says Dr. Bruce;
+but there was a former one on this site to which the crypt is supposed
+to belong. It has undergone many alterations at different times, and has
+sheltered within its walls many and various great personages.
+
+[Illustration: NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.]
+
+In 1451, a treaty between England and Scotland was ratified in the
+vestry. In the reign of Henry VII., his daughter, Princess Margaret,
+attended mass here, with all her retinue, when she stayed in the town on
+her way to Scotland to be married to the gallant young king James IV.
+She was entertained at the house of the Austin Friars, which stood where
+now stands the Holy Jesus Hospital at the Manors, near to the Sallyport
+Tower. When James I. became king of England, he attended service here,
+as he passed through Newcastle on his way to his southern capital. In
+the reign of his ill-fated son, Charles I., Newcastle was occupied by
+the Scots, under General Leslie, for a year after the battle of Newburn in
+1640; and again in 1644 was besieged by them for ten weeks. On this
+occasion the town nearly lost its chief ornament and pride--the lantern
+of the church; for "There is a traditional story," says Bourne, "of this
+building I am now treating of, which may not be improper to be here
+taken notice of. In the time of the Civil Wars, when the Scots had
+besieged the town for several weeks, and were still as far as at first
+from taking it, the General sent a messenger to the Mayor of the town,
+and demanded the keys and the delivery up of the town, or he would
+immediately demolish the steeple of St. Nicholas.
+
+"The Mayor and Aldermen, upon hearing this, immediately ordered a
+certain number of the chiefest Scottish prisoners to be carried up to
+the top of the old tower, the place below the lantern, and there
+confined. After this, they returned the General an answer to this
+purpose, that they would upon no terms deliver up the town, but would to
+the last moment defend it; that the steeple of St. Nicholas was indeed a
+beautiful and magnificent piece of architecture, and one of the great
+ornaments of the town, but yet should be blown to atoms before ransomed
+at such a rate; that, however, if it was to fall it should not fall
+alone; that at the same moment he destroyed the beautiful structure he
+should bathe his hands in the blood of his countrymen, who were placed
+there on purpose, either to preserve it from ruin or to die along with
+it. This message had the desired effect. The men were kept prisoners
+during the whole time of the siege, and not so much as one gun was fired
+against it."
+
+In 1646, when Charles I. was a prisoner in Newcastle for nearly a year
+(from May, 1646, to February 3rd, 1647), this was the church he
+attended; and we may picture him listening perforce to the
+"admonishing" of the stern Covenanters. In this connection occurs the
+oft-told story of his ready wit, when one of the preachers wound up his
+discourse by giving out the metrical version of the fifty-second Psalm,
+with an obvious allusion to his royal hearer:--
+
+  "Why dost thou, tyrant, boast abroad,
+  Thy wicked works to praise?"
+
+Charles quickly stood up and asked for the fifty-sixth Psalm instead:--
+
+  "Have mercy, Lord, on me, I pray,
+  For man would me devour."
+
+The good folk of Newcastle with willing voice rendered the latter Psalm,
+doubtless to the discomfiture of the preacher.
+
+Gray, who published his _Chorographia_, or Survey of
+Newcastle-upon-Tyne, just three years after this, describes St.
+Nicholas' as having "a stately, high, stone steeple, with many pinakles,
+a stately stone lantherne, standing upon foure stone arches, builded by
+Robert de Rhodes.... It lifteth up a head of Majesty, as high above the
+rest as the Cypresse Tree above the low Shrubs."
+
+The church underwent a terrible despoliation at the hands of the Scots
+in 1644; but more terrible still were the injuries it received, a little
+more than a century later, from those who ought to have been its
+friends. In the years 1784-7 there were many alterations made in the
+building, during which almost all the old memorials and monuments
+perished, or were removed; those which were not claimed by the living
+representatives of the persons commemorated being ruthlessly sold, or
+destroyed; and the brasses were disposed of as old metal. The modern
+alterations and restorations have been more happy in their effect, and
+one of the notable additions to the church is the beautiful carved oak
+screen in the chancel, the work of Mr. Ralph Hedley.
+
+There are many beautiful memorial windows in the church, and many
+memorials in other forms to the various eminent North-country folk who
+have been connected with Newcastle and its chief place of worship. The
+Collingwood cenotaph is the most interesting of all; the brave Admiral's
+body, as is well known, lies beside that of his friend and commander,
+Nelson, in St. Paul's Cathedral, but this memorial of him is fittingly
+placed in the Cathedral of his native town, within whose walls he
+worshipped as a boy. There are two monuments by Flaxman--one of the Rev.
+Hugh Moises, the famous master of the Grammar School when Collingwood
+was a boy; and the other of Sir Matthew White Ridley, who died in 1813.
+Of the newer monuments, those of Dr. Bruce, of Roman Wall fame, and of
+the beloved and lamented Bishop Lloyd, are particularly fine.
+
+Near the east end of the church, which was raised to the rank of a
+Cathedral in 1881, is hung a large painting by Tintoretto, "Christ
+washing the feet of the Disciples"; this was presented to the church by
+Sir Matthew White Ridley in 1818. There are many more things of interest
+in the Cathedral, but mention must be made of a wonderful MS. Bible,
+incomplete, it is true, but beautifully written and illuminated by the
+monks of Hexham, and other manuscript treasures carefully kept in the
+care of the authorities.
+
+The oldest church in the town is St. Andrew's, supposed to have been
+built by King David of Scotland at the time when that monarch was Lord
+of Tynedale, in the reign of King Stephen. It suffered greatly in the
+struggle with the Scots, whose cannon, planted on the Leazes, did it
+great damage, and some of the fiercest fighting, at the final capture
+of the town, took place close by, where a breach was made in the walls.
+In such a battered condition was it left that the parish Registers tell
+us that no baptism nor "sarmon" took place within its walls for a year
+(1645). But a marriage took place, the persons wedded being Scots, who,
+we learn from the same authority, "would pay nothing to the Church."
+
+In the church is buried Sir Adam de Athol, Lord of Jesmond, and Mary,
+his wife. It is supposed that this Sir Adam gave the Town Moor to the
+people of Newcastle, though this has been disputed. A fine picture of
+the "Last Supper," by Giordano, presented by Major Anderson in 1804,
+hangs in the church.
+
+St. John's Church ranks next to St. Andrew's in point of age; there are
+fragments of Norman work in the building, and it is known to have been
+standing in 1297. To-day the venerable pile, with its age worn stones,
+stands out in sharper contrast to its environment than does any other
+building in the town, surrounded as it is by modern shops and offices.
+The memories it evokes, and the past for which it stands, are such as
+the citizens of Newcastle will not willingly let die; and when, a few
+years ago, a proposal was made for its removal, the proposition aroused
+such a storm of popular feeling against it that it was incontinently
+abandoned.
+
+All Saints' Church was built in 1789, on the site of an older building
+which was in existence in 1296, and which became very unsafe. Here is
+kept one of the most interesting monuments in the city--the monumental
+brass which once covered the tomb of Roger Thornton, a wealthy merchant
+of Newcastle, and a great benefactor to all the churches. He died in
+1429. He gave to St. Nicholas' Church its great east window; but, on its
+needing repair in 1860, it was removed entirely, and the present one,
+in memory of Dr. Ions, inserted; and the only fragment left of
+Thornton's window is a small circular piece inset in a plain glass
+window in the Cathedral. He gave much money to Hexham Abbey also.
+
+Besides the famous men already mentioned in connection with the town,
+Newcastle possesses other well-known names not a few. In the Middle
+Ages, Duns Scotus, the man whose skill in argument earned for him the
+title of "Doctor Subtilis," owned Northumberland as his home, and
+received his education in the monastery of the Grey Friars, which stood
+near the head of the present Grey Street. He returned to this monastery
+after some years of study at Oxford; in 1304 he was teaching divinity in
+Paris.
+
+Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London in the reign of Edward VI., whose
+Northumbrian birthplace at Willimoteswick has already been noted,
+received his early education at the Grammar School in Newcastle, and on
+going to Cambridge was a student at Pembroke. We are told he was the
+ablest man among the Reformers for piety, learning and judgment. As is
+well known, he died at the stake in 1555.
+
+William and Elizabeth Elstob, who lived in Newcastle at the end of the
+seventeenth century, were learned Saxon scholars, but were so greatly in
+advance of the education of their times that they met with little
+encouragement or sympathy in their labours.
+
+Charles Avison, the musician and composer, was organist of St. John's in
+1736, and afterwards of St. Nicholas'.
+
+It was he to whom Browning referred in the lines--
+
+                               "On the list
+  Of worthies, who by help of pipe or wire,
+  Expressed in sound rough rage or soft desire,
+  Thou, whilom of Newcastle, organist."
+
+These lines have been carved on his tombstone in St. Andrew's
+churchyard. He is best known as the composer of the anthem "Sound the
+loud timbrel."
+
+Mark Akenside, the poet, was born in Butcher Bank, now called after him
+Akenside Hill. His chief work "The Pleasures of Imagination," is not
+often read now, but it enjoyed a considerable reputation in an age when
+a stilted and formal style was looked upon as a true excellence in
+poetry.
+
+Charles Hutton, the mathematician, was born in Newcastle in 1737. He
+began life as a pitman; but, receiving an injury to his arm, he turned
+his attention to books, and taught in his native town for some years,
+becoming later Professor of Mathematics in the Royal Military Academy at
+Woolwich.
+
+John Brand, the antiquary and historian of Newcastle, was born at
+Washington, County Durham, but came to Newcastle as a child. After
+attending the Grammar School, he went to Oxford, by the aid of his
+master, the Rev. Hugh Moises. He was afterwards curate at the church of
+St. Andrew.
+
+Robert Morrison, the celebrated Chinese scholar, was born near Morpeth,
+but his parents came to Newcastle when the boy was three years of age.
+He died in China in 1834.
+
+Thomas Miles Richardson, the well-known artist, was born in Newcastle in
+1784, and was at first a cabinetmaker, then master of St. Andrew's Free
+School, but finally gave up all other work to devote himself to his art.
+
+Robert Stephenson went to school at Percy Street Academy, which for long
+has ceased to exist. There he was taught by Mr. Bruce, and had for one
+of his fellow-pupils the master's son, John Collingwood Bruce, who
+afterwards became so famous a teacher and antiquary.
+
+Newcastle is not, as most southerners imagine, a dark and gloomy town of
+unrelieved bricks and mortar, for, besides possessing many wide and
+handsome streets, it has also several pretty parks, the most noteworthy
+being the beautiful Jesmond Dene, one of the late Lord Armstrong's
+magnificent gifts to his native town. The Dene, together with the
+Armstrong Park near it, lies on the course of the Ouseburn, which is
+here a bright and sparkling stream, very different from the appearance
+it presents by the time it empties its murky waters into the Tyne.
+Besides these there are Heaton Park, the Leazes Park, with its lakes and
+boats, Brandling Park, and others smaller than these; and last, but most
+important of all, the Town Moor, a fine breezy space to the north of the
+town, of more than 900 acres in extent.
+
+Of statues and monuments Newcastle possesses some half-dozen, the finest
+being "Grey's Monument"--a household word in the town and familiarly
+known as "The Monument." It was erected at the junction of Grey Street
+and Grainger Street in memory of Earl Grey of Howick, who was Prime
+Minister at the passing of the Reform Bill. The figure of the Earl, by
+Bailey, stands at the top of a lofty column, the height being 135 feet
+to the top of the figure. There is a stairway within the column, by
+which it can be ascended, and a magnificent view enjoyed from the top.
+
+In an open space near the Central Station, between the _Chronicle_
+Office and the Lit. and Phil., there is a fine statue of George
+Stephenson, by the Northumbrian sculptor, Lough. It is a full length
+representation of the great engineer, in bronze, with the figures of
+four workmen, representing the chief industries of Tyneside, around the
+pedestal--a miner, a smith, a navvy, and an engineer. At the head of
+Northumberland Street, on the open space of the Haymarket, stands a
+beautiful winged Victory on a tall column, crowning "Northumbria"
+typified as a female figure at the foot of the column. This graceful and
+striking memorial is the work of T. Eyre Macklin, and is in memory of
+the officers and men of the North who fell in the Boer War of 1899-1902.
+Two other noteworthy statues in the town are those of Lord Armstrong,
+near the entrance to the Natural History Museum at Barras Bridge, and of
+Joseph Cowen, in Westgate Road.
+
+
+THE KEEL ROW
+
+  As I came thro' Sandgate,
+  Thro' Sandgate, thro' Sandgate,
+  As I came thro' Sandgate,
+  I heard a lassie sing
+      "O weel may the keel row,
+      The keel row, the keel row,
+      Weel may the keel row
+      That my laddie's in
+
+  "O who is like my Johnnie,
+  Sae leish,[5] sae blithe, sae bonnie;
+  He's foremost 'mang the mony
+  Keel lads o' coaly Tyne
+      He'll set and row sae tightly,
+      And in the dance sae sprightly
+      He'll cut and shuffle lightly,
+      'Tis true, were he not mine!
+  [Footnote 5: Leish = lithe, nimble.]
+
+  "He has nae mair o' learnin'
+  Than tells his weekly earnin',
+  Yet, right frae wrang discernin',
+  Tho' brave, nae bruiser he!
+      Tho' he no worth a plack[6] is,
+      His ain coat on his back is;
+      And nane can say that black is
+      The white o' Johnnie's e'e
+  [Footnote 6: Plack = a small copper coin, worth about one-third of a
+  penny.]
+
+  He wears a blue bonnet,
+  Blue bonnet, blue bonnet,
+  He wears a blue bonnet,
+  And a dimple in his chin
+         O weel may the keel row,
+         The keel row, the keel row,
+         Weel may the keel row
+         That my laddie's in."
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+ELSWICK AND ITS FOUNDER.
+
+  Sailed from the North of old
+  The strong sons of Odin;
+  Sailed in the Serpent ships,
+  "By hammer and hand"
+              Skilfully builded.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Still in the North-country
+  Men keep their sea-cunning;
+  Still true the legend,
+  "By hammer and hand"
+              Elswick builds war-ships.
+
+  --(_Northumbriensis_).
+
+For a mile and a quarter, along the north bank of the Tyne, stretch the
+world-famed Elswick Works, which have grown to their present gigantic
+proportions from the small beginnings of five and a half acres in 1847.
+In that year two fields were purchased as a site for the new works about
+to be started to make the hydraulic machinery which had been invented by
+Mr. Armstrong.
+
+In this undertaking he was backed by the wealth of several prominent
+Newcastle citizens, who believed in the future of the new
+inventions--Messrs. Addison Potter, George Cruddas, Armourer Donkin, and
+Richard Lambert. At that time Elswick was a pretty country village some
+distance outside of Newcastle, and the walk along the riverside between
+the two places was a favourite one with the people of the town. In
+midstream there was an island, where stood a little inn called the
+"Countess of Coventry"; and on the island various sports were often
+held, including horse-racing.
+
+The price of the land for the new shops, which were soon built on the
+green slopes above the Tyne, was paid to Mr. Hodgson Hind and Mr.
+Richard Grainger; the latter of whom had intended, could he have carried
+out his plans for the rebuilding of Newcastle, not to stop until he made
+Elswick Hall the centre of the town.
+
+Until the new shops were ready to begin work, some of Mr. Armstrong's
+hydraulic cranes were made by Mr. Watson at his works in the High
+Bridge.
+
+All the summer of 1847, the building went briskly on; and in the autumn
+work was started. At first Mr. Armstrong had an office in Hood Street,
+as he was superintending his machinery construction in High Bridge, as
+well as the building operations at Elswick. On some of the early
+notepaper of the firm there is, as the heading, a picture of Elswick as
+it was then, showing the first shops, the little square building in
+which were the offices, the green banks sloping down to the waterside,
+and the island in the middle of the shallow stream, while the chimneys
+and smoke of Newcastle are indicated in the remote background. Along the
+riverside was the public footpath.
+
+The first work done in the new shops was the making of Crane No. 6; and
+amongst other early orders was one from the _Newcastle Chronicle_, for
+hydraulic machinery to drive the printing press. The new machinery
+rapidly grew in favour; and orders from mines, docks and railways poured
+in to the Elswick firm, which soon extended its works.
+
+In 1854, when the Crimean War broke out, Mr. Armstrong was requested to
+devise some submarine mines which would clear the harbour of Sebastopol
+of the Russian war-ships which had been sent there. He did so, but the
+machinery was never used.
+
+At the same time, in his leisure moments, he turned his attention to the
+question of artillery. The guns in use at that time were very little
+better than those which had been used during the Napoleonic wars; and
+Mr. Armstrong devised a new one, which was made at his workshops. It was
+a 3-pounder, complete with gun-carriage and mountings, and is still to
+be seen at Elswick.
+
+With the usual reluctance of Government departments to consider anything
+new, the War Office of the day was slow to believe in the superiority of
+the new field-piece; but when every fresh trial proved that superiority
+to be beyond doubt, the gun was adopted. And then Mr. Armstrong showed
+the large-minded generosity which was so marked a feature of his
+character. Holding in his hand--as every man must, who possesses the
+secret of a new and superior engine of destruction--the fate of nations,
+to be decided at his will, and with the knowledge that other powers were
+willing and eager to buy with any sum the skill of such an inventor, Mr.
+Armstrong presented to the British Government, as a free gift, the
+patents of his artillery; and he entered the Government service for a
+time, as Engineer to the War Department, in order to give them the
+benefit of his skill and special knowledge.
+
+A knighthood was bestowed upon him, and he took up his new duties as Sir
+William Armstrong. An Ordnance department was opened at Elswick, and the
+Government promised a continuance of orders above those that the Arsenal
+at Woolwich was able to fulfil. All went well for a time, but after some
+years the connection between the Government and Elswick ceased; the
+Ordnance and Engineering works were then amalgamated into one concern,
+and Mr. George Rendel and Captain Noble--now Sir Andrew Noble, and one
+of the greatest living authorities on explosives--were placed in charge
+of the former.
+
+Released from the agreement to make no guns except for the British
+Government, Elswick was open to receive other orders, which now began to
+roll in from all the world. Elswick prospered greatly, until suddenly
+there came a check, in the shape of a strike for a nine hours day, in
+1871. After the strike had lasted for four and a half months, work was
+resumed; but the old genial relationship between masters and men had
+received a rude strain, and was never the same as before.
+
+Shipbuilding had been taken up a year or two before this, but the
+earliest vessels were built to their order in Mr. Mitchell's yard at
+Walker. The first one was a small gunboat, the "Staunch," built for the
+Admiralty. In later years the Walker ship-yard was united to the Elswick
+enterprises, and a ship-yard at the latter place was also opened.
+
+Meantime, Captain Noble had been experimenting further in artillery, and
+in 1877 another and better type of gun was produced. It was adopted by
+the Government, and all guns since then have been modifications, more or
+less, of this type. In 1876 the famous hundred-ton gun for Italy was
+made, and was taken on board the "Europa" to be carried to her
+destination; this vessel being the first to pass the newly-finished
+Swing Bridge, another outcome of the inventive genius of the head of the
+Elswick firm. The gun, which was the largest in the world at that time,
+was lowered into the "Europa" by the largest pair of "sheer-legs" in
+existence, and was lifted out again at Spezzia by the largest hydraulic
+crane of that day, and all these were the work of the Elswick firm.
+
+Soon after this the firm became Sir W.G. Armstrong, Mitchell, and Co.;
+and in consequence of the continued increase of business, it became
+necessary to open Steel Works also. This is one of the most notable
+features of the Elswick works; the wonders of ancient magicians pale
+into insignificance before the marvels of this department, and no
+Eastern Genius could accomplish such seemingly impossible feats with
+greater ease than do the workmen of Elswick.
+
+The works continued to grow still further, and soon Elswick was building
+cruisers for China, for Italy (where works at Pozzuoli--the ancient
+Puteoli--were opened), for Russia, Chili, and Japan. Tynesiders took a
+special interest in the progress of the Japanese wars, for so many of
+that country's battleships had their birth on the banks of the river at
+Elswick, and Japanese sailors became a familiar sight in Newcastle
+streets. Groups of strange faces from alien lands are periodically seen
+in our midst, and met with again and again for some time; then one day
+there is a launch at Elswick, and shortly afterwards all the strange
+faces disappear. They have gathered together from their various quarters
+in the town, and manning their new cruiser, have sailed away to their
+own land, and Newcastle streets know them no more; but, later,
+Tynesiders read in their newspapers of the deeds done on the vessels
+which they have sent forth to the world.
+
+The ice-breaker "Ermack" is one of the firm's most notable achievements,
+the vessel having been built and designed in their Walker yard, to the
+order of the Czar of Russia, in 1898, for the purpose of breaking up
+ice-floes in the northern seas, and more especially for keeping open a
+route across the great lakes of Siberia.
+
+The Elswick firm became Armstrong, Whitworth and Co., Ltd., in 1897,
+which was also the year of another great strike; and two years later, a
+disastrous fire burned down three of their shops, throwing two thousand
+men temporarily out of employment. Still the works continued to grow,
+and business to increase, until, instead of the five and a half acres
+originally purchased, the Company's works, in 1900, covered two hundred
+and thirty acres, and the number of men on the pay-roll was over
+25,000--that is, sufficient with their families to people a town three
+times the size of Hexham. And the scope and extent of these works are
+extending, and yet extending; and now Elswick and Scotswood form an
+uninterrupted line of closely-packed dwellings, which stretch without a
+break from Newcastle, and make a background for the immense works on the
+river shore; and one would look in vain for any signs of the pretty
+country lanes and village of sixty years ago.
+
+The founder of this great enterprise, in the early days of the Company,
+built for his workpeople schools, library, and reading rooms, as well as
+dwellings, and met them personally at their social gatherings and
+entertainments--generally provided by himself; but the increasing size
+of the concern, the excellence and capability, amounting to genius, of
+the various heads of departments chosen by him, and his own increasing
+years and failing health, led to his gradual withdrawal from personal
+attendance at Elswick. The last time he appeared there officially was
+when the King of Siam visited the works in 1897.
+
+One who knew him well has written of him, "His mind was at the same time
+original and strictly practical; he noticed with a penetrating
+observation, and drew conclusions with intuitive genius. Abstract
+speculation had no charm for him; he never cherished wild dreams or
+extravagant ideas. But if his conception was thus wisely restricted, his
+execution of an idea was unrivalled in its thoroughness. Whether he was
+founding an industrial establishment, or building a house, or making a
+road, the hand of the man is quite unmistakable. There is the same solid
+basis, the same enduring superstructure. Every stone that is laid at
+Cragside or Bamburgh seems to be stamped as it were with the impression
+of his great personality, and the thoroughness of his work." All his
+life long, the thoroughness with which he was able to concentrate his
+mind on the one subject which occupied it at the time, was a marked
+feature of Lord Armstrong's character.
+
+In the early period of his career, while he was still in a solicitor's
+office, and when the study of hydraulics was absorbing all his leisure
+hours, he was quizzically said to have "water on the brain." Electrical
+problems also engaged his attention, and in 1844 he lectured at the Lit.
+and Phil. rooms on his hydro-electric machine, on which occasion the
+lecture room was so tightly packed that he had to get in through the
+window. In the following year he explained to the same society his
+hydraulic experiments and achievements; in 1846 he was elected a Fellow
+of the Royal Society; and the next summer, 1847, saw the Elswick Works
+begun.
+
+It is difficult to realize the fact, brought home to us on looking at
+dates like these, that Lord Armstrong and Robert Stephenson were
+contemporaries, and that both great engineers were engaged at the same
+time on the works which were to bring them lasting fame. The life and
+work of Robert Stephenson seem so remote, so much a part of bygone
+history, that it strikes the mind with an unexpected shock to realise
+that here is a life which began about the same time, yet has lasted
+until quite recent years; for Lord Armstrong's long and successful
+career only closed with the closing days of the nineteenth century.
+
+In the later years of his life he was greatly interested in repairing
+and partly re-building the historic castle of Bamburgh, which Mr.
+Freeman calls "the cradle of our race," and which Lord Armstrong
+purchased from Lord Crewe's Trustees. Of his personal character, the
+writer above quoted says, "Apart from his intellectual gifts, Lord
+Armstrong's character was that of a great man. His unaffected modesty
+was as attractive as his broad-minded charity. In business transactions,
+he was the soul of integrity and honour, while in private life his mind
+was far too large to regard accumulated wealth with any excessive
+affection. He both spent his money freely and gave it away freely. His
+benefactions to Newcastle were princely, and his public munificence was
+fit to rank with that of any philanthropist of his time."
+
+Princely, indeed, were his gifts to his native town, as the list of them
+will show; they embraced either large contributions to, or the entire
+gift of, Jesmond Dene, the Armstrong Park, the Lecture Theatre of the
+Literary and Philosophical Society, St. Cuthbert's Church, the
+Cathedral, St. Stephen's Church, the Infirmary, the Deaf and Dumb
+Institution, the Children's Hospital, the Elswick Schools, Elswick
+Mechanics' Institute, the Convalescent Home at Whitley Bay, the Hancock
+Museum--to which he and Lady Armstrong contributed a valuable collection
+of shells, and �11,500 in money--the Armstrong Bridge, the Armstrong
+College, and the Bishopric Endowment Fund.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+THE CHEVIOTS.
+
+From the crowded, bustling scenes of Tyneside to the solitude of the
+Cheviot Hills is a "far cry," even farther mentally than in actual tale
+of miles. Yet the two are linked by the same stream, which begins life
+as a brawling Cheviot burn, having for its fellows the head waters of
+the Rede, the Coquet, and the Till, with the scores of little dancing
+rills that feed them.
+
+Nowhere in this land of swelling hills and grassy fields can one get out
+of either sight or sound of running water. Every little dip in the hills
+has its watercourse, every vale its broader stream, and the pleasant
+sound of their murmurings and sweet babbling fills in the background of
+every remembrance of days spent upon the green slopes of the Cheviots.
+You may hear in their tones, if you listen, the shrill chatter and
+laughter of children, soft cooing voices, and the deeper notes of
+manhood, and might fancy, did not your sight contradict the fact, that
+you were close to a goodly company, whose words met your ear, but whose
+magic language you could not understand.
+
+One little burn of my acquaintance, which runs through field and dell to
+join the Till, I have hearkened to again and again for hours, unable to
+break away from the spell of its ever-varying, yet constant music--a
+sort of wilder, sweeter version of Mendelssohn's Duetto, with the voices
+of Knight and Lady alternating and intermingling amidst a rippling
+current of clear bell-like undertones.
+
+Down from Cheviot itself, the lovely little Colledge Water splashes its
+way, issuing from the wild ravine called the Henhole, where the cliffs
+on each side of the rocky gorge rise in some places to a height of more
+than two hundred feet. Concerning this ravine, there is a legend that a
+party of hunters, long ages ago, were deer-stalking in Cheviot Forest,
+when on reaching the Henhole their ears were greeted by the most
+ravishing music they had ever heard. Allured by the enchanting sounds,
+they followed the music into the ravine, where they disappeared, and
+were never again seen.
+
+The range of the Cheviot Hills stretches for about twenty-two miles
+along the north-west border of Northumberland; and as the width of the
+range is, roughly speaking, twenty-one miles, we have a tract of over
+three hundred square miles of rolling, grassy, and heath-clad hills, of
+which about one-third is over the Scottish border in Roxburghshire. The
+giants of the range, The Cheviot (2,676 feet high), Cairn Hill (2,545
+feet), and the striking cone of Hedgehope (2,348 feet), are all near to
+each other on Northumbrian soil, a few miles south-west of Wooler, which
+is a most convenient starting place for a visit to any part of the
+Cheviots, as the Alnwick and Cornhill Railway brings within easy reach
+the heights which lie still farther north.
+
+The quiet little market town lies pleasantly among green meadows almost
+at the foot of the Cheviots; its low substantial stone houses, with few
+gardens in front, give the place a somewhat monotonous appearance, but
+the newer streets try to make amends by blossoming out into brilliant
+flower-plots in summer-time. Still, one would not quarrel with the older
+buildings; solid and unpretentious, they must look much the same as in
+the days of Border turmoil, when the first requisite in house or town
+was strength, not beauty.
+
+Near to Wooler are many interesting places; within the limits of quite a
+short stroll one may visit the Pin Well, a wishing well of which there
+are so many examples to be found wherever one may travel; the King's
+Chair, a porphyry crag on the hill above the Pin Well; Maiden Castle,
+or, less euphoniously, Kettles Camp, an ancient British encampment on
+the same hill, the Kettles being pot-like cavities in the ravines
+surrounding it; and the Cup and Saucer Camp, just half a mile distant
+from Wooler. The Golf Course is now laid out on these same heights.
+
+To reach the Cheviots from Wooler, the most usual way is by the
+beautiful glen in which lies Langleeford. The bright streamlet known as
+the Wooler Water runs through it from Cheviot on its way to the town
+from which it has taken its present name; formerly it was known as
+Caldgate Burn. It was at Langleeford that Sir Walter Scott stayed, as a
+youth, in 1791, with his uncle, after they had vainly attempted to find
+accommodation in Wooler. Here they rode, fished, shot, walked, and drank
+the goat's whey for which the district was famous in those days and for
+long afterwards.
+
+Cheviot itself, or "The Muckle Cheviot," is a huge cumbrous-looking
+mass, with rounded sides and flat top, boggy and treacherous, where,
+nevertheless, many wild berries brighten the marshy flats in their
+season. The name "Cheviot" is said to mean "Snowy Ridge" and well does
+this highest summit of the range merit the name, for on its marshy top
+and in the rocky chasms of Henhole and Bazzle, the winter's snow often
+lies until far into the summer. Down through the weird and fairy-haunted
+cleft of Henhole, as we have seen, the little brown stream of Colledge
+Water splashes its way, breaking into golden foam between mossy banks as
+it reaches the outlet, and turns northward to join the Till.
+
+This little burn is one of the prettiest of mountain streams; and in the
+district surrounding it are perhaps more points of interest than any
+other stream of such inconsiderable dimensions can show, saving only its
+neighbour, the Till. The whole of the surrounding country, wild, lonely,
+and romantic, teems with memories and reminders of the past. Sir Walter
+Scott, while on the visit already referred to, found an additional
+pleasure in the presence of so many relics of ancient days in the
+neighbourhood. "Each hill," he wrote to a friend, "is crowned with a
+tower, or camp, or cairn, and in no situation can you be near more
+fields of battle."
+
+Indeed, the whole district of the Cheviots, and the lower lines of
+swelling hills into which the land subsides as it nears the sea, is
+crowded with the memorials of an earlier race; from every hill-top and
+rocky height they speak with tantalising half-revelations of that race
+which the Romans found here when their galleys brought them to the land
+which was to them Ultima Thule. No convincing explanation has yet been
+found of the concentric circular markings, with radiating grooves from
+the cup-shaped hollow in the middle, which are scored on the rocks
+wherever traces of an ancient camp are found; and the numbers of these
+traces are proof that this district was once a very thickly populated
+part of Britain.
+
+And when Angle and Saxon were driving the early inhabitants before them,
+westward and southward, these hills and valleys still sheltered a
+considerable population; and Bede tells us of a royal residence not far
+away, at the foot of the well known Yeavering Bell, one of the more
+important hills of the range. It rises to a height of more than 1,100
+feet, and then abruptly ends in a wide, almost level top, grass-grown
+and boulder-strewn, and crowned near the centre with a roughly-piled
+cairn. The ancient name of Yeavering Bell, as given by Bede in his
+account of the labours of St. Paulinus, was Ad-gefrin.
+
+To recall the days when King Edwin and his queen, Ethelburga, came here
+from the royal city of Bamburgh, we must go back to a time nearly forty
+years after the Bernician chieftain, Ida, established himself in that
+rocky fortress, from whence he ruled a district roughly corresponding to
+the present counties of Durham and Northumberland, and known as
+Bernicia. One of Ida's successors, Ethelric, overcame the tribe of
+Angles then established in the neighbouring district of Deira--the
+Yorkshire of to-day. His successor, Ethelfrith, ruled over the united
+district, and married the daughter of Ella, the vanquished chieftain.
+Her brother, Edwin, he drove into exile, and the young prince found
+refuge at the court of Redwald of East Anglia, where he remained for
+some years.
+
+Redwald's friendship, however, does not seem to have been above
+suspicion, for we find that Ethelfrith's bribe had on one occasion
+nearly induced him to give up his guest, whose life, however, was saved
+by Redwald's wife who turned her husband from his purpose. In his exile
+the thoughts of the young prince often turned towards his own land; and,
+once, as he sat brooding over his misfortunes, he saw in a vision one
+who came and spoke comforting words to him, saying that he should yet be
+king and that his reign should be long and glorious. "And if one should
+come to thee and repeat this sign," said the stranger, laying his right
+hand on Edwin's head "wouldst thou hearken to his rede?" Edwin gave his
+word, and the vision fled. Some little time after this, Ethelfrith of
+Northumbria, as the united districts were now called, fell in battle
+against Redwald, and Edwin, returning northward, became ruler of
+Northumbria, the sons of Ethelfrith fleeing in their turn before the new
+king. Edwin wedded, as his second wife, Ethelburga, daughter of that
+king of Kent in whose days Augustine came to England; and being a
+Christian princess, she brought with her a priest to her new home in the
+north. The priest's name was Paulinus; and one day he went to the King
+and, placing his right hand on Edwin's head, asked if he knew that sign.
+Edwin remembered, and redeemed his promise. He hearkened to the teaching
+of the earnest monk, with the result that before long he and his court
+were baptised by Paulinus, Edwin's little daughter, it is said, being
+the first to receive the sacred rite.
+
+This was at York; and when the king and queen went to the royal city of
+Bamburgh, or to their country dwelling at the foot of the Cheviots,
+Paulinus accompanied them; and wherever he went, he laboured to teach
+the North-country Angles and Saxons the gospel of Christ. This country
+dwelling, to which came Paulinus and his royal friends, was Ad-gefrin,
+or Yeavering; and though it is extremely unlikely that any traces of it
+could remain until our day, yet tradition points out a fragment of an
+old building still standing there, as a remnant of the royal residence.
+
+In the region of Kirknewton, a pretty little village to the north-west
+of Yeavering, where Colledge Water joins the Glen, which gives its name
+to the romantic district of Glendale, Paulinus baptised many hundreds of
+Edwin's people; and the name of Pallinsburn--which is now confined to a
+house at some little distance from the burn--enshrines the memory of
+yet another scene of the labours of the indefatigable monk.
+
+If we stand on the wind-swept top of Yeavering Bell, we are surrounded
+by the evidences of still more remote days, for the whole of the summit
+was once a fortified camp of the ancient Britons. A roughly-piled, but
+massive wall, now almost all broken down, surrounded it, and within its
+grass-grown oval are two additional walls, at the east and the west ends
+of the enclosure, and many hut-circles, evidences of the rude dwellings
+of our remote ancestors. Excavations here many years ago brought to
+light a jasper ball, some fragments of a coarse kind of pottery, and
+some oaken armlets. Evidently the enclosure on the summit was intended
+to be a last resort in time of danger, for traces of many huts are to be
+found outside its encircling wall, which is surrounded by a ditch and a
+low rampart of earth. At the east end, where the porphyry crag juts out
+from the hilltop to a height of about twenty feet, full advantage has
+been taken of this naturally strong position.
+
+Now, instead of advancing foes, the spreading heather climbs steadily up
+the sloping sides of this ancient stronghold, and invades the central
+enclosure at its will; a few hardy sheep that have wandered up here from
+the richer pastures below, and now and again a stray tourist, anxious to
+make acquaintance at first hand with one of the more famous of the
+Cheviot heights, and more than satisfied with the glorious view spread
+out before him, are all that disturb the brooding peace of its grassy
+solitudes. Up here the wind blows keenly around us with an exhilarating
+freshness in its breath, and we think regretfully of coats left behind
+at the shepherd's hospitable dwelling, which, with the rest of the
+cottages clustering round the old farm house, lies sunning itself in the
+warm glow of the September afternoon, in the green fields at the foot
+of the sheltering hills.
+
+Looking southward now, up the stream, there is stretching away to the
+left the long ridge of Newton Tor, and away behind it Great Hetha and
+Little Hetha; while half-way down the vale the Colledge Water tumbles
+over the rocks at Hethpoole Linn (or Heathpool, as the modern rendering
+has it), breaking into amber spray deep down beneath overhanging trees
+and boulders and golden bracken.
+
+This brings our thoughts to days comparatively modern, for when Admiral
+Collingwood was raised to the peerage of Great Britain, it was by the
+title of "Baron Collingwood of Caldburn and Hethpoole, in the county of
+Northumberland." The brave Admiral was fond of planting an oak tree
+whenever he found an opportunity, to secure the continuance of those
+wooden walls which in his hands, and in those of his life-long friend,
+Nelson, had proved such a sure defence to his country. In a letter dated
+March, 1806, he wrote to his wife, "I wish some parts of Hethpoole could
+be selected for plantations of larch, oak, and beech, where the ground
+could best be spared. Even the sides of a bleak hill would grow larch
+and fir." In another letter some months later he told her what
+"agreeable news" it was to hear that she was taking care of his oaks,
+and planting some at Hethpoole; and saying that if he ever returned he
+would plant a good deal there; adding, however, that he feared before
+that could take place both he and Lady Collingwood might themselves be
+planted in the churchyard beneath some old yew tree.
+
+Hethpoole presents us with a link not only with history, but with
+romance as well. An ivied ruin near at hand, with walls of enormous
+strength, is said to be the remains of the castle where the final
+tragedy in "The Hermit of Warkworth" took place. Here, it is said, the
+distracted lover came upon his lady and his brother, who had at that
+moment effected her escape, and not recognising the youth, rushed upon
+the pair with drawn sword, only to discover too late his terrible
+mistake, and lose both brother and bride--for the lady received a mortal
+wound in trying to save her rescuer.
+
+Turning our eyes now northward across the Glen from Yeavering Bell, we
+are looking towards Coupland Castle, and the fact that it was built so
+late as the reign of James I. bears eloquent testimony to the insecurity
+of life and property on the Borders even at that period. The barony
+either gave its name to, or took its name from, a well-known
+Northumbrian family, of which one of the most prominent members was that
+Sir John de Coupland who succeeded in capturing David of Scotland at the
+battle of Neville's Cross--not, however, before he had lost some of his
+teeth by a blow from the mailed fist of that doughty monarch!
+
+Beyond Coupland Castle we look across Milfield Plain lying in the angle
+formed by the meeting of the Glen with the deep and sullen Till, whose
+slow windings can be traced as it gleams at intervals between the
+undulations of the lower hills through which it flows northwestward to
+the Tweed. Though a brisk and sparkling stream in certain parts of its
+course, the general characteristics of the Till are well borne out by
+the lines--
+
+  Tweed says to Till
+  "What gars ye rin sae still?"
+  Till says to Tweed
+  "Though ye rin wi' speed
+  And I rin slaw;
+  Where ye droon ae man
+  I droon twa."
+
+There is yet more of historical and traditional interest to note in this
+view from the top of Yeavering Bell, which, as I saw it last, lay warm
+in the glow of a September afternoon. Nennius is our authority for
+stating that on Milfield Plain took place one of the great conflicts in
+which King Arthur
+
+
+  "Fought, and in twelve great battles overcame
+  The heathen hordes, and made a realm, and reigned"
+
+
+And, as we gazed, the level spaces seemed peopled once more with
+charging knights, flashing sword and swinging battle-axe, and the
+intervening centuries dropped away, and Arthur's call to battle for "our
+fair father Christ," seemed curiously befitting that romantic scene.
+But, as the shadows lengthened, and the streams took on a golden glow in
+the rays of the September sun, then slowly setting, "the tumult and the
+shouting of the captains" died away, and the figure of an earnest monk
+seemed to stand by the riverside, with prince and serf, peasant and
+warrior for his audience, and the cold bright waters of the Glen
+dripping from his hand, as he enrolled one after another into the ranks
+of an army mightier than the hosts of Arthur or Edwin.
+
+Milfield again emerges into notice out of the obscurity of those dark
+ages, in the days of the Bernician kings who succeeded Edwin; for Bede
+tells us that "This town (Ad-gefrin) under the following kings, was
+abandoned, and another was built instead of it at a place called
+Melmin," now Milfield. Nothing, however, remains here of the buildings
+which once sheltered the royal Saxons and their court. In later days,
+Milfield has a melancholy interest attaching to it from its connection
+with the battle of Flodden; for, on the heights above, King James fixed
+his camp, in the hope that Surrey would lead his troops across the plain
+below. Of the other considerable heights of the Cheviot range, Carter
+Fell and Peel Fell are the best known; they both lie right on the border
+line of England and Scotland, between the North Tyne and the Rede Water.
+As we have already seen, the men of Tynedale and Redesdale bore a
+reputation for lawlessness in the time of the Border "Moss-trooping"
+days, and until nearly the end of the eighteenth century the tradesmen
+and guilds of Newcastle would take no apprentice who hailed from either
+of these dales. The tracks and passes between the hills, once alive with
+frequent foray and wild pursuit, are now silent and solitary but for the
+occasional passing of a shepherd or farmer, and the flocks of sheep
+grazing as they move slowly up the hillsides. A quaint survival of the
+remembrances of those days was unexpectedly brought before me one day. A
+child presented me with a bunch of cotton-grass, gathered on the moors
+not far from the Roman-Wall. I asked if she knew what they were that she
+had brought. "Moss-troopers," she replied.
+
+Many of the Cheviot heights bear most suggestive and interesting names,
+such as Cushat [7] Law, Kelpie [8] Strand, Earl's Seat, Stot [9] Crags,
+Deer Play, Wether Lair, Bloodybushedge, Monkside, etc., etc.
+
+[Footnote 7: Cushat = a wood-pigeon.]
+[Footnote 8: Kelpie = a water-witch.]
+[Footnote 9: Stot = a bullock.]
+
+In these lonely wilds, which occupy all the northwest of the county, one
+may travel all day and meet with no living thing save the birds of the
+air, and a few shy, wild creatures of the moorlands; curve after curve,
+the rounded hills stretch away into the distance, grass-grown or
+heatherclad, with occasional peat-mosses; above is the "grey gleaming
+sky," and, all around, a stillness as of vast untrodden wastes, and a
+sense of solitude out of all proportion to the actual extent of this
+lonely region. The fascination of it, however, admits of no denial, even
+on the part of those newly making its acquaintance; while those who in
+childhood or youth roam over its wild fells, and feel the spell of its
+brooding mystery, retain in their hearts for all time an unfading
+remembrance of its magic charm.
+
+  COLLEDGE WATER.
+
+
+  My sire is the stooping Cheviot mist,
+  My mother the heath in her purple train;
+  And every flower on her gown I've kissed
+  Over and over and over again.
+
+  The secret ways of the hills are mine,
+  I know where the wandering moor-fowl nest;
+  And up where the wet grey glidders[10] shine
+  I know where the roving foxes rest.
+  [Footnote 10: Glidders = Patches of loose stones on the hillside.]
+
+  I know what the wind is wailing for
+  As it searches hollow and hag and peak;
+  And, riding restless on Newton Tor,
+  I know what the questing shadows seek.
+
+  I know the tale that the brown bees tell,
+  And they tell it to me with a raider's pride,
+  As, drunk with the cups of Yeavering Bell,
+  They stagger home from the English side.
+
+  I know the secrets of haugh and hill;
+  But sacred and safe they rest with me,
+  Till I hide them deep in the heart of Till,
+  To be taken to Tweed and the open sea.
+
+    --_Will. H. Ogilvie_.
+
+  BY PERMISSION OF MESSRS. W. AND R. CHAMBERS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+THE ROMAN WALL.
+
+
+  "Take these flowers, which, purple waving,
+  On the ruined rampart grew,
+  Where, the sons of Freedom braving,
+  Rome's imperial standard flew.
+  Warriors from the breach of danger
+  Pluck no longer laurels there;
+  They but yield the passing stranger
+  Wild-flower wreaths for Beauty's hair."
+    --_Sir Walter Scott._
+                (Lines written for a young lady's album.)
+
+
+
+Of all the abundance of treasure which Northumberland possesses, from a
+historical point of view--of all its wealth of interesting relics of
+bygone days--ancient abbey, grim fortress, menhir and monolith, camp and
+tumulus--none grips the imagination as does the sight of that unswerving
+line which pursues its way over hill and hollow, from the eastern to the
+western shores of the north-land, visible emblem, after more than a
+thousand years, of the far-flung arm of Imperial Rome.
+
+From Wallsend on the Tyne to Bowness on the Solway Firth it strode
+triumphantly across the land; even now in its decay it remains a
+splendid monument to that mighty nation's genius for having and holding
+the uttermost parts of the earth that came within their ken. As was
+inevitable, after the lapse of nearly eighteen centuries the great work
+is everywhere in a ruinous condition, and in many places, especially at
+its eastern end, has disappeared altogether; but not only can its course
+be traced by various evidences, but it was actually standing within
+comparatively recent years. As lately as the year 1800--lately, that is,
+compared with the date of its building--its existence at Byker was
+referred to in a magazine of the period. Now nothing is to be seen of it
+excepting a few stones here and there, for many miles from Wallsend; but
+the highroad westward from Newcastle, by Westgate Road, as is well
+known, follows the course of the Wall for nearly twenty miles. But
+farther west we may walk along the uneven, broken surface of the mighty
+rampart, or climb down into the broad and deep fosse which lies closely
+against it along its northern side, without troubling ourselves with the
+arguments and uncertainties of antiquaries, who have by no means decided
+on what was the original function of the Wall, who was its real builder,
+why and when the earthen walls and fosse which accompany it on the south
+were wrought, and many other smaller controversial points, which afford
+endless matter for speculation and discussion.
+
+Early references to the Wall show that our forefathers knew it as the
+Picts' Wall; it is now generally referred to as the Wall of Hadrian, the
+general concensus of opinion yielding to that indefatigable ruler the
+credit of having wrought the mighty work. Whether built originally as a
+frontier line of defence or not, opinions are not agreed; but it is very
+certain that the Wall afforded the only secure foothold in the North to
+the Romans for well-nigh two centuries of hostility from the restless
+Brigantes to the southward, and the Picts and Scots to the north; and
+for another century or so after their southern neighbours had become
+friendly and peaceful, it still remained a substantial bulwark against
+the northern barbarians.
+
+Throughout the whole of its length it steadily holds the line of the
+highest ridges in its course, climbing up slopes and dipping down into
+the intervening hollows with the least possible deviation from its
+onward course. The most interesting, because most complete, portion of
+the Wall, is that in the neighbourhood of the three loughs--Broomlee,
+Greenlee, and Crag Loughs, which, with Grindon Lough to the south of the
+Wall, boast the name of the Northumberland Lakes. On this portion of the
+wall is situated the large Roman station of Borcovicus, from which we
+have gained a great deal of our information as to what the life of the
+garrisons on this lonely outpost of Empire was like.
+
+The station is situated on hilly ground, which slopes gently to the
+south, and is nearly five acres in extent. On entering the eastern
+gateway one cannot but experience a sudden thrill on seeing the deep
+grooves worn in the stone by the passing and repassing of Roman cart and
+chariot wheels. That mute witness of the daily traffic of the soldiery
+in those long-past centuries speaks with a most intimate note to us who
+eighteen hundred years afterwards come to look upon the place of their
+habitation. The station itself is of the usual shape of the Roman towns
+on the course of the Wall--oblong, with rounded corners. The greatest
+length lies east and west, in a line with the Wall; and two broad
+streets crossing each other at right angles lead from the north to the
+south, and from the east to the western gateways. Each of the four was
+originally a double gateway; but in every case one half of it has been
+closed up, no doubt when the garrison was declining in numbers, and the
+attacks of the enemy were increasing in severity.
+
+[Illustration: NORTH GATEWAY, HOUSESTEADS AND ROMAN WALL.]
+
+Considerable portions of the guard-chambers, one at each side of each
+gateway, still remain; and near one of them was found a huge stone
+trough, its edges deeply worn by, apparently, the frequent
+sharpening of knives upon it. Its use has not been determined; Dr. Bruce
+tells us that one of the men engaged in the work of excavation gave it
+as his firm opinion that the Romans used it to wash their Scotch
+prisoners in! The buildings of the little town--a row of houses against
+the western wall, two large buildings near the centre of the camp, with
+smaller chambers to the east of them--in which the garrison lived,
+worked, and stored their supplies, are still quite plainly to be traced,
+although the walls are only three or four courses high in most places,
+and of the pillars the broken bases are almost all that remain.
+
+A considerable number of people dwelt outside the walls of this, as of
+all the stations, sheltering under its walls, and relying on the
+protection of its garrison; the slope to the southward of Borcovicus
+shows many traces of buildings scattered all over it. On the northern
+side, the steep hill, massive masonry, and deep fosse would seem to have
+offered well-nigh insuperable difficulties to an attacking force such as
+then could be brought against the camp; yet not only here, but in all
+the stations whose remains yet survive, there is unmistakable evidence
+that more than once has the garrison been driven out by a victorious
+foe, to re-enter and occupy it again at a later period. And when we
+consider that the Wall and its forts were garrisoned by the Romans for a
+period extending over nearly three centuries, a period corresponding to
+the time from the reign of James I. to the present day, it becomes a
+matter of wonder, not that such was the case, but that such occurrences
+were not more frequent than the evidences seem to declare.
+
+In spite of all the hard fighting, however, the recreations of lighter
+hours would seem not to have been forgotten; on the north of the wall is
+a circular hollow in the ground, evidently a little amphitheatre, in
+which doubtless many a captive Briton and Pict played his part. On a
+little rise to the southward, called Chapel Hill, stood the temple where
+the garrison paid its vows to the various deities of its worship. Many
+remarkably fine altars found on this and other sites have been
+preserved, either at the fine museum at The Chesters, or at the Black
+Gate in Newcastle. One of the most striking is the altar to Mithras, the
+Persian sun-god, found in a cave near the camp, evidently constructed
+for the celebration of the rites connected with the worship of Mithras.
+The altar shows the god coming out of an egg, and surrounded by an oval
+on which are carved the signs of the Zodiac.
+
+The Teutonic element in the garrison is represented by the altars to
+Mars Thingsus, the discovery of which caused great interest in Germany,
+and by the altars to the Deae Matres--the mother-goddesses, whose carved
+figures are shown seated, fully draped, and holding baskets of fruits on
+their knees. They are generally found in sets of three; but
+unfortunately they have been much mutilated, and all the examples
+remaining are headless. The Deae Matres would seem to correspond in some
+degree to the Roman Ceres and the Greek Demeter, the bountiful givers of
+the fruits of the earth. The majority of the altars found are, as was to
+be expected, dedicated to the deities of Rome; chiefly, as shown by the
+constantly recurring I.O.M.--_Jovi optimo maximo_--to "Jupiter, the best
+and greatest." The varying inscriptions which follow as reasons for
+their erection as votive offerings give us glimpses of the life in these
+communities clearer than those afforded by anything else. And as most,
+if not all, of our knowledge concerning the details of the Roman
+occupation of the north-country has to be obtained from the inscriptions
+which the garrisons left behind them, the inscribed stones as well as
+the altars are of the greatest possible interest and value. One such
+stone, found at the Borcovicus mile-castle, states that "the Second
+Legion, the August (erected this at the command of) Aulus Platorius
+Nepos, Legate and Propraetor, in honour of the Emperor C�sar Trajanus
+Hadrianus Augustus."
+
+At "Cuddy's" (Cuthbert's) Crag near Borcovicus is one of the most
+picturesque bits of scenery to be found on the whole course of the Wall.
+My first acquaintance with it was made on a day of grey mist and
+drizzling rain, which completely hid any view of the surrounding
+country, and of necessity confined our attention to the stones (and wet
+grass!) immediately beneath our feet. But another visit was on a day of
+wind and sunshine, and in the company of a group of light-hearted
+students. We explored the ruins of Borcovicus, walked along the broad
+and broken top of the Wall, and climbed up hill and down dale with it
+under the pleasantest conditions, if a trifle breezy on the heights.
+June was at her traditional best, which she does not often vouchsafe to
+show us; flowers waved all around, amongst the grass and in the crannies
+between the stones, and more than once the lines at the head of this
+chapter were quoted by one to another. Again and again our progress was
+stayed while we admired the glorious view spread out all around, but
+especially was this the case at Cuddy's Crag. We looked westward over
+Crag Lough, its usually dark waters flashing in the afternoon sun; the
+three Loughs were all within view; away to the southward, beyond
+Barcombe Hill, and the site of Vindolana, Langley Castle could be seen,
+"standing four-square to all the winds that blew"; and further away
+again, beyond the valley of the South Tyne, to the southwest the faint
+outlines of Crossfell and Skiddaw. Northward it was quite easy to
+imagine oneself looking out over the Picts' country still, so far do
+the moorlands stretch, and so few are the signs of habitation. Rolling
+ridges stretch northward, wave upon wave, clothed with grass and
+heather, amongst which Parnesius and Pertinax went hunting with little
+Allo the Pict; to the northeast the heights of Simonside showed; and far
+beyond them, though more to the westward, the rounded summits of the
+Cheviots lay on the horizon.
+
+A short distance westward from the Crag is Hot Bank farmhouse, a place
+which most visitors to the Wall remember with grateful feelings; for
+what is more refreshing, after a long tramp, than a farmhouse cup of tea
+accompanied by that most appetising of Northumbrian dainties, hot girdle
+cakes! The Visitors' Book at Hot Bank is a "civil list" of all the most
+learned and noted names in Great Britain, and many outside its shores,
+together with legions of humbler folk. In this it resembles the one at
+Cilurnum, which is the only other considerable station along the line of
+the Wall in Northumberland.
+
+This station of Cilurnum, or Chesters, is a little over five acres in
+extent, and is quite near to Chollerford station on the North British
+Railway. To describe Cilurnum in detail, and the interesting museum
+connected with it, filled with a wonderful collection of objects found
+on the line of the Wall, would require a book to deal with that alone.
+The general plan is the same as that which we have already seen at
+Borcovicus, with the same rounded corners, and double gateway with
+guard-chambers at each side; the western and eastern walls at Chesters,
+however, have each an additional single gateway to the south of the
+larger portals. We must content ourselves with a short survey of the
+camp, with its two wide streets at right angles to each other as at
+Borcovicus, and the rest of them very narrow--indeed, little more than
+two feet in width; the remains of its Forum and market, its barracks
+and houses, its open shops and colonnades, the bases of the pillars yet
+in position; its baths, with pipes, cistern, and flues; and a vaulted
+chamber which was thought, on its being first excavated, to lead to
+underground stables, for a local tradition held that such were in
+existence, and would be found, with a troop of five hundred horses. The
+vault, however, did not lead further, so that the tradition remained
+unproven. Notwithstanding this, there was a grain of fact in it; for
+Chesters was a cavalry station, and five hundred was the full complement
+of the _ala_, or troop (_ala_ being a "wing," and cavalry forming the
+"wing" of an army in position).
+
+Outside the walls of Cilurnum are traces of the usual suburban
+dwellings; and here, near the river, stood the villa of the officer in
+command of the station. The excavation of all these buildings and many
+others took place in the forties and fifties of last century, and were
+due to the energy of Mr. John Clayton, the learned and zealous
+antiquary, in the possession of whose family the estate still remains.
+To Mr. N.G. Clayton we owe the Museum at the Lodge gate, which he built
+for the reception of the notable collection it contains of antiquities
+gathered from all the various stations in Northumberland. A very fine
+altar brought from Vindolana at once strikes the eye, and may be taken
+as a type of many others, though not many are so perfect. The gravestone
+of a standard-bearer, from the neighbouring station of Procolitia, shows
+a full-length carving of the dead warrior. Other inscribed stones are of
+great interest, though unfortunately most of them are but fragments;
+still these fragments not infrequently contain a few words which enable
+students of them to confirm a date or a fact concerning the garrisons,
+which must otherwise have been a matter of pure conjecture. For
+instance, it might seem very improbable that the same regiments should
+have been quartered in certain stations for over two hundred years; yet
+one of the inscribed stones proves that such was the case at Cilurnum.
+The inscription states that the second _ala_ of the Asturians repaired
+the temple during the consulate of certain persons, which is found to be
+about the year 221. In the _Notitia_, which was not compiled until the
+beginning of the fifth century, the second _ala_ of the Asturians is
+given as the garrison of Cilurnum.
+
+Another thing which strikes the imagination is the sight, after the
+lapse of so many centuries, of the erasures on various inscribed
+stones--erasures of some emperor's or Caesar's name after his death by
+the chisel of a soldier in one of his legions on this far-away post of
+his empire. It is one thing to read one's Gibbon, and learn of the
+murder of Geta, son of Severus, by order of his brother Caracalla, and
+another to see the youth's name roughly scratched out on a stone in
+Hexham Abbey crypt; and to read of the assassination of Elagabalus does
+not move us one whit, but to see his name erased from a stone in
+Chesters museum brings the tumultuous happenings in ancient Rome very
+closely home to us.
+
+Here are also several Roman milestones, with their lengthy and sonorous
+inscriptions, from various points on the Wall; and a miscellaneous and
+deeply interesting collection of smaller articles, such as ornaments of
+bronze, jet, or gold, fibulae (brooches or clasps), coins of many
+reigns, Samian-ware, terra-cotta and glass, parts of harness, etc., etc.
+
+Of carven figures there are several besides the standard bearer already
+mentioned. The best is a figure of Cybele, with elaborate draperies,
+but unfortunately headless; another, of Victory, holds a palm branch in
+the left hand, but the right arm is missing. A soldier is shown with
+spear, shield, and ornate head-piece; and a representation of a
+river-god, the genius of the Tyne, is worthy of notice. He is a bearded
+figure, after the style of the figures of Nilus, or the representations
+in old prints of Father Thames. From Procolitia comes an altar to the
+goddess Coventina, a name not met with elsewhere, the presiding genius
+of the well in that station. She is shown reclining on a water-lily
+leaf, holding in one hand a water-plant, and in the other a goblet from
+which a stream of water runs. An elaborate carving of three water
+nymphs, most probably meant to be in attendance on the goddess, is one
+of the few pieces of sculpture that are not greatly mutilated.
+
+Centurial stones are numerous, having been put up at all parts of the
+Wall to record the building of such and such parts by various centurions
+and their companies. The mark >, which Dr. Hodgkin supposes to be a
+representation of the vine rod, a centurion's symbol of authority, and
+the sign C or Q, are used to signify a century. Thus a stone inscribed Q
+VAL. MAXI. states that the century of Valerius Maximus built that part
+of the Wall. Two or three small altars are inscribed DIBVS
+VETERIBVS--"To the Old Gods"; and Mars Thingsus is well represented.
+
+A very important relic of Roman times found at Cilurnum was a bronze
+tablet of citizenship, giving this coveted privilege to a number of
+soldiers who had served in twenty-five campaigns and received honourable
+discharge. There have been only three specimens of this diploma found in
+Britain, and all are preserved in the British Museum. There are many
+memorial tablets erected by wives to their husbands, and husbands to
+their wives, which leads to much speculation as to how these ladies,
+high-born Roman, native Briton, or freed-woman, liked their sojourn in a
+small garrison town on the breezy heights of a Northumbrian moorland.
+Those ladies who dwelt at Cilurnum, however, had not so much cause to
+complain, for such natural advantages as were to be had were certainly
+theirs, in that sheltered spot. The scenery round about Cilurnum is
+quiet, peaceful and pastoral, altogether different from the wild beauty
+of Cuddy's Crag, Limestone Corner, or Whinshields.
+
+Having now noticed the two chief stations on the line of the Wall, it
+will be interesting to follow the course of the rampart itself
+throughout its journey across Northumberland, though to do so in detail
+is impossible within the limits of so small a volume as the present one.
+Neither would it be necessary, or desirable, for the last word in
+detailed description has been said long ago in the two wonderfully
+exhaustive treatises on the subject by Dr. Bruce.
+
+A list of Roman officials, civil and military, throughout the empire has
+come down to us; in this list--_Notitia Dignitatem et Administratem, tam
+civilium quam militarium in partibus orientis et occidentis_--the
+portion which relates to the Wall is headed, _Item per lineam
+Valli_--"Also along the line of the Wall." The following is a copy of
+this portion, as given by Dr. Bruce in his _Handbook to the Roman Wall_.
+
+  The Tribune of the fourth cohort of the Lingones at Segedunum.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of Cornovii at Pons Aelii.
+
+  The Prefect of the first _ala_ of the Asturians at Condercum. The
+  Tribune of the first cohort of the Frixagi (Frisii) at Vindobala.
+
+  The Prefect of the Savinian _ala_ at Hunnum.
+
+  The Prefect of the second _ala_ of the Asturians at Cilurnum.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of the Batavians at Procolitia.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of the Tungrians at Borcovicus.
+
+  The Tribune of the fourth cohort of the Gauls at Vindolana.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of Asturians at Aesica.
+
+  The Tribune of the second cohort of Dalmatians at Magna.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of Dacians, styled Aelia, at Amboglanna.
+
+  The Prefect of the _ala_ called "Petriana," at Petriana.
+
+  The Prefect of a detachment of Moors, styled Aureliani, at Aballaba.
+
+  The Tribune of the second cohort of the Lingones at Congavata.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of Spaniards at Axelodunum.
+
+  The Tribune of the second cohort of the Thracians at Gabrosentum.
+
+  The Tribune of the first marine cohort, styled Aelia, at Tunnocelum.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of the Morini at Glannibanta.
+
+  The Tribune of the third cohort of the Nervians at Alionis.
+
+  The Cuneus of men in armour at Bremetenracum.
+
+  The Prefect of the first _ala_, styled Herculean, at Olenacum.
+
+  The Tribune of the sixth cohort of the Nervians at Virosidum.
+
+Of these stations, with their officers and troops, only those as far as
+Magna are in Northumberland; the rest continue the chain of defences
+across Cumberland to the Solway Firth. Besides these stations, there
+were _castella_ at the distance of every Roman mile (seven furlongs)
+along the Wall, from which circumstance they are known as
+"mile-castles." They provided accommodation for the troops necessary
+between the stations, which were at some distance from each other; and
+between each two _castella_ there were also erected two turrets, so that
+communication from one end of the Wall to the other was speedy and
+certain.
+
+All traces of the station of Segedunum (Wallsend) have long since
+disappeared; the Wall from there, beginning actually in the bed of the
+river, ran almost parallel with the N.E.R. Tynemouth Branch, a little to
+the south of it, and climbing the hill to Byker, went down the slope to
+the Ouseburn parallel with Shields Road, crossing the burn just a little
+to the south of Byker Bridge. From there its course has been traced to
+Red Barns, where St. Dominic's now stands, to the Sallyport Gate, and
+over the Wall Knoll to Pilgrim Street; thence to the west door of the
+Cathedral, and on past St. John's Church, up Westgate Road.
+
+The station at Pons Aelii, it is generally agreed, occupied the ground
+between the Cathedral church of St. Nicholas and the premises of the
+Lit. and Phil. Society. Following the Wall up Westgate Road, we are now
+out upon the highway from Newcastle to Carlisle, which, as we have seen,
+is upon the very line of the Wall for nearly a score of miles. At
+Condercum (Benwell) the next station, garrisoned by a cavalry corps of
+Asturians from Spain, a small temple was uncovered in the course of
+excavating, and two altars found still standing in their original
+position. Both of these were to a deity unknown elsewhere, given as
+Antenociticus on one, and as Anociticus on the other. The former was
+erected by a centurion of the Twentieth Legion, the Valerian and
+Victorious, whose crest, the running boar, we shall meet with more than
+once in our journey.
+
+Westward from here, near West Denton Lodge, faint indications of the
+turf wall (generally called the Vallum, to distinguish it from the
+Murus, or stone wall), come into sight, and traces of a mile-castle to
+the left of the road. After this the Vallum and Murus accompany each
+other for the rest of their journey, with but little intermission. The
+next mile-castle was at Walbottle, from which point a delightful view of
+the Tyne valley and the surrounding country can be obtained. Passing
+Throckley and Heddon-on-the-Wall, where the fosse on the northern side
+of the Wall is well seen, and also the Vallum and its fosse, Vindolana
+(Rutchester) is reached; but there is little evidence here that it is
+the site of a once busy and bustling garrison station. Indeed, up to
+this point and for a considerable distance further, a few courses of
+stones here and there are all that is to be seen of the Roman Wall, its
+material having for the most part been swallowed up in the construction
+of the turnpike road on which we are travelling. This road was made in
+1745 because there was no road by which General Wade could convey his
+troops from Newcastle to Carlisle, when "Bonnie Prince Charlie" marched
+so gaily to that city on his way southward, and so sadly, in a month,
+returned again.
+
+The Wall now makes for the ridge of Harlow Hill, while the Vallum goes
+on in a perfectly straight line past the picturesque Whittle Dene and
+the waterworks, until the Wall joins it again near Welton, where the
+old pele-tower is entirely built of Roman stones. After Matfen Piers,
+where a road to the northward leads to the beautiful little village of
+Matfen, and one to the southward to Corbridge, the Wall passes Wall
+Houses and Halton Shields, where the various lines of the Wall, road,
+and earthworks, as well as the fosse of each, can be distinctly seen.
+Passing Carr Hill, the Wall leads up to the station of Hunnum (Halton
+Chesters), where Parnesius was stationed when Maximus gave him his
+commission on the Wall. It is not easy to recognise the site now, but as
+we follow the road we may comfort ourselves with the reflection that at
+least we have walked right across it from the eastern gate to the
+western.
+
+A short distance further on is Stagshawbank, famed for its fairs, the
+glory of which, however, has greatly departed since the days when Dandie
+Dinmont had such adventures on returning from "Staneshiebank." It stands
+just where the Wall crosses the Watling Street, which enters
+Northumberland at Ebchester, and crossing the moors to Whittonstall,
+leads down the long descent to Riding Mill; there turning westward to
+Corbridge, it comes straight on to Stagshawbank, leading thence
+northwestward past the Wall through Redesdale to the Borders, which it
+reaches at Ad Fines Camp, or Chew Green, where the solitudes of the
+Cheviots and the silence of the deserted camp are soon to be startled by
+the rifle-shots of Territorials at practice. West of Stagshawbank the
+earthen ramparts are to be seen in great perfection.
+
+As the Wall nears Chollerford, one may see, a little to the northward,
+the little chapel of St. Oswald, which, as we have seen in a former
+chapter, marks the site of the battle of Heavenfield. Just before
+reaching this point, there is a quarry to the south of the Wall from
+which the Romans obtained much building-stone, and one of them has left
+his name carved on one of the stones left lying there, thus--(P)ETRA
+FLAVI(I) CARANTINI--_The stone of Flavius Carantinus_.
+
+At Plane Trees Field and at Brunton there are larger pieces of the Wall
+standing than we have yet seen. The Wall now parts company with the
+highroad, which swerves a little to the north in order to cross the Tyne
+by Chollerford Bridge, while the course of the Wall is straight ahead,
+for the present bridge is not the one built and used by the Romans. That
+is in a line with the Wall, and therefore south of the present one; and
+as we have already noticed, its piers can be seen near the river banks
+when the river is low. A diagram of its position is given in Dr. Bruce's
+_Handbook_.
+
+The Wall now leads up to the gateway of Cilurnum, which we have already
+visited; and after leaving the park, it goes on up the hill to Walwick.
+Here it is rejoined by the road, which now for some little distance
+proceeds actually on the line of the Wall, the stones of which can
+sometimes be seen in the roadway. The tower a little further on, on the
+hill called Tower Tye, or Taye, was not built by the Romans, although
+Roman stones were used in its erection; it is only about two hundred
+years old.
+
+At Black Carts farm, which the Wall now passes, the first turret
+discovered on the line of the Wall after the excavations had begun, and
+interest in the subject was revived, was here laid bare by Mr. Clayton
+in 1873. At Limestone Bank, not much further on, the fosse north of the
+Wall, and also that of the Vallum, show a skill in engineering such as
+we are apt to fancy belongs only to these days of powerful machinery,
+and explosives for rending a way through the hardest rock. The ditches
+have both been cut through the solid basalt, and great boulders of it
+are strewn around; one huge mass, weighing many tons, has been hoisted
+out--by what means, we are left to wonder; and another, still in the
+ditch, has the holes, intended for the wedges still discernible.
+
+A mile or so further on is Procolitia (Carrawburgh), where is the famous
+well presided over by the goddess Coventina, whose acquaintance we have
+already made at Cilurnum. The remains of the station at Procolitia are
+by no means to be compared with those at Borcovicus or Cilurnum; very
+few of its stones are yet remaining. The well was the most interesting
+find at Procolitia. It was known to be there, for Horsley had mentioned
+it; but the waters which supplied it were diverted in consequence of
+some lead-mining operations. Then the stream formed by its overflow
+dried up, grass grew over its course and over the well, and it was lost
+sight of entirely. But the same thing which had led to its disappearance
+was the means of finding it again. Some lead miners, prospecting for
+another vein of ore in the neighbourhood, happened to dig in this very
+spot, and soon struck the stones round the mouth of the well. Mr.
+Clayton had it properly excavated, and was rewarded by coming not only
+upon the well, but a rich find of Roman relics of all kinds, which had
+either been thrown pell-mell into it for concealment in a moment of
+danger, or, what is more likely, been thrown in during the course of
+ages as votive offerings to the presiding goddess of the well. There
+were thousands of coins, mostly silver and copper, with four gold pieces
+among them; and a large collection of miscellaneous objects, including
+vases, shoes, pearls, ornaments, altars and inscribed stones, all of
+which were taken to Chesters. The next point of interest on the Wall is
+the farmhouse of Carraw, which the Priors of Hexham Abbey once used as a
+summer retreat. A little further on, at Shield-on-the-Wall, Wade's road
+crosses to the south of the earthen lines, and parts company with the
+Wall for a little while, for the latter bends northward to take the high
+ridge, as usual, while the road and Vallum continue in a straight line.
+The fragments of a mile-castle are standing just at the point where the
+Wall swerves northward; indeed, we have been passing the sites of these
+_castella_, with fragments more or less in evidence all along the route,
+but those which we shall now encounter are much more distinctly to be
+seen than their fellows on the eastern part of the journey, many of
+which have disappeared altogether.
+
+The high crags which here shoulder the Wall are part of the Great Whin
+Sill, an intrusive dyke of dolerite which stretches from Greenhead
+northeastward across the county nearly to Berwick. The military road
+here leaves the Wall, with which it does not again come into close
+contact until both are near Carlisle, though in several places the Roman
+road will be encountered near the Wall in a well-preserved condition.
+The Wall now climbs another ascent to the farmhouse of Sewingshields,
+which name is variously explained as "Seven Shields," and as "The shiels
+(shielings, or little huts) by the seugh" or hollow--the hollow being
+the fosse. Sewingshields Castle, long since disappeared, is the scene of
+the knight's adventures in Sir Walter Scott's "Harold the Dauntless."
+And tradition asserts that King Arthur, with Queen Guinevere and all the
+court, lies in an enchanted sleep beneath the castle, or at least its
+site. Not only is there no castle, but the Wall also has been despoiled
+to supply the material for building the farmhouse and other buildings in
+the neighbourhood. The Wall climbs unfalteringly over the crags, one
+after the other, until the wide opening of Busy Gap is reached. This
+being such a convenient pass from north to south, it was naturally used
+constantly by raiders and thieves; and such an unenviable notoriety did
+it possess, that to call a person a "Busy Gap rogue" was sufficient to
+lay oneself open to an action for libel. Climbing the next slope we look
+down on Broomlee Lough and reach the portion of the Wall we have already
+noted--Borcovicus (Housesteads), Cuddy's Crag, Hot Bank farmhouse, and
+Crag; Lough.
+
+The course of the Wall continues, past Milking Gap, along the rugged
+heights of Steel Rig, Cat's Stairs, and Peel Crag, till on reaching
+Winshields we are at the highest point on the line, 1,230 feet above the
+sea-level. Dipping down to Green Slack, the Wall crosses the valley
+called Lodham Slack, and begins to ascend once more. The local names of
+gaps and heights in this neighbourhood are highly descriptive, and
+sometimes weirdly suggestive; we have had Cat's Stairs, and now we come
+to Bogle Hole, Bloody Gap, and Thorny Doors. A little further west from
+here the very considerable remains of a mile-castle may be seen, in
+which a tombstone was found doing duty as a hearth-stone. The
+inscription recorded that it had been erected by Pusinna to the memory
+of her husband Dagvaldus, a soldier of Pannonia.
+
+Westward from this mile-castle the Wall climbs Burnhead Crag, on which
+the foundations of a building, similar to the turrets, were exposed a
+few years ago; then it dips down again to Haltwhistle Burn, which comes
+from Greenlee Lough, and is called, until it reaches the Wall, the Caw
+Burn. From the burn a winding watercourse supplied the Roman station of
+AEsica (Great Chesters) with water. Just here the Wall is in a very
+ruinous condition; and of the station of AEsica but little masonry
+remains, though the outlines of it can he clearly traced. Beyond AEsica,
+however, is a splendid portion of the Wall, standing some seven or eight
+courses high. Here it climbs again to the top of the crags which once
+more appear, bold and rugged, to culminate in the "Nine Nicks of
+Thirlwall," so called from the number of separate heights into which the
+crags divide, and over which the Wall takes its way.
+
+At Walltown, on this part of its course, is to be seen an old well, in
+which Paulinus is said to have baptised King Edwin; but the local name
+for it is King Arthur's Well. Now the Wall descends to a level and
+pastoral country, leaving behind it the wild moorland and craggy heights
+across which it has travelled so long; but unfortunately much of it has
+been destroyed by the quarrying operations at Greenhead. Of the station
+of Magna (Caervoran) little can be seen at the present day. This station
+and Aesica are nearer to each other than are any other two stations on
+the Wall, and a line of camps, five in number, stand south of the Wall
+and Vallum, from Magna to Amboglanna, showing that a third line of
+defence was deemed necessary where the natural defences of moorland
+ridge, lough or crag were absent.
+
+The Roman way called the Stanegate comes from the eastward almost up to
+the station of Magna, which stands a little to the south of both Wall
+and Vallum, between them and Wade's road, which here approaches nearer
+to the Wall than it has done for many miles.
+
+Another Roman road, the Maiden Way, comes from the South closely up to
+the Vallum, quite near to Thirlwall castle. The name "Thirlwall" was
+supposed to commemorate the "thirling" (drilling or piercing) of the
+Wall at this point by the barbarians, but this is extremely doubtful;
+though the difficulty of defending the wall on this level tract lends an
+air of likelihood to this supposition. Near here the little river Tipalt
+flows across the line of the Wall on its way southward to join the North
+Tyne.
+
+Passing Wallend, Gap, and Rose Hill, where Gilsland railway station now
+stands, we follow the Wall to the deep dene of the Poltross Burn, which
+forms the boundary between Northumberland and Cumberland. The railway
+just beyond the burn crosses the line of the Wall; and, further on, an
+interesting portion, several courses high, takes its way through the
+Vicarage garden. Here we will leave it to continue its way through
+Cumberland, and turn our attention to the chief Roman ways which cross
+Northumberland, with other stations standing upon them.
+
+The Watling Street or Dere Street, we have already noticed; and the
+chief station on it, which has also proved to be the largest in
+Northumberland, is Corstopitum, near Corbridge. The recent excavations
+since 1906 have resulted in the finding of many interesting relics,
+including some hundreds of coins, amongst which were forty-eight gold
+pieces, of later Roman date, ranging from those of Valentinian I. to
+those of Magnus Maximus. Pottery in large quantities has also been
+found, most of it, of course, in a fragmentary condition, but some
+pieces, notably bowls of Samian ware, almost perfect, and dating from
+the first century. Several interesting pieces of sculpture have been
+unearthed; one a finely sculptured lion standing over an animal which it
+has evidently just killed; this was, no doubt, used as an outlet for
+water at the fountain, judging by the projection of the lion's lower
+lip. Another piece of sculpture represents a sun-god, the rays
+surrounding his face; and several altars and many inscribed stones are
+also amongst the treasures lately revealed. A clay mould of a human
+figure was also found, which is supposed to represent some Keltic deity;
+but as the figure wears a short tunic not unlike a kilt, and carries a
+crooked club, the workmen promptly christened it Harry Lauder! The
+buildings in this town, for it is much more than a military station,
+have been large and imposing, as is shown by each successive revelation
+made by the excavators' spades. The portion of the Watling Street
+leading from Corstopitum to the river has also been laid bare.
+
+The Roman road called the Stanegate runs westward from the North Tyne at
+Cilurnum, a little to the north of Fourstones railway station, through
+Newbrough, on past Grindon Hill, Grindon Lough, which it passes on the
+south, and Grindon Dykes, to Vindolana (Chesterholm) another Roman town,
+which lies a mile due south from Hot Bank farmhouse on the Wall.
+Vindolana stood on a most favourable site, a high platform protected on
+three sides, and it covered three and a half acres of ground. Here no
+excavations have yet been made, and the site is grass grown and desolate
+although the outlines of the station may be distinctly traced. A ruinous
+building to the west of this station was popularly called the Fairies'
+Kitchen, a name given to it on account of the marks of fire and soot on
+the pillars. From the station several inscribed stones and altars have
+been taken to the museum at Chesters. One of them is dedicated to the
+Genius of the Camp by Pituanius Secundus, the Prefect of the fourth
+Cohort of the Gauls, which cohort, as we have already seen by the
+_Votitia_, was stationed here. In the valley below Vindolana a little
+cottage is standing. It is built entirely of Roman stones, and was
+erected by an enthusiastic antiquary, Mr. Anthony Hedley, for himself.
+Many of the stones used in its construction have inscriptions on them;
+and in the covered passage, leading from the cottage down to the burn,
+we come upon one of them inscribed with the name of our old friend the
+XXth Legion, and its crest, the running boar. The most interesting relic
+of all in the neighbourhood is a Roman mile-stone, standing in its
+original position on the Stanegate.
+
+Leaving Vindolana, this road goes on westward to Magna, where it joins
+the Maiden Way, another important Roman road, which runs from north to
+south. Coming from the neighbourhood of Bewcastle Fells, it enters
+Northumberland at Gilsland, and leading eastward as far as Magna, then
+turns directly southward past Greenhead.
+
+In concluding this chapter on the Roman remains in our county, _apropos_
+of the wholesale destruction of the Wall and larger stations which has
+taken place in the last century or two, I will quote the words of two
+historians on that subject. Dr. Thomas Hodgkin says: "In the reign of
+Queen Elizabeth, Camden, the enthusiastic antiquary, dared not traverse
+the line of the wall by reason of the gangs of brigands by whom it was
+infested. The union of the two countries brought peace, and peace
+brought prosperity; prosperity, alas! more fatal to the Wall than
+centuries of Border warfare. For now the prosperous farmers of
+Northumberland and Cumberland awoke to the building facilities which
+lurked in these square green enclosures on their farms, treated them as
+their best quarries, and robbed them unmercifully of their fine
+well-hewn stones. Happily that work of demolition is now in great
+measure stayed, and at this day we visit the camps for a nobler purpose,
+to learn all they can teach us as to the past history of our country."
+
+None, I think, will disagree with these words of the learned Doctor,
+whether or not they may go as far as Cadwallader J. Bates, who, in
+concluding his chapter on the Roman Wall, gave it as his opinion that
+"unless the island is conquered by some civilized nation, there will
+soon be no traces of the Wall left. Nay, even the splendid whinstone
+crags on which it stands will be all quarried away to mend the roads of
+our urban and rural authorities."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+SOME NORTHUMBRIAN STREAMS.
+
+
+  "Come, don't abuse our climate, and revile
+  The crowning county of England--yes, the best.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Have you and I, then, raced across its moors.
+  Till horse and boy were well-nigh mad with glee,
+  So often, summer and winter, home from school,
+  And not found that out? Take the streams away,
+  The country would be sweeter than the South
+  Anywhere; give the South our streams, would it
+  Be fit to match our Borders? Flower and crag,
+  Burnside and boulder, heather and whin,--you don't
+  Dream you can match them south of this? And then,
+  If all the unwatered country were as flat
+  As the Eton playing-fields, give it back our burns,
+  And set them singing through a sad South world,
+  And try to make them dismal as its fens--
+  They won't be! Bright and tawny, full of fun
+  And storm and sunlight, taking change and chance
+  With laugh on laugh of triumph--why, you know
+  How they plunge, pause, chafe, chide across the rocks,
+  And chuckle along the rapids, till they breathe
+  And rest and pant and build some bright deep bath
+  For happy boys to dive in, and swim up.
+  And match the water's laughter."
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Northumberland is fortunate in the number of rivers which, owing to the
+position of the Cheviot Hills, flow right across the county from west to
+east. These Northumbrian streams have a distinct character of their own,
+and are of a different breed from those of the southern; counties. They
+are neither mountain torrents nor placid leisurely rivers, such as are
+met elsewhere in Britain, but busy, bright, joyous, and sparkling,
+never sluggish, never silent, even when deep and full, as is the Tyne in
+its lower reaches. With the Tyne and its tributary streams we have
+already travelled; but there are others yet awaiting us, claiming our
+attention sometimes for the romantic scenery through which they run
+their bright course, sometimes for the historic sites they pass on their
+way, sometimes for both reasons. Wansbeck, Coquet, Aln, or Till--each
+has its own interest, as has also the Tweed in that score or so of miles
+along which it can he spoken of in connection with Northumberland.
+
+The source of the Wansbeck, the only "beck" the county possesses, is
+amongst the "Wild Hills o' Wannys" (Wanny's beck) a group of picturesque
+sandstone crags which surround Sweethope Lough, a sheet of water which
+covers 180 acres. The scenery of this upper course of the Wansbeck is
+very striking, from the Lough to Kirkwhelpington, flowing between bleak
+moorland and rich pasture, and on to Littleharle Tower, which stands
+secluded in deep woods.
+
+Another mansion near at hand, and most picturesquely situated, is
+Wallington Hall, lying a short distance away on the north bank of the
+Wansbeck. It is one of the most notable country houses in
+Northumberland, and especially so on account of its unique
+picture-gallery, roofed with dull glass, and containing several series
+of pictures connected with Northumbrian history. One of these is a
+series of frescoes by William Bell Scott, whose name was for so many
+years associated with all that was best in art in Newcastle, and whose
+picture of the "Building of the Castle" may be seen at the head of the
+staircase in the Lit. and Phil. building. His pictures at Wallington
+are:--1. The Building of the Roman Wall. 2. The visit of King Egfrid
+and Bishop Trumwine to St. Cuthbert on Fame. 3. A Descent of the Danes.
+4. Death of the Venerable Bede. 5. The Charlton Spur. 6. Bernard Gilpin
+taking down a challenge glove in Rothbury Church. 7. Grace Darling and
+her father on the way to the wreck. 8. The Nineteenth Century--showing
+the High Level Bridge, the Quayside, an Armstrong gun, etc., etc.
+Another series consists of medallions and portraits of famous men
+connected with Northumbrian events, from Hadrian and Severus down to
+George Stephenson and others of modern times; while yet another depicts
+all the incidents of "Chevy Chase."
+
+Some miles further eastward, the Wansbeck receives the Hart Burn--which,
+by the way, is larger than the parent stream at this point--and, a
+little later, the Font. The lovely little village of Mitford, once
+important enough to overshadow the Morpeth of that day, lies at the
+junction of Font and Wansbeck. The Mitfords of Mitford can boast, if
+ever family could, of being Northumbrian of the Northumbrians, as they
+were seated here before the days of the Conqueror, who made such a
+general upsetting amongst the Saxon landowners.
+
+The beauty of the two miles walk along the banks of the Wansbeck from
+here to Morpeth is not easy to surpass in all the county, though several
+parts of the Coquet valley may justly compete with it. William Howitt
+has left on record his admiration for this lovely region, and said
+Morpeth was "more like a town in a dream" than a reality. Especially is
+this so when looking at the town from the neighbourhood of the river.
+Before actually reaching Morpeth the Wansbeck waters the fair fields
+that once held Newminster Abbey in its pride; now, nothing remains but
+an arch or so and a few stones, to remind us of the noble abbey which
+Ralph de Merley built so long ago. When only half built it was
+demolished by the Scots under King David; but willing hands set to work
+again, and the abbey and monastery were completed.
+
+In the town of Morpeth, though newer buildings are stretching out
+towards the outskirts, many of the ancient buildings and streets remain,
+and the general aspect of this part of it is much the same as when the
+Jacobites of Northumberland gathered together here, and the clergyman,
+Mr. Buxton, proclaimed James III. in its Market Place. Of Morpeth
+Castle, built by a De Merley soon after the Conquest, only the gateway
+tower remains, but the outlines of the original boundary walls can be
+clearly traced. A company of five hundred Scots, whom Leslie had left as
+a garrison in 1644, held out here for three weeks against two thousand
+Royalists under Montrose. After the cannonading received during that
+siege, the walls were not repaired again, and the castle fell into
+decay. The inhabitants of Morpeth have a daily reminder of times yet
+more remote, for the Curfew Bell still rings out over the little town
+every evening at eight o'clock.
+
+Another walk of three miles along the still beautiful banks of the
+Wansbeck brings us to Bothal, another little village of great beauty,
+embowered and almost hidden amongst luxuriant woods. Its curious name is
+derived from the Anglo-Saxon _bottell_, a place of abode (as in
+Walbottle). The name conjures up memories of the knights of old, their
+loves and their fortunes, fair or disastrous; for the best-known version
+of "The Hermit of Warkworth" tells us that it was a Bertram of Bothal
+who was the luckless hero of that tale, though another version avers
+that he belonged to the house of Percy.
+
+Wansbeck's fellow stream, the Coquet, has its birth amongst some of the
+wildest scenery of the Cheviot Hills, where the heights of Deel's Hill
+and Woodbist Law look down on the now silent Watling Street and the
+deserted Ad Fines Camp. In its windings along the bases of the hills it
+is joined by the Usway Burn, said to be named after King Oswy, between
+which and the little river Alwine lies the famous Lordship of Kidland,
+once desolate on account of the thieving and raiding of its neighbours
+of Bedesdale and Scotland.
+
+Hodgson, in his "Northumberland," says of this region, "All the said
+Kydlande is full of lytle hilles or mountaynes, and between the saide
+hilles be dyvers valyes in which discende litle Ryvvelles or brokes of
+water, spryngynge out of the said hilles and all fallynge into a lytle
+Rever or broke callede Kidlande water, w'ch fallethe into the rever of
+cockette nere to the towne of alwynntonn, w'tin a myll of the castell of
+harbottell." The reasons for the desolation of Kidland are graphically
+set forth:--"In somer seasons when good peace ys betwene England and
+Scotland, th'inhabitantes of dyv'se townes thereaboutes repayres up with
+theyr cattall in som'ynge (summering) as ys aforesaid, and so have used
+to do of longe tyme. And for the pasture of theyr cattall, so long as
+they would tarye there they payed for a knoweledge two pens for a
+household, or a grote at the most, though they had nev' so many
+cattalles. And yet the poore men thoughte their fermes dere enoughe.
+There was but fewe yeres that they escaped w'thout a greatter losse of
+their goodes and cattalles, by spoyle or thefte of the Scottes or
+Ryddesdale men, then would have paide for the pasture of theyr cattail
+in a much better grounde. And ov' (over, besides) that, the saide valyes
+or hopes of Kidlande lyeth so distant and devyded by mounteynes one from
+an other, that such as Inhabyte in one of these hoopes, valeys, or
+graynes, can not heare the Fraye outcrye, or exclamac'on of such as
+dwell in an other hoope or valley upon the other side of the said
+mountayne, nor come or assemble to theyr assystance in tyme of
+necessytie. Wherefore we can not fynde anye of the neyghbours
+thereabouts wyllinge cotynnally to Inhabyte or plenyshe w'thin the saide
+grounde of Kydland, and especially in wynter tyme."
+
+These reasons were given by the people of "Cockdale" in the neighbouring
+valley, to account for the desolation of Kidland, which lay open on the
+northward to attacks from the Scots, and had no defence on the south
+from the rievers of Redesdale. The inhabitants of Coquetdale seem to
+have been a right valiant and hardy fraternity, honest and fearless,
+well able to give good blows in defence of their possessions, for it is
+left on record that "the people of the said Cock-dayle be best p'pared
+for defence and most defensyble people of themselfes, and of the truest
+and best sorte of anye that do Inhabyte, endlonge, the frounter or
+border of the said mydle m'ches of England." The traces of these days of
+raid and foray are to be found in abundance all over Coquetdale, as
+indeed all over Northumberland, in pele-tower and barmkyn, fortified
+dwelling and bastle house.
+
+Harbottle Castle would have a good deal to tell, could it only speak, of
+siege and assault from the day when, "with the aid of the whole county
+of Northumberland and the bishopric of Durham," it was built by Henry
+II., until, after the Union of the Crowns, it shared the fate of many of
+the Border strongholds, and fell into gradual decay, or was used as a
+quarry from which to draw building material for new and modern
+mansions. At Rothbury, a pele-tower has formed the dwelling of the
+Vicars of that town from the time that any mention of Whitton Tower is
+to be found, it being first noticed as "Turris de Whitton, iuxta
+Rothebery." Rothbury itself occupies quite the finest situation of any
+of the Northumbrian towns. Others, besides it, lie on the banks of a
+pretty river; others, too, possess fair meadows and rich pastures; but
+none other has the combination of these attractive features with the
+finer surroundings of hill, crag, and moorland as picturesquely
+beautiful as those of Rothbury. In the old church here Bernard Gilpin,
+"the Apostle of the North," often preached; and even the fierce rival
+factions of the Borderland were so influenced by the gentle, yet
+fearless preacher, that they consented to forego their usual pleasure of
+"drawing" whenever they met one of a rival family, at least so long as
+Gilpin dwelt among them, and especially to refrain from showing their
+hostility in church.
+
+There are in Coquetdale, as elsewhere, memorials of the ancient British
+days in the many camps to be found on the summits of the hills near the
+town, on Tosson Hill and the Simonside Hills; and not camps only, but
+barrows, cist-vaens, and flint weapons in considerable numbers. The
+magnificent view to be obtained, on a clear day, from Tosson Hill or the
+Simonsides is one to be remembered; to the west and north stretch the
+vales of Coquet and Alwin, with the rolling heights of the Cheviots
+bounding them; northward are the woods surrounding Biddlestone Hall, the
+"Osbaldistone Hall" of Scot's _Rob Roy_, awakening memories of Di
+Vernon; far to the eastward a faint blue haze denotes the distant
+coastline; while southward, over the dales of Rede and Tyne, the smoke
+of industrial Tyneside lies on the horizon, with the spires and towers
+of Newcastle showing faintly against the heights of the Durham side of
+the Tyne.
+
+One of the chief sights of Rothbury is the beautiful mansion of Cragside
+and the wonderful valley of Debdon and Crag Hill, as transformed by the
+first Lord Armstrong into a paradise of beauty, where art and nature are
+so blended as to make a romantically artistic whole. Another lovely spot
+on the banks of Coquet is at Brinkburn, where the famous Priory stands
+almost hidden at the foot of thickly wooded slopes. A very much larger
+portion of this fine Priory is still standing than is the case with many
+other religious houses of the same age, for it dates from the reign of
+Henry I. The story is told of Brinkburn as well as of Blanchland, that a
+party of marauding Scots on one of their forays passed by the Priory
+without discovering it in its leafy bower; and so overjoyed were the
+monks at their escape that they incautiously rang the bells by way of
+showing their delight. The Scots, who had passed out of sight but not
+out of hearing, immediately returned on their tracks, and, guided by the
+joyful peal, reached the Priory, sacked the buildings, and then set them
+on fire. It may well be that the tragedy occurred at both places, on
+different occasions.
+
+Farther eastward down the Coquet are two places pre-eminently noted as
+centres for the sport for which the river is famed above all other
+Northumbrian streams, though some of them are worthy rivals. These two
+places are Weldon Bridge and Felton; the old Angler's Inn at the
+first-named is a favourite rendezvous of the fraternity of rod and
+creel. Fishermen have long known the fascination of these two places,
+and I quote from the "Fisherman's Garland" two stanzas written by two
+enthusiastic anglers in praise of them. The writers are Robert Roxby
+and Thomas Doubleday.
+
+
+  "But we'll awa' to Coquetside,
+  For Coquet bangs them a';
+  Whose winding streams sae sweetly glide
+  By Brinkburn's bonny Ha'!"
+
+  _Written in 1821_
+
+  "The Coquet for ever, the Coquet for aye!
+  The _Woodhall_ and _Weldon_ and _Felton_ so gay,
+  And _Brinkburn_ and _Linden_, wi' a' their sweet pride,
+  For they add to the beauty of dear Coquetside."
+
+  _Written in 1826_
+
+Felton, a charmingly placed little village, on the banks of the river
+where they are overhung by graceful woods, and diversified by cliff and
+grassy slope, stands just where the great North Road crosses the Coquet.
+By reason of this position it has been the scene of one or two events of
+historical interest, notably those connected with the "Fifteen" and the
+"Forty-five." On the former occasion, the gallant young Earl of
+Derwentwater, with his followers, was joined here by a band of seventy
+gentlemen from the Borders, and they rode on to Morpeth to proclaim
+James III. And thirty years later, the soldiers of George II. passed
+over the bridge from the southward, led by the Duke of Cumberland, and
+pressed on towards the Scottish moor where they dealt the final blow to
+the Stuart cause at Culloden. The interesting old church at Felton,
+dating from the thirteenth century, is well worth a visit. After leaving
+Felton behind, the Coquet enters on the most marked windings of all its
+winding course, until, when it enters the sea at Warkworth Harbour, just
+opposite Coquet Island, it has contrived to lengthen out its journey to
+a distance of forty miles.
+
+The bright clear stream of the Aln also begins its short journey across
+Northumberland from the heights of Cheviot, but in the narrower
+northern portion of the county. Alnham, with its pele-tower Vicarage,
+ancient church, and memories of a castle, stands just at the foot of the
+hills, near the source of the river. Some three or four miles eastward
+along its banks, a walk through leafy woods brings us to
+Whittingham--the final syllable of which, by the way, one pronounces as
+"jam," as one does that of nearly all the other place-names ending in
+"ing-ham" in Northumberland, contrary though it be to etymological
+considerations--excepting, curiously enough, Chillingham, situated in
+the very midst of all the others. The "ing" and "ham" are in themselves
+a historical guide to the days in which the various villages received
+their names, these two syllables being a certain indication of a Saxon
+settlement, the "home of the sons, or descendants of" whatever person
+the first syllable indicates. Thus, Edlingham, only a few miles away, is
+the "home or settlement of the sons of Eadwulf"; Ellingham, the "home of
+the sons of Ella," and so on. How the "Whitt" syllable was spelled we do
+not know; most probably Hwitta or Hwitha--for all our _wh's_ were _hw_
+originally--_hwaet, hwa, hwaether_ and so forth.
+
+This ancient village is in these days a charming and peaceful place,
+lying in the midst of rich meadow lands, and surrounded by magnificent
+trees. It had its romances, too, in the course of years; so long ago as
+the days of the early Danish invasions a certain widow in Whittingham,
+in the reign of King Alfred, had no less a person than a Danish prince
+among her slaves; he was ransomed, however, and made king of the Danes
+in the North, in consequence of a vision in which St. Cuthbert had
+directed the Abbot of Carlisle to see this done. Young Prince Guthred's
+gratitude showed itself in a substantial grant of land to St. Cuthbert
+at Durham. Whittingham Church is supposed to have been founded by the
+Saxon king Ceolwulf, whose acquaintance we have already made at Holy
+Island, and he bestowed the lands of Whittingham on the church at
+Lindisfarne. It still shows some of the original Saxon work at the base
+of the tower, and much more was to be seen before the so-called
+"restoration" of the church in 1840. The pele-tower on the south side of
+the river, after its days of storm and stress are over, still serves as
+a shelter in time of need, for it is now used as an almshouse for the
+poor of the village, a former Lady Ravensworth having originated the
+quaint idea and seen it carried out.
+
+Whittingham Fair, now Whittingham Sports, a well-known rendezvous of the
+whole countryside, has lost some of its former splendour, but is still
+looked forward to with great enjoyment in the surrounding district. The
+old coaching road from Newcastle to Edinburgh passed through the
+village, crossing the Aln by the stone bridge, from whence it went on
+through Glanton and Wooler to Cornhill.
+
+In the vale of Whittingham, the little Aln flows placidly along, its
+waters murmuring a soothing refrain, a peaceful interlude between its
+busy bustling beginning and its ending. Before reaching Alnwick it flows
+past the ancient walls of Hulne Abbey, the monastery of Carmelite friars
+so romantically founded by the Northumbrian knight and monk after his
+visit to the monastery on Mount Carmel. A considerable portion of the
+ancient building is still standing, and few sites chosen by the old
+monks, who had an unerring eye for beauty as well as safety and
+convenience in their choice of abode, can surpass this one, surrounded
+by fair meadows, and standing on the green hill-side, with the rippling
+Aln flowing through the levels below. In Hulne Park is also the
+Brislee Tower, erected by the first Duke of Northumberland in 1781, on
+the top of Brislee Hill.
+
+[Illustration: ALNWICK CASTLE]
+
+Alnwick itself, with its quaint, uneven, narrow streets, and grey stone
+houses, looks the part of a Border town even in these days; and the grim
+old Hotspur tower, bestriding the main street like an ancient warrior
+still on guard, helps to give the illusion an air of reality. The tower,
+however, was not built by Hotspur, but by his son. The names of the
+streets, too, are redolent of the days when the only safety for the
+inhabitants of a town worth plundering lay in the strength of its walls
+and gateways. Bondgate, Bailiffgate, and Narrowgate, still speak of the
+days of siege and sortie, of fierce attack and stout defence.
+
+The magnificent castle which dominates the town stands majestically at
+the top of a green slope above the Aln, its vast array of walls and
+towers far along the ridge, fronting the North as though still looking,
+albeit with a seemingly languid interest, for the coming of the Scots
+who were such inveterate foes of its successive lords. The principal
+entrance, however, the Barbican, faces southwards to the town, and here
+the massive gateway, with portcullis complete, and crowned by quaint
+life-size figures of warriors in various attitudes of defence, conveys
+the impression that the huge giant is still alert and on guard. The
+history of Alnwick is the history of the castle and its lords, from the
+days of Gilbert Tyson, variously known as Tison, Tisson, and De Tesson,
+one of the Conqueror's standardbearers, upon whom this northern estate
+was bestowed, until the present time. After being held by the family of
+De Vesci (of which the modern rendering is Vasey--a name found all over
+south-east Northumberland) for over two hundred years, it passed into
+the hands of the house of Percy. The Percies, who hailed from the
+village of Perce in Normandy, had large estates in Yorkshire, bestowed
+by the Conqueror on the first of the name to arrive in England in his
+train. The family, however, was represented by an heiress only in the
+reign of Henry II., whose second wife, a daughter of the Duke of
+Brabant, thought this heiress, with her wide possessions, a suitable
+match for her own young half-brother Joceline of Louvain. The marriage
+took place; and thereafter followed the long line of Henry Percies
+(Henry being a favourite name of the Counts of Louvain) who played such
+a large part in the history of both England and Scotland; for, as nearly
+every Percy was a Warden of the Marches, Scottish doings concerned them
+more or less intimately--indeed, often more so than English affairs.
+
+It was the third Henry Percy who purchased Alnwick in 1309 from Antony
+Bec, Bishop of Durham and guardian of the last De Vesci, and from that
+time the fortunes of the Percies, though they still held their Yorkshire
+estates, were linked permanently with the little town on the Aln, and
+the fortress which alike commanded and defended it. The fourth Henry
+Percy began to build the castle as we see it now; but to call him "the
+fourth" is a little confusing, as he was the second Henry Percy, Lord of
+Alnwick. On the whole, it will be clearer to begin the enumerations of
+the various Henry Percies from the time they became Lords of Alnwick. It
+was, then, Henry Percy the second, Lord of Alnwick, who began the
+re-building of the castle; he also was jointly responsible for the
+safety of the realm during the absence of Edward III. in the French
+wars, and in this official capacity, no less than in that of a Border
+baron whose delight it was to exchange lusty blows with an ever-ready
+foe, he helped to win the battle of Neville's Cross. His son, Henry,
+married a sister of John of Gaunt, and their son, the next Henry Percy,
+was that friend who stood John Wycliffe in such good stead, when he was
+cited to appear before the Bishop of London. Henry Percy, who had been
+made Earl Marshal of England, and the Duke of Lancaster took their
+places one on each side of Wycliffe, and accompanied him to St. Paul's,
+clearing a way for him through the crowd. It does not belong to this
+story to tell how their private quarrels with the Bishop prevented
+Wycliffe's interrogation, and how he left the Cathedral without having
+uttered a word; we are concerned at the moment with his North-country
+friend, who, the same year, was created Earl of Northumberland, which
+title he was given after the coronation of Richard II. Nor was this all,
+for he was that Northumberland whose doings in the next reign fill so
+large a part of Shakespeare's Henry IV., and he was the father of the
+most famous Percy of all, the gallant Henry Percy the fifth, better
+known as "Harry Hotspur." Hotspur never became Earl of Northumberland,
+being slain at Shrewsbury in the lifetime of his father, whose estates
+were forfeited under attainder on account of the rebellion of himself
+and his son against King Henry IV.
+
+King Henry V. restored Hotspur's son, the second Earl, to his family
+honours, and the Percies were staunch Lancastrians during the Wars of
+the Roses which followed, the third Earl and three of his brothers
+losing their lives in the cause. The fifth Earl was a gorgeous person
+whose magnificence equalled, almost, that of royalty. Henry Percy, the
+sixth Earl of Northumberland, loved Ann Boleyn, and was her accepted
+suitor before King Henry VIII. unfortunately discovered the lady's
+charm, and interfered in a highhanded "bluff King Hal" fashion, and
+young Percy lost his prospective bride. He had no son, although married
+later to the daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and his nephew, Thomas
+Percy, became the seventh Earl.
+
+Thereafter, a succession of plots and counterplots--the Rising of the
+North, the plots to liberate Mary Queen of Scots, and the Gunpowder
+Plot--each claimed a Percy among their adherents. On this account the
+eighth and ninth Earls spent many years in the Tower, but the tenth
+Earl, Algernon, fought for King Charles in the Civil War, the male line
+of the Percy-Louvain house ending with Josceline, the eleventh Earl. The
+heiress to the vast Percy estates married the Duke of Somerset; and her
+grand-daughter married a Yorkshire knight, Sir Hugh Smithson, who in
+1766 was created the first Duke of Northumberland and Earl Percy, and it
+is their descendants who now represent the famous old house.
+
+At various points in the town are memorials of the constant wars between
+Percies and Scots in which so many Percies spent the greater part of
+their lives. At the side of the broad shady road called Rotten Row,
+leading from the West Lodge to Bailiffgate, a tablet of stone marks the
+spot where William the Lion of Scotland was captured as we have already
+seen, in 1174, by Odinel de Umfraville and his friends; and there are
+many others of similar interest.
+
+Within the park, approached by the gate at the foot of Canongate, is the
+fine gateway which is all that is left of Alnwick Abbey. No more
+peaceful spot could have been found than this, on the level greensward,
+surrounded by fine trees which shelter it on all sides save one, and
+near the brink of the little Aln, whose banks are thickly covered with
+wild flowers, while the steep slope on the opposite side of the river is
+overhung with shady woods. The extent of the parks may be judged from
+the fact that the enclosing wall is about five miles long. At the foot
+of Bailiffgate, on the edge of a steep ridge above the descent to
+Canongate and the banks of the river, the ancient parish church,
+dedicated to St. Mary and St. Michael stands in a commanding position.
+The present building dates from the fourteenth century, and occupies the
+site of an earlier one, whose few remaining stones have been built into
+the present structure. Two other reminders of long-past days are to be
+found in Alnwick; one is the large stone in the Market Place to which
+the bull ring used to be fixed in the days when bull-baiting and
+bear-baiting took place; and the other, a relic of days still further
+back in the distant years, is the sounding of the Curfew Bell, which is
+still rung here every evening at eight o'clock. Altogether there is the
+quaintest and most unexpected mingling of the ancient and modern in the
+little feudal town.
+
+Between Alnwick and the sea, the Aln winds its way past Alnmouth
+Station, formerly known as Bilton Junction, and past Lesbury, a pretty
+little tree-shaded village, to the sandy flats by Alnmouth where it ends
+its journey in the North Sea.
+
+The Till, by whose side we shall next wander, flows in the opposite
+direction, for that historic stream is a tributary of "Tweed's fair
+river, broad and deep," and curves from the Cheviots round to the
+North-west, where it enters the larger stream at Tillmouth. It begins
+life as the Breamish, tumbling down the slopes of Cushat Law within
+sight of all the giants of the Cheviot range. The Linhope Burn, a fellow
+traveller down these steep hillsides, forms in its course the Linhope
+Spout, one of the largest waterfalls to be found amongst the Cheviots,
+before it joins the Breamish, which then flows through a country of
+green slopes and grassy levels to Ingram. This village possesses an old
+church with massive square tower and windows which suggest the fortress
+rather than the church. The heights which stretch eastward from the
+Cheviots and bound the valley of the Till add not a little to the beauty
+and variety of the scenery in this district.
+
+The little stream, which turns northward near Glanton railway station,
+moves on in loops and windings past Beanley, which Earl Gospatric held
+in former days by virtue of the curious office of being a kind of
+official mediator between the monarchs of England and Scotland when they
+came to blows; and past Bewick, with its little Norman church buried
+from sight amongst leafy trees. The effigy of a lady in the chancel of
+this church is said to be that of Matilda, wife of Henry I. This is the
+more likely in that the lands of Bewick formed part of her dowry, and
+were given by her to the monks of Tynemouth Priory. At Bewick Bridge the
+little stream ceases to be the Breamish, and becomes the Till; as an old
+rhyme has it--
+
+  "The foot of Breamish, and head of Till,
+  Meet together at Bewick Mill"
+
+Some miles to the northward, the Till reaches the little village of
+Chatton, having, on the way, passed a little to the westward of
+Chillingham Castle and Park, where is the famous herd of wild cattle.
+Roscastle, a craggy height covered with heather, stands at the edge of
+the chase, and looks over a wild and romantic scene of moorland and
+pastureland, deep glens and heathery hills. The Vicarage at Chatton is
+another of those north-country vicarages in which an old pele-tower
+forms part of the modern residence. On the top of Chatton Law is an
+ancient British encampment, with inscribed circles similar to those on
+Bewick Hill.
+
+From Chatton, the loops and windings of the Till grow more insistent,
+and the little stream adds miles to its length by reason of its
+frequent doubling on its tracks; this, however, but gives an added charm
+to the landscape, as the silvery gleams of the winding river come
+unexpectedly into view again and again. It flows on through Glendale,
+with which attractive region we have already made acquaintance; and on
+its banks are the two prettiest villages in Northumberland--Ford and
+Etal.
+
+Ford Castle, as seen at the present day, is chiefly modern, but the
+northwest tower is part of the old fortress of Odenel de Forde, which
+experienced so many vicissitudes in its time. One of the most famous
+owners of Ford Castle was Sir William Heron, who married Odenel's
+daughter, and who held the responsible and troublesome office of High
+Sheriff of Northumberland for eleven years, besides being Captain of
+Bamburgh and Warden of the northern forests. The castle was burnt down
+by James IV. of Scotland just before the battle of Flodden, which was
+not by any means the only time in its career that it was demolished,
+entirely or in part, and restored again.
+
+In the village of Ford, the walls of the schoolroom are decorated by a
+series of pictures of the children of Scripture story, for whose
+portrayal it is said the Marchioness of Waterford, the artist, took the
+village children as models. The late Vicar of Ford, the Rev. Hastings
+Neville, has laid all who are interested in the rural life of
+Northumberland, and the quaint and traditional manners and customs of
+the North-country which are so fast disappearing, under the greatest
+obligation to him for his interesting and entirely delightful little
+book, "A Corner in the North." Historical records, and matters of
+business, ownerships, etc., connected with any special area can always
+be turned up for reference when required; but the manner of speech, the
+customs of daily life, the quaint survivals of former usages and
+half-forgotten lore, being entirely dependent on individual memory and
+oral tradition, only too often disappear before any adequate record can
+be made. Hence it is a matter for congratulation that such a book should
+have been written.
+
+Etal, Ford's pretty neighbour, also boasts a castle, built only two
+years after that of Ford and by the same masons. A considerable portion
+of the ruins remains, but, unlike Ford Castle, it was never restored
+after James the Fourth's drastic handling of it, but was left to decay.
+Opposite Ford and Etal, on the left bank of the Till, is Pallinsburn
+House, referred to in another chapter, and the village of Crookham; and
+beyond the woods of Pallinsburn, Flodden ridge, with its memories of the
+disastrous field on which James was slain.
+
+The mansion house of Tillmouth Park, owned by Sir Francis Blake, is
+built of stones from the ruins of Twizell Castle, on the northern bank
+of the Till; the castle was begun by a former Sir Francis Blake but
+never finished. Between the two buildings the Berwick Road crosses the
+Till by Twizell Bridge, over which Surrey marched his men southward on
+the morning of Flodden. Not far from this bridge, to the westward, is
+St. Helen's Well, alluded to by Scott in his account of the battle, in
+"Marmion"--
+
+  "Many a chief of birth and rank,
+  St. Helen, at thy fountain drank."
+
+Sibyl's well, from which Lady Clare brought water to moisten the lips of
+the dying Marmion, is beside the little church at Branxton. Tillmouth,
+however, has older memories still; for it was to the little chapel there
+that St. Cuthbert's body floated in its stone coffin from Melrose,
+dating the course of its seven years' wandering, ere it found a final
+rest at Durham.
+
+
+  "From sea to sea, from shore to shore,
+  Seven years Saint Cuthbert's corpse they bore
+  They rested them in fair Melrose,
+  But though alive he loved it well
+  Not there his relics might repose,
+      For, wondrous tale to tell,
+  In his stone coffin forth he glides,
+  A ponderous bark for river tides,
+  Yet light as gossamer it glides
+      Downward to Tillmouth cell.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Chester-le-Street and Ripon saw
+  His holy corpse, ere Wardilaw
+      Hailed it with joy and fear;
+  Till, after many wanderings past,
+  He chose his lordly seat at last
+  Where his cathedral, huge and vast,
+      Looks down upon the Wear."
+
+  _Sir W. Scott_--MARMION.
+
+
+The "stone coffin" was boat-shaped, "ten feet long, three feet and a
+half in diameter, and only four inches thick, so that, with very little
+assistance, it might certainly have swum; it still lies, or at least did
+so a few years ago, in two pieces, beside the ruined chapel at
+Tilmouth."--_Sir W. Scott's Notes to "Marmion."_
+
+Three or four miles from Tillmouth, south-westward up the valley of the
+Tweed, and just beyond Cornhill, lies the village of Wark, near which
+the remains of the famous Border castle are still standing. The castle
+was built on a stony ridge of detritus called the _Kaim_, which
+stretches from Wark village towards Carham. In the reign of Henry I. all
+those who owned land in the North were seemingly animated simultaneously
+by a lively desire to secure their Borders; Bishop Flambard began to
+build Norham Castle, Eustace Fitz-John, husband of Beatrice de Vesci,
+built the greater part of Alnwick Castle, and Walter Espic raised the
+mighty fortress, the great "Wark" or work (A.S. _were_ or _weare_) on
+the steep ridge above Tweed, in "his honour (seignieury) of Carham."
+
+From that time the castle of Wark went through a greater succession of
+sieges, assaults, burnings, surrenders, demolitions, and restorations
+than any other place in England, except, perhaps, Norham Castle or
+Berwick-upon-Tweed. In an age and situation where hard blows given and
+returned, desperate adventures and equal chances of life or death were
+the common-places of everyday existence, Wark was probably the place
+where these excitements were to be had oftener than anywhere else.
+
+The romantic episode which gave rise to the establishment of the Order
+of the Garter is generally allowed to have taken place at Wark Castle.
+The young king of Scotland, David Bruce, had "ridden a raid" into
+England, and ravaged and plundered on his way as far as Auckland, after
+having burnt the town of Alnwick, amongst others, but having been
+repulsed before the castle. King Edward III. was at Stamford when he
+heard of the invasion; but hurrying northward he reached Newcastle in
+four days. The Scots, retreating before him, passed Wark Castle, which
+was held by the Countess of Salisbury and her nephew, in the absence of
+her husband. The young man was loth to let so much English booty be
+carried off under his very eyes, so he fell upon the rearguard, and
+succeeded in bringing a number of packhorses to the castle. On this the
+whole Scottish array turned back, and a siege of the castle began; but
+the Countess spiritedly held out, and Edward meanwhile drew nearer. Some
+of the Scotsmen were captured, and from them the Countess's nephew
+heard that Edward had reached Alnwick. He stole out of the castle before
+dawning in heavy rain, to let the King know where his help was urgently
+needed; and by noon of the same day Edward was at Wark, only to find his
+quarry flown, the Scots having retreated a few hours earlier. The King
+was joyfully received and thanked by the grateful Countess; and he in
+his turn was much struck by the beauty and grace of the high-spirited
+lady, and showed his admiration plainly. In the evening, according to
+tradition, a ball was held, at which the incident occurred, so often
+related, of the accidental losing of her garter by the fair chatelaine,
+and the restoration of it by the King, with the remark, as a rebuke to
+the smiling bystanders,--"_Honi soit qui mal y pense._" This he
+afterwards adopted as the motto of the Order he established in honour of
+the beautiful Countess.
+
+The Garter is the most exclusive of Orders, and consists of the reigning
+Sovereign and twenty-five Companions, of whom the Prince of Wales is
+always one; and it takes precedence of all other titles, ranking next to
+royalty. It is a matter of great pride to all Northumbrians that perhaps
+the only instance of its having been bestowed on any except a peer of
+the realm or a foreign Sovereign, has occurred recently in the bestowal
+of the coveted decoration on Sir Edward Grey, a member of the ancient
+and important Northumbrian house of that name.
+
+Every King of England from Henry I. to Henry IV., seems to have been at
+Wark at some time during his reign, with the exception of Richard
+Coeur-de-Lion and Richard II. After the Union of the Crowns, Wark, like
+most other fortresses in the north that were not in use as the dwellings
+of their owners, was allowed to fall into decay. From Wark to Carham is
+a walk of only two miles along the road which follows the course of the
+river, and ultimately leads to Kelso. Carham has the remains of an
+ancient monastery; and here the Danes, after having plundered
+Lindisfarne, fought a battle in which the Saxons, led by several
+Bishops, were defeated with great slaughter. From Carham, having reached
+the last point of interest on the Tweed within the Northumbrian border,
+we must retrace our steps to Tillmouth, and follow the Tweed through
+pasture land and level haughs, until we come in sight of the steep
+cliffs and overhanging woods by Norham Castle.
+
+Naturally here, the words of the opening canto of "Marmion" are recalled
+to our memory--
+
+  "Day set on Norham's castled steep,
+  On Tweed's fair river, broad and deep,
+  And Cheviot's mountains lone
+  The battled towers, the donjon keep,
+  The loophole grates, where captives weep,
+  The flanking walls that round it sweep,
+      In yellow lustre shone."
+
+
+The "castled steep" is still crowned by a massive fragment of the old
+fortress that has braved, in its time, so many days of storm and stress.
+A good deal of the curtain wall, too, is standing, and the natural
+defences of the castle are admirable, for a deep ravine on the east and
+the river with its steep banks on the south made it practically
+unassailable at these points. It was built in 1121, as we have seen, by
+Bishop Flambard of Durham, as a defence for the northern portions of his
+diocese. The necessity for its presence there was soon made apparent,
+for it was attacked by the Scots again and again; and by the time thirty
+years had passed. Bishop Pudsey found it necessary to strengthen it
+greatly. When Edward I. was called to arbitrate between the claimants
+to the Scottish throne, he came to Norham and met the rival nobles, who,
+with their followers, were quartered at Ladykirk, on the opposite side
+of the Tweed. It was known as Upsettlington then, however; the name of
+Ladykirk was bestowed upon it long afterwards, when James IV. built the
+little chapel there, in gratitude for an escape from drowning in the
+Tweed. Edward held his interview with the Scottish nobles in Norham
+church, and announced that he had come there in the character of lord
+paramount, and as such was prepared to make choice of one among them.
+Edward did not by any means make up his mind quickly, and the various
+places in which the successive acts in the affair took place are widely
+scattered, for he met the nobles at Norham, some time afterwards
+delivered his decision at Berwick, and finally received the homage of
+John Balliol at Newcastle.
+
+Norham, like Wark, has also its romantic episode--or rather, an episode
+more conspicuously so in a series of them to which the name might with
+justice be applied. It occurred during the time that Sir Thomas Gray was
+holding the castle against a determined blockade of it by the Scots in
+1318. A certain fair lady of Lincolnshire sent one of her maidens to a
+knight whom she loved, Sir William Marmion (whose name probably
+suggested to Sir Walter Scott the name for the hero of his tale of
+Norham and Flodden). Sir William was at a banquet when the maiden came
+before him bearing a helmet with a golden crest, together with a letter
+from his lady bidding him go "into the daungerust place in England, and
+there to let the heaulme be seene and knowen as famose." Evidently it
+was well known where "the daungerust place in England" was to be found,
+for the story laconically says "So he went to Norham." He had not been
+there more than a day or two when a band of nearly two hundred Scots,
+bold and expert horsemen, led by Philip de Mowbray, made an attack on
+the castle, rousing Sir Thomas and his garrison from their dinner. They
+quickly mounted, and were about to sally forth when Sir Thomas caught
+sight of Marmion, in rich armour, and on his head the helmet with the
+golden crest; and halting his men, he cried out, "Sir knight, ye be come
+hither as a knight-errant to fame your helm; and since deeds of chivalry
+should rather be done on horseback than on foot, mount up on your horse,
+and spur him like a valiant knight into the midst of your enemies here
+at hand, and I forsake God if I rescue not thy body dead or alive, or I
+myself will die for it." At this Marmion mounted and spurred towards the
+Scots, by whom he was instantly set upon, wounded, and dragged from the
+saddle. But before they had time to give him the final blow they were
+scattered by the rapid charge of Sir Thomas and his men, who quickly
+rescued Marmion and set him on his horse again; and using their lances
+against the horses of the Scots, caused many of them to throw their
+riders, while the rest galloped away. The women of the castle caught
+fifty of the riderless horses, on which more of the garrison mounted and
+joined in the pursuit of the flying Scots, whom they chased nearly to
+Berwick.
+
+The tables were sometimes turned, however; and on one of these occasions
+the valiant Sir Thomas Gray and his son were enticed out of the castle
+into an ambush laid for them by their foes, and both captured.
+
+In 1513, just before the battle of Flodden, its walls were at length
+laid low by James IV., but not until the famous cannon "Mons
+Meg"--still, I believe, to be seen at Edinburgh Castle--had been brought
+against it. One of the cannon-balls fired from "Mons Meg" was found,
+and is still kept with others at the Castle. It is said that the Scots
+were told of the weakest spot in the fortifications by a treacherous
+inmate of the castle, who doubtless expected a rich reward for his
+information. Indeed, the ballad of "Flodden" says he came for it; but
+the valiant and chivalrous king would give him no reward but that which
+he said every traitor deserved--a rope.
+
+Afterwards the castle was restored once more, but its more stirring days
+were over; and, to-day, it stands a shattered but dignified ruin,
+overlooking the tranquil river and peaceful woodlands which once echoed
+so continuously to the clash of arms and the shouts of besiegers and
+besieged.
+
+The village of Norham was in Saxon days known as Ubbanford--the Upper
+Ford of two that were available in those days on the Tweed. There was a
+church here, too, in Saxon times, for Bishop Ecfrid built one about the
+year 830, and in it was buried the Saxon king Ceolwulf who became a
+monk: the present church has a good deal remaining of the one built on
+the same site by Bishop Flambard, about the same time as the castle.
+Earl Gospatric, whom William the Conqueror made Earl of Northumberland
+in return for a considerable sum of money--doubtless thinking that to
+give a Northumbrian the Earldom would reconcile the North to his
+rule--is buried in the church porch. Gospatric joined in the resistance
+of the North to William, but returned to his allegiance later. The
+Market Cross of Norham stands on the original base.
+
+From Norham to Tweedmouth the river sweeps forward between picturesque
+ever-widening banks, and often hidden by a leafy screen, past the
+village of Horncliffe, beneath the Union Suspension Bridge, one of the
+first erected of its kind, until at length its bright waters lave the
+historic walls of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and in the quiet harbour there
+meet the inrushing tide from the North Sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+DRUM AND TRUMPET.
+
+"The history of Northumberland is essentially a drum and trumpet
+history, from the time when the _buccina_ of the Batavian cohort first
+rang out over the moors of Procolitia down to the proclamation of James
+III. at Warkworth Cross"--_Cadwallader J Bates_.
+
+
+This sentence of the historian of Northumberland sums up the story of
+our northern county no less admirably than tersely, and it would be
+difficult to find one which should more clearly bring before us the
+whole atmosphere of north-country history and north-country doings for
+many centuries.
+
+Within the limits of this chapter it is impossible to go into the
+details of every "foughten field" within the county; the most that can
+be done is to indicate the many and treat in detail only the few. A
+goodly number have already been alluded to in connection with the place
+where each occurred.
+
+After the Roman campaigns, from those of Agricola to those of Theodosius
+the elder and Maximus, and the legion sent by Stilicho, the earliest
+battle story is that of the one in Glendale fought by King Arthur. Then
+the forming of the kingdom of Bernicia with the advent of Ida at
+Bamburgh was the beginning of a long-protracted struggle between the
+various little states, each fighting for its life, and surrounded by
+others equally determined to take every advantage that offered against
+it. The sons of Ida fought against the celebrated Urien, a Keltic
+chief, who almost succeeded in dispossessing them of their kingdom of
+Bernicia. Hussa, one of Ida's sons, ultimately vanquished Urien's son
+Owen, "chief of the glittering West"; and after Hussa's death Ethelric
+of Bernicia, as we have seen, overcame the neighbouring chieftain of
+Deira, thus forming the kingdom of Northumbria. His successor,
+Ethelfrith, in the year 603 gained a great victory over a large force of
+northern Britons under a leader named Aedan at a place called
+Daegsanstan, which is thought to be Dissington, near Newcastle. His
+further victories were gained outside the limits of our present survey.
+
+After the long and glorious reign of Edwin, his successor, Ethelfrith's
+sons came back to Bamburgh; the eldest, Eanfrid, was slain within a
+year, and his brother Oswald carried on the struggle against Penda of
+Mercia. We have seen how he fought against Penda and Cadwallon on the
+Heavenfield near Chollerford, and gained a victory which obtained for
+him many years of peace. Penda was finally slain by Oswald's successor
+Oswy in a great battle which is supposed to have taken place on the
+banks of the Tweed.
+
+Many years afterwards, Sitric, grandson of that Prince Guthred who was
+once a slave at Whittingham, married a sister of King Athelstan,
+grandson of Alfred the Great. When Sitric died, Athelstan came northward
+to claim Northumbria for himself. He captured Bamburgh--the first time
+that stronghold of the Bernician kings had ever been taken--and arranged
+for two earls to govern Northumbria for him. They attempted
+unsuccessfully to oppose a force of Scots under Anlaf the Red, who was
+joined by two earls of Bretland (Cumbria); and the whole force encamped
+near a place called Weondune, supposed to be Wandon near Chatton.
+Athelstan advanced against them and challenged them to a pitched battle
+on this ground. They agreed, and with much deliberation the course was
+staked out with hazel wands between a wood and a river (Chillingham
+woods and the Till). The Scots greatly outnumbered Athelstan's men, who
+set up their tents at the narrowest part of the plain, giving their king
+time to reach a little "burg" (Old Bewick) in the neighbourhood. A
+running fight followed, which was carried on the next day, and with the
+help of two brothers, Egil and Thorold, who were Norsemen, it ended in a
+complete victory for Athelstan. While in the north, King Athelstan gave
+the well-known rhyming charter to a certain Paulan of Roddam;
+
+  "I kyng Adelstan
+  giffs hier to Paulan
+  Oddam and Roddam
+  als gud and als fair
+  als evyr thai myne war,
+  and thar to wytness
+  Mald my Wiffe."
+
+Shortly after this, at the Battle of Brunanburh, Athelstan vanquished
+Anlaf Sitricsson and Constantine, king of the Scots. The site of this
+battle would seem to have been in Northumbria, as it was into the Humber
+that Anlaf and Constantine sailed with their large fleet; but the
+precise spot has never been determined.
+
+In the reign of Knut the Dane, the Scots obtained the whole of Lothian
+from the Saxon earl of Northumberland, and the vast possessions of St.
+Cuthbert beyond the Tweed seemed about to be lost to the church of
+Durham. Accordingly, the clergy called upon all the people of St.
+Cuthbert from the Tees to the Tweed--all those, that is, who dwelt on
+lands granted by various donors to the church of St. Cuthbert--to rise
+and march northward to fight for their lands. This great company set
+out, in the autumn of 1018, and reached Carham on the Tweed, where they
+were met by Malcolm king of the Scots. A comet had been seen in the sky
+for some weeks and the fears inspired by this dread visitant seem to
+have had more effect upon the Northumbrians than upon the Scots. From
+whatever cause it arose, when the two forces joined in battle a panic
+spread among the followers of St. Cuthbert. They were utterly routed,
+and most of the leading Northumbrians as well as eighteen priests were
+slain--thus curiously repeating the experience of the earlier battle of
+Carham.
+
+For the next three hundred years Northumberland was swept by successive
+waves of raid and reprisal, in the course of which occurred the two
+well-known events, the attack of William the Lion of Scotland on Alnwick
+Castle, and the more famous affair still, the struggle between Percy and
+Douglas known as the battle of Otterburn, which was fought in "Chevy
+Chase" (Cheviot Forest). More important poetically than politically, it
+stands out more vividly in the records of the time than many other
+conflicts of larger import. The personal element in the fight, the deeds
+of gallantry recorded, the sounding roll of the chief knights' names,
+and the high renown of the two leaders, throw a glamour around this
+particular contest which is kept alive by the ballads that chant the
+praises of Percy or Douglas according as the singer was Scot or Saxon.
+Sir Philip Sidney, that "verray parfit gentil knight" and discriminating
+_litterateur_, said "I never heard the old song of Percie and Douglas
+that I found not my hart mooved more than with a trumpet: and yet it is
+sung but by some blynd Crowder,[11] with no rougher voyce than rude
+stile! which beeing so evill apparelled in the dust and cobweb of that
+uncivill age, what wolde it work trimmed in the gorgeous eloquence of
+Pindare!" [Footnote 11: Crowder = fiddler.]
+
+In the endless warfare of the Borders the second of two short-lived
+periods of truce had just expired, and an organised raid on a large
+scale was arranged by the Scots. The main body was to ravage Cumberland;
+and a smaller, but picked force led by Earls Douglas, Moray, and March
+came southward by way of Northumberland. But Northumbrian towers and
+towns knew nothing of their passing; they marched rapidly and by stealth
+into Durham, having crossed the Tyne between Corbridge and Bywell, and
+began to harry and lay waste the greener pastures and richer villages of
+the southern county, the smoke of whose burning homesteads was the first
+intimation to the unlucky English of the fact that a Scottish host was
+in their midst.
+
+The Earl of Northumberland remained at Alnwick in the hope that he might
+be able to attack the Scots on their homeward journey; but he despatched
+his sons Henry Hotspur and Ralph in all haste to defend Newcastle. The
+Scots in due time appeared before the walls.
+
+  And he marched up to Newcastel
+  And rode it round about;
+  "O wha's the lord o' this castel?
+  Or wha's the lady o't?"
+
+  But up spake proud Lord Percy then,
+  And O but he spake hie!
+  "I am the lord o' this castel,
+  My wife's the lady gay."
+
+Douglas challenged Percy to meet him in single combat, and Percy
+promptly accepted. In the duel Percy was unhorsed, and Douglas captured
+his pennon and his gauntlet gloves, embroidered with the Percy lion in
+pearls. This trophy Douglas vowed he would carry off to Scotland with
+him, and set it in the topmost tower of his castle of Dalkeith, that it
+might be seen from afar. "By heaven! that you never shall," replied
+Percy; "you shall not carry it out of Northumberland." "Come and take
+it, then," was Douglas' answer; and Hotspur would have attempted its
+recovery there and then, but he was restrained by his knights. Douglas,
+however, said he would give Percy a chance to recover it, and agreed to
+await him at Otterburn.
+
+  "Yet I will stay at Otterbourne,
+  Where you shall welcome be;
+  And if ye come not at three dayis end,
+  A fause lord I'll call thee"
+
+Next day the Scots left Newcastle and marched northward. They took Sir
+Aymer de Athol's castle of Ponte-land, and the good knight Sir Aymer
+himself, and went on their way, harrying and burning as they went. At
+Otterburn they halted, and rested all night, making huts for themselves
+of boughs and branches. The spot they had chosen was a strong one, on
+the site of a former British camp; and not only was it surrounded by
+trees, but was near marshy ground as well. Next day they attempted to
+take Otterburn tower, but without success.
+
+Meanwhile word was brought to Hotspur that the Scots would spend the
+night at Otterburn; and he, without waiting for Walter de Skirlaw,
+Bishop of Durham, who was expected that evening with a strong force, at
+once set off with 600 spearmen, and a force on foot which is variously
+given as anything from 800 to 8,000. They covered the thirty-odd miles
+by the time evening fell: and as the Scots were at supper in their
+little huts, they were startled by a tumult amongst their grooms and
+camp-followers, and cries of "a Percy! a Percy!" and the Englishmen were
+among them. The Scottish leaders had placed their camp-followers and
+servants at the outermost; part of their encampment, facing the
+Newcastle road; and Hotspur's force, ignorant of this, mistook it for
+the main camp. While they were thus engaged, the Scottish knights were
+enabled to make a detour around the scene of the first attack, and take
+the English in the rear. With loud shouts of "Douglas! Douglas!" they
+fell upon them, and a fierce hand-to-hand struggle began. The moon rose
+clear and bright, and the quiet evening air was filled with the din of
+battle, the ring of steel on steel, the crash of axe on armour, the
+groans of the wounded, and the battle-cries of the combatants on each
+side. Sir Ralph Percy, pressing too rashly forward, was captured by a
+newly-made Scottish knight, Sir John Maxwell. The battle was turning in
+favour of Hotspur, when Douglas sent his silken banner to the front and
+with renewed shouts of "Douglas!" the Scots pressed forward and overbore
+their foes. According to Froissart, there was not a man there, knight,
+squire, or groom, who played the coward. "This bataylle was one of the
+sorest and best foughten without cowards or faynte hearts; for there was
+neither knight nor I squire but that did his devoyre and foughte hande
+to hande." Great deeds were done, and the fame of none amongst them is
+greater than that of the gallant Widdrington;
+
+  "For Witherington my heart is woe,
+  That ever he slaine sholde be!
+  For when his legs were hewn in two
+  He knelt and fought on his knee"
+
+Douglas rushed into the thickest of the fray, and Hotspur tried to find
+him, but in the dim light that was difficult, especially as Douglas
+had, in his haste, come to the fight without helmet or breastplate.
+Presently he was borne to the ground by three English spears; and as he
+lay guarded by his faithful chaplain, Sir John and Sir Walter Sinclair,
+with Sir James Lindsay, came upon him. "How fare you, cousin?" asked Sir
+John. "But poorly, I thank God," answered Douglas; "for few of my
+ancestors died in bed or chamber. I count myself dead, for my heart
+beats slow. Think now to avenge me. Raise my banner and shout 'Douglas!'
+and let neither my friends nor my foes know of my state, lest the one
+rejoice and the other be discomforted." His dying commands were obeyed;
+and while his battle-cry was raised anew, his dead body was laid by a
+"bracken bush," and the fact of his death concealed from friend and foe
+alike. The furious onslaught of the Scots now carried all before them;
+and Hotspur fell a captive to the sword of Sir Hugh Montgomery, a nephew
+of Douglas, after a fierce hand-to-hand encounter. The two chief English
+leaders being captured, the day, or rather the night, was with the
+Scots, in fulfilment of an old prophesy that "a dead Douglas should win
+a field."
+
+  "This deed was done at Otterbourne
+  At the breaking of the day;
+  Earl Douglas was buried at the braken bush,
+  And the Percy led captive away."
+
+
+When the fray was over, the two sides treated their captives with
+knightly courtesy, many being allowed to go to their homes until they
+recovered from their wounds, on giving their word of honour to send the
+amount of their ransom, or themselves return to their captors.
+
+The Bishop of Durham, immediately after having had some refreshment at
+Newcastle, had set out to join the Percies; but as he and his men
+neared Otterburn, they met so many fugitives who gave them anything but
+reassuring accounts of the fortunes of their friends, that half of his
+force melted away, and the Bishop had perforce to return to Newcastle;
+it was scarcely to be expected, indeed, that everyone should have that
+thirst for hard blows which distinguished the knights and their
+immediate followers. The Bishop, however, made one capture--Sir James
+Lindsay, who had ridden so far in pursuit of Sir Matthew Redman that he
+found himself amongst the force advancing under the leadership of the
+warlike prelate.
+
+When the Scots retired from their camp, they took the body of Douglas
+from the "bracken bush" where it lay, and carried it away for burial in
+Melrose Abbey; and Hotspur, as the price of his ransom, built a castle
+for Sir Hugh Montgomery.
+
+After this there was peace on the Borders for the next ten years or so,
+when the game began again as merrily as ever. When Sir Thomas Gray was
+absent from his castle of Wark-on-Tweed, attending Parliament, the Scots
+came down upon it and carried off his children and servants. Sir Robert
+Umfraville met and checked another company that were harrying
+Coquetdale. In the year 1400, Henry Bolingbroke himself led an army to
+Edinburgh; but a guerilla band of Scots, avoiding his line of march,
+stole behind him and ravaged Bamburghshire.
+
+Two years after this, a party of Scots under the next Douglas rode into
+Northumberland, coming nearly as far south as Newcastle. Hotspur set off
+from Bamburgh, of which castle he was Constable at the time, to
+intercept them. He awaited them on the banks of the Glen, near Wooler;
+and the archers of his force went out for forage meanwhile. When the
+Scots arrived, they found themselves in the presence of an enemy whom
+they had imagined to be behind them, and they immediately occupied
+Homildon Hill. The archers, returning, saw the Scottish force on the
+hill, and began the attack forthwith, letting fly their arrows upon the
+foe with deadly precision. Flight after flight fell upon the Scots, who
+were completely bewildered, and seemed incapable of action. A Scottish
+knight, Sir John Swinton, implored the leaders to charge, passionately
+exclaiming, "What madness has seized you, my brave countrymen, that you
+stand here like deer to be shot down? Follow me, those who will! We will
+either gain the victory, or die like men of courage."
+
+On hearing these brave words, Adam de Gordon, Swinton's deadly foe, felt
+his hatred turn to admiration, and kneeling before Swinton, begged that
+he might receive the honour of knighthood from so valiant a hand. The
+two gallant knights then charged the enemy, followed by a number of the
+Scots; but the showers of arrows forced them to retreat towards the
+river, and thither also moved the whole Scottish force, followed still
+by that grim and deadly hail from the English bows. Hotspur would now
+have charged, but the Earl of March, his former antagonist, now his
+friend, restrained his impetuous leader, and persuaded him to let the
+archers continue their effective work.
+
+The event proved his wisdom; the Scots were utterly routed by the
+archers alone. The unfortunate Archibald Douglas added another to his
+long list of reverses; he was taken prisoner, sorely wounded, as was
+also Sir Hugh Montgomery, and over four-score others of importance. It
+was in connection with these prisoners, whom Hotspur refused to deliver
+up to Bolingbroke, that the quarrel took place which eventually led
+Northumberland and his son Hotspur openly to throw off their allegiance
+to Henry Bolingbroke and join in the rebellion of Owen Glendower. Not
+only did Hotspur refuse to give up Douglas and the others to King Henry,
+but he wished Henry to ransom his brother-in-law Mortimer.
+
+  _K. Henry_. But sirrah, henceforth
+  Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer.
+  Send me your prisoners with the speediest means,
+  Or you shall hear in such a kind from me
+  As will displease you.--My lord Northumberland,
+  We licence your departure with your son.--
+  Send us your prisoners, or you'll hear of it.
+
+(_Exeunt_ K. Henry, Blunt, _and train_)
+
+  _Hotspur_. And if the devil come and roar for them
+  I will not send them:--I will after, straight,
+  And tell him so.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  _Worcester_. These same noble Scots
+  That are your prisoners--
+
+  _Hotspur_. I'll keep them all;
+  By heaven, he shall not have a Scot of them;
+  No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not;
+  I'll keep them, by this hand.
+
+  _Worcester_. You start away,
+  And lend no ear unto my purposes.
+  Those prisoners you shall keep.--
+
+  _Hotspur_. Nay, I will, that's flat:--
+  He said he would not ransom Mortimer;
+  Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer;
+  But I will find him when he lies asleep,
+  And in his ear I'll holla "Mortimer!"
+  Nay, I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak
+  Nothing but "Mortimer," and give it him
+  To keep his anger still in motion.
+
+  _The First Part of_ KING HENRY IV., _Act I., Scene 3_.
+
+
+The fight at Homildon Hill took place on a Monday in August, 1402, and
+the memory of it is kept alive by the name of the "Monday Clough" near
+Wooler, where the archers commenced the fight.
+
+More than a hundred years after this, the last, and in many respects the
+greatest, battle ever fought on Northumbrian soil took place at Flodden.
+King James IV. of Scotland had several grievances against England, which
+had rankled in his mind for some time; he had not yet received the full
+amount of the dowry which had been promised with his wife, Margaret
+Tudor, sister of Henry VIII., although they had been married for many
+years; a Scottish noble, Sir Robert Ker, had been killed in
+Northumberland, and the slayer could not be found to be brought to
+justice--he was outlawed, but that seemed to King James very
+insufficient; a Border raid on a large scale, led by Lord Hume, had met
+with disastrous defeat on Milfield Plain at the hands of Sir William
+Bulmer; and Andrew Barton, a notable sea-captain, whom James was looking
+forward to seeing as one of the best leaders of his new navy, had been
+killed in a sea-fight by Thomas Howard, Lord Admiral of England. Added
+to all this, France had appealed to him to invade England in order to
+force Henry VIII. to abandon his French war; the English monarch was
+just then conducting the siege of Terouenne, and the Queen of France
+sent a romantic appeal to James (together with a large sum of money)
+begging him to march "three feet on to English ground" for her sake.
+
+No time could have been more favourable in James' eyes for the
+enterprise; and in a very short space of time he had an army of 100,000
+men collected, and marched from Edinburgh to the Tweed, which he crossed
+near Coldstream. He laid siege to Norham, and captured it after a week's
+investment; and thereafter Wark, Ford, Etal, Duddo and Chillingham fell
+before him. He took up his quarters at Ford Castle, and on marching
+later to meet Surrey, left it almost in ruins.
+
+Surrey meantime had gathered a large force from the northern counties,
+much to James' surprise, for he had taken it for granted that nearly
+every English fighting man would be with Henry in Flanders. There were
+bowmen and billmen from Cheshire and Lancashire under the Stanley
+banner; and James Stanley, Bishop of Ely, brought the banner of St.
+Etheldreda, the Northumbrian queen who founded the monastery of Ely.
+Admiral Sir Thomas Howard brought a band of sailors to join his father
+at Alnwick. Dacre came with a strong contingent from the western
+Marches, men from Alston Moor, Gilsland, and Eskdale, and also some from
+Tynemouth and Bamburgh; and Sir Brian Tunstall with Sir William Bulmer
+led the men of the Bishopric under the banner of St. Cuthbert.
+
+From Alnwick Surrey sent a letter pledging himself to meet James by
+September 9th, and challenging him to battle, a challenge which was
+promptly accepted by the Scottish king. Marching from Alnwick towards
+the Scottish army, Surrey encamped on September 6th on Wooler Haughs.
+James had formed his camp on Flodden Hill, and all Surrey's devices
+could not induce him abandon this strong position. Many of his own
+nobles advised him not to risk a battle, but to withdraw while there was
+yet time; and some were ready to leave the camp and return home, which
+thousands of the more undisciplined in his army had done already, being
+more anxious to carry off their plunder safely than to stay and fight.
+But James was eager for the contest, and felt himself bound in honour to
+give battle to Surrey; he answered haughtily those who counselled
+retreat, and scornfully told Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, that he
+might go home if he were afraid. The old man sorrowfully left the field,
+but his two sons remained with their rash but gallant king, and were
+both slain.
+
+On the day before the battle took place, Surrey, that "auld crooked
+carle," as James called him, marched his men northward across the Till
+and encamped for the night near Barmoor Wood. To the Scots this looked
+as though they had gone off towards Berwick, to repeat James' own
+manoeuvre, and invade the country in the absence of its king; and they
+must have thought that there would be little chance of the battle for
+which James had punctiliously waited taking place on the morrow. But
+Surrey's purpose proved to be quite otherwise. On the following morning
+he sent the vanguard of his army, with the artillery, to make a detour
+of several miles round by Twizell bridge, where they re-crossed to the
+south bank of the Till; and coming south-eastward towards Flodden, they
+were joined by the rest of the army, which had plunged through the
+stream, swollen by continuous rains, at two points near Crookham. The
+two divisions met at Branxton, after having waded through a marsh which
+extended from Branxton nearly to the Till, and which the Scots had
+thought impassable.
+
+Seeing that the English were about to occupy Branxton Hill, which would
+entirely cut him off from communication with Scotland, James was forced
+to abandon his advantageous position; he gave orders for the camp-refuse
+to be fired, and under cover of the dense clouds of smoke marched down
+to forestall Surrey and occupy Branxton ridge. The two armies suddenly
+found themselves within a few spears' length of each other, and the
+battle was begun by the artillery on both sides.
+
+      Sudden, as he spoke,
+  From the sharp ridges of the hill,
+  All downward to the banks of Till
+      Was wreathed in sable smoke.
+  Volumed, and vast, and rolling far,
+  The cloud enveloped Scotland's war
+      As down the hill they broke;
+  Nor martial shout, nor minstrel tone
+  Announced their march; their tread alone,
+  At times one warning trumpet blown,
+      At times a stifled hum.
+  Told England, from his mountain throne
+      King James did rushing come.
+  Scarce could they hear or see their foes
+  Until at weapon-point they close.
+
+Many of the raw levies on the English side fled at the first sound of
+the Scottish cannon; but the master of the ordnance, Lord Sinclair, was
+killed, and his guns silenced. Then the battle joined, and the first
+result was that the English right wing under Sir Edmund Howard was
+scattered and broken before the impetuous charge of the Gordons and
+Highlanders under the Earl of Huntley and Lord Home. Sir Edmund narrowly
+escaped with his life; but Lord Dacre bringing up his reserve of
+horsemen at that moment checked the further advance of the Scots. The
+two central divisions of the armies engaged each other fiercely, the
+Earl of Surrey, with his son Sir Thomas Howard commanding the English
+centre, and King James, with the Earls of Crawford and Montrose that of
+the Scots. Sir Thomas, after having been so hard pressed as to send the
+_Agnus Dei_ he wore to his father as a signal for help, afterwards with
+Sir Marmaduke Constable defeated the Earl of Crawford, whose division
+was opposed to him. Dacre and Sir Thomas now charged Lord Home and
+drove him some little way back, but could not dislodge his men entirely
+from their position. The Earl of Bothwell, who commanded the Scottish
+reserves, now came up to the help of the king, and the day seemed about
+to be decided in favour of the Scots, when Lord Stanley, on the English
+left, exactly reversed the fortunes of the right wing, and scattered and
+routed the Highlanders led by the Earls of Lennox and Argyle. Then with
+his Lancashire lads he attacked the rear of the Scottish position, as
+did also Dacre and Sir Thomas Howard.
+
+  "They saw Lord Marmion's falcon fly,
+  And stainless Tunstall's banner white
+  And Edmund Howard's lion bright
+  All bear them bravely in the fight,
+    Although against them come
+  Of gallant Gordons many a one,
+  And many a stubborn Highlandman,
+  And many a rugged Border clan
+    With Huntly and with Home.
+  Far on the left, unseen the while,
+  Stanley broke Lennox and Argyle."
+
+Nothing now remained for the Scottish centre, hemmed in on all sides,
+but to make a stubborn last stand; and gallantly did they do it. The
+flower of Scotland's chivalry surrounded their brave monarch, and in the
+falling dusk fought desperately to guard their king.
+
+  "No thought was there of dastard flight;
+  Linked in that serried phalanx tight,
+  Groom fought like noble, squire like knight,
+    As fearlessly and well.
+  The stubborn spearmen still made good
+  Their dark impenetrable wood,
+  Each stepping where his comrade stood
+    The instant that he fell."
+
+As night fell, the fierce struggle continued until the darkness made it
+impossible to see friend or foe, but the fate of Scotland's bravest was
+sealed. The king lay dead, covered with wounds, and around him a heap of
+slain; those who were able made their way in haste from the field, while
+the English host encamped where it stood. The more lawless in each army
+plundered both sides impartially, and when the king's body was found
+next day, it too was stripped like many others around it.
+
+  "Then did their loss his foemen know,
+  Their king, their lords, their mightiest low,
+  They melted from the field as snow
+    Dissolves in silent dew.
+  Tweed's echoes heard the ceaseless plash
+    While many a broken band,
+  Disordered, through its currents dash
+    To gain the Scottish land;
+  To town and tower, to down and dale,
+  To tell red Flodden's dismal tale,
+  And raise the universal wail."
+
+The tragic effects of that terrible day were long felt in Scotland.
+Every family of note in the land lost one or more of its members on the
+fatal field, besides the thousands of humbler beings who fell at the
+same time. Scotland did not recover from the crushing blow for more than
+a hundred years; and for many a day the people could not believe that
+their gallant king was really slain, but continued to hope that he had
+escaped in the darkness, and would one day return.
+
+There has recently been erected on Flodden Field a simple cross of stone
+as a memorial of that tragic day. It was unveiled on September 27th,
+1910, by Sir George Douglas, Bart. The inscription on the stone is "To
+the Brave of both Nations."
+
+
+
+
+  THE FLOWERS OF THE FOREST.
+
+
+  A LAMENT FOR FLODDEN.
+
+  I've heard the liltin' at our ewe-milking,
+  Lasses a' liltin' before dawn o' day;
+  But now they are moaning on ilka green loaning--
+  The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away.
+
+  At bughts,[12] in the mornin', nae blythe lads are scornin',
+  Lasses are lonely and dowie and wae;
+  Nae daffin', nae jabbin', but sighin' and sabbin',
+  Ilk ane lifts her leglin [13] and hies her away.
+
+  In harst, at the shearing, nae youths now are jeering,
+  Bandsters are lyart,[14] and runkled, and gray;
+  At fair or at preaching, nae wooing, nae fleeching [15]--
+  The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away.
+
+  At e'en, in the gloaming, nae younkers are roaming
+  'Bout stacks, with the lasses at "bogle" to play;
+  But ilk ane sits drearie, lamenting her dearie--
+  The Flowers of the Forest are weded away.
+
+  Dool and wae for the order sent our lads to the Border!
+  The English for ance by guile wan the day;
+  The Flowers of the Forest, that fought aye the foremost,
+  The prime of our land, are cauld in the clay.
+
+  We'll hear nae mair liltin' at our ewe-milkin';
+  Women and bairns are heartless and wae;
+  Sighing and moaning on ilka green loaning--
+  The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away.
+
+  [Footnote 12: Bughts = sheep-pens.]
+  [Footnote 13: Leglin = milk-pail.]
+  [Footnote 14 Lyart = grizzled.]
+  [Footnote 15: Fleeching = coaxing.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+TALES AND LEGENDS.
+
+
+Northumberland, as might be guessed from its wild history, is rich in
+tales of daring and stories of gallant deeds; there are true tales, as
+well as legendary ones, which latter, after all, may be true in
+substance though not in detail, in spirit and possibility though not in
+a certain sequence of facts. Now-a-days we look upon dragons as fabulous
+animals, and stories of the destruction they wrought, their fierceness
+and their might are dismissed with a smile, and mentally relegated to a
+place amongst the fairy tales that delighted our childhood's days, when
+the idea of belief or disbelief simply did not enter the question. Yet
+what are the dragon stories but faint memories of those gigantic and
+fearsome beasts which roamed the earth in the "dim, red dawn of
+man"--their names, as we read the labels on their skeletons in our
+museums, being now the most fearsome things about them! No one can deny
+that the ichthyosaurus, plesiosaurus, and all the rest of their tribe
+did exist; and were they to be encountered in these days would spread
+the same terror around, and find man almost as helpless before them as
+did any fierce dragon of the fairy tales. That part of the legends,
+therefore, has its foundation in fact; though from the nature of the
+case, we certainly do not possess an authenticated account of any
+particular contest between primitive man and one of these gigantic
+creatures. That oldest Northumbrian poem, however, the "Beowulf,"
+chants the praises of its hero's prowess in encounters of the kind; and
+the north-country still has its legends of the Sockburn Worm, the
+Lambton Worm, and the "Laidly" Worm of Spindleston Heugh, the two first
+having their _venue_ in Durham, and the last in Northumberland. The
+Spindlestone, a high crag not far from Bamburgh, and Bamburgh Castle
+itself, form the scene of this well-known legend. The fair Princess
+Margaret, daughter of the King of Bamburgh was turned into a "laidly
+worm" (loathly or loathsome serpent) by her wicked stepmother, who was
+jealous of the lovely maid. The whole district was in terror of this
+dreadful monster, which desolated the country-side in its search for
+food.
+
+  "For seven miles east and seven miles west
+  And seven miles north and south,
+  No blade of grass or corn would grow,
+  So deadly was her mouth.
+
+  The milk of seven streakit cows
+  It was her cost to kepe,
+  They brought her dayly, whyche she drank
+  Before she wente to slepe."
+
+This offering proved successful in pacifying the creature, and it
+remained in the cave at Spindleston, coming out daily to drink its fill
+from the trough prepared for it. But the fear of it in no wise
+diminished, and
+
+  "Word went east, and word went west,
+  And word is gone over the sea,
+  That a laidly worm in Spindleston Heugh
+  Would ruin the North Countree."
+
+The news in due course comes to the ears of Princess Margaret's only
+brother, the Childe Wynde, who is away seeking fame and fortune abroad.
+In fear for his lovely sister, he calls together his "merry men all,"
+and they set to work to build a ship
+
+  "With masts of the rowan-tree,"
+
+a sure defence against the spells of witchcraft; and hoisting their
+silken sails they hasten homeward.
+
+  "... ... The wind with speed
+  Blew them along the deep.
+  The sea was calm, the weather clear,
+  When they approached nigher;
+  King Ida's castle well they knew,
+  And the banks of Bamburghshire."
+
+
+The wicked queen saw the little bark coming near, and knew that her
+guilt was about to meet its reward. In haste she tried to wreck the
+vessel, but the rowan-tree masts made her spells of no avail. Then she
+bade her servants go to the beach and oppose the landing of the Childe
+and his crew; but the servants were beaten back, and the young knight
+and his men landed in Budle Bay. The worm came fiercely to the attack,
+as the Childe Wynde advanced against it; but on meeting him, and feeling
+the touch of his "berry-brown sword," it besought him to do it no harm.
+
+  "'O quit thy sword, unbend thy brow,
+  And give me kisses three;
+  For though I be a laidly worm
+  No harm I'll do to thee.
+
+  O quit thy sword, unbend thy brow,
+  And give me kisses three;
+  If I'm not won ere the sun goes down
+  Won shall I never be.'
+
+  He quitted his sword, and smoothed his brow,
+  And gave her kisses three;
+  She crept intill the hole a worm,
+  And came out a fayre ladie."
+
+The knight clasped his lovely sister in his arms, and, casting around
+her his crimson cloak, led her back to her home, where the trembling
+queen awaited them. Her doom was spoken by the Childe Wynde--
+
+  "Woe be to thee, thou wicked witch;
+  An ill death mayst thou dee!
+  As thou hast likened my sister dear,
+  So likened shalt thou be"
+
+and he turned her into the likeness of an ugly toad, in which hateful
+shape she remained to her dying day, wandering around the castle and the
+green fields, an object of hatred to all who saw her. The
+"Spindlestone," a tall crag on which the young knight hung his bridle,
+when he went further on to seek the worm in the "heugh," is still to be
+seen, but the huge trough from which the worm was said to drink has been
+destroyed.
+
+There are two legends somewhat similar to each other which are told of a
+company held in the spell of a magic sleep, to be awakened by certain
+devices, in which the blowing of a horn and the drawing of a sword are
+prominent. One is the story of "Sir Guy the Seeker," and is told of
+Dunstanborough Castle. Sir Guy sought refuge in the Castle from a storm;
+and while within the walls a spectre form with flaming hair addressed
+him,
+
+  "Sir knight, Sir knight, if your heart be right,
+  And your nerves be firm and true,"
+
+(fancy "nerves" in a ballad!)--
+
+  "Sir knight, Sir knight, a beauty bright
+  In durance waits for you."
+
+The ballad, written by M.G. Lewis, now describes in a painfully
+commonplace manner the knight's further adventures. He and his guide
+wandered round and round and high and low in the maze of chambers within
+the castle, until at last a door of brass, whose bolt was a venomous
+snake, gave them entrance to a gloomy hall, draped in black, which the
+"hundred lights" failed to brighten. In the hall a hundred knights of
+"marble white" lay sleeping by their steeds of "marble black as the
+raven's back." At the end of the hall, guarded by two huge skeleton
+forms, the imprisoned lady was seen in tears within a crystal tomb. One
+skeleton held in his bony fingers a horn, the other a "falchion bright,"
+and the knight was told to choose between them, and the fate of himself
+and the lady would depend upon his choice. Sir Guy, after long
+hesitation, blew a shrill blast upon the horn; at the sound the hundred
+steeds stamped their hoofs, the hundred knights sprang up, and the
+unlucky knight fell down senseless, with his ghastly guide's words
+ringing in his ears--
+
+  "Shame on the coward who sounded a horn
+  When he might have unsheathed a sword!"
+
+In the morning, the unfortunate Sir Guy awoke to find himself lying
+amongst the ruins, and forthwith began his ceaseless and unavailing
+search for the lady he had failed to rescue.
+
+The legend similar to this in many respects is that of King Arthur and
+his court at Sewingshields, to which allusion has already been made in
+the chapter on the Roman Wall. I cannot do better than give this in the
+words of Mr. Hodgson, who tells the story in his History of
+Northumberland. "Immemorial tradition has asserted that King Arthur,
+his queen Guenever, his court of lords and ladies, and his hounds were
+enchanted in some cave of the crags, or in a hall below the castle of
+Sewingshields, and would continue entranced there until someone should
+first blow a bugle-horn that lay on a table near the entrance of the
+hall, and then with the 'sword of the stone' (was this Excalibur?) cut a
+garter, also placed there beside it. But none had ever heard where the
+entrance to this enchanted hall was, till the farmer at Sewingshields,
+about fifty years since, was sitting knitting on the ruins of the
+castle, and his clew fell, and ran downwards through a rush of briars
+and nettles, as he supposed, into a subterraneous passage. Full in the
+faith that the entrance to King Arthur's hall had now been discovered,
+he cleared the briary portal of its weeds and rubbish, and entering a
+vaulted passage, followed in his darkling way the thread of his clew.
+The floor was infested with toads and lizards; and the dark wings of
+bats, disturbed by his unhallowed intrusion, flitted fearfully around
+him. At length his sinking courage was strengthened by a dim, distant
+light, which as he advanced grew gradually brighter, till all at once he
+entered a vast and vaulted hall, in the centre of which a fire without
+fuel, from a broad crevice in the floor blazed with a high and lambent
+flame, that showed all the carved walls and fretted roof, and the
+monarch and his queen and court reposing around, in a theatre of thrones
+and costly couches. On the floor beyond the fire lay the faithful and
+deep-toned pack of thirty couple of hounds; and on a table before it the
+spell-dissolving horn, sword, and garter. The shepherd reverently, but
+firmly, grasped the sword, and as he drew it leisurely from its rusty
+scabbard, the eyes of the monarch and his courtiers began to open, and
+they rose till they sat upright. He cut the garter; and as the sword was
+being slowly sheathed the spell assumed its ancient power, and they all
+gradually sank to rest; but not before the monarch had lifted up his
+eyes and hands, and exclaimed--
+
+  "O woe betide that evil day
+  On which this witless wight was born,
+  Who drew the sword, the garter cut.
+  But never blew the bugle horn!"
+
+Terror brought on loss of memory, and the shepherd was unable to give
+any correct account of his adventure, or to find again the entrance to
+the enchanted hall.
+
+Another legend is connected with Tynemouth. Just above the short sands
+was a cave known as Jingling Geordie's Hole; the "Geordie" is evidently
+a late interpolation, for earlier mention of the cave gives it as the
+Jingling Man's Hole. No one knows how it came by its name; tradition
+says that it was the entrance to a subterranean passage leading from the
+Priory beneath the Tyne to Jarrow. In this cave it was said that a
+treasure of a fabulous amount was concealed, and the tale of this hoard
+fired a boy named Walter to seek it out, when he heard the tale from his
+mother. On his attaining to knighthood, he resolved to make the finding
+of the treasure his particular "quest," and arming himself, he
+adventured forth on the Eve of St. John. Making his way fearlessly down
+into the cave, undaunted by spectre or dragon, as they attempted to
+dispute his passage, he arrived at a gloomy gateway, where hung a bugle,
+fastened by a golden cord. Boldly he placed the bugle to his lips, and
+blew three loud blasts. To his amazement, at the sound the doors rolled
+back, displaying a vast and brightly-lit hall, whose roof was supported
+on pillars of jasper and crystal; the glow from lamps of gold shone
+softly down on gold and gems, which were heaped upon the floor of this
+magic chamber, and the treasure became the rich reward of the dauntless
+youth.
+
+  "Gold heaped upon gold, and emeralds green,
+  And diamonds and rubies, and sapphires untold,
+  Rewarded the courage of Walter the Bold."
+
+The fortunate youth became a very great personage, indeed, as by means
+of his great riches he was "lord of a hundred castles" and wide domains.
+
+Of a very different character is the story of the Hermit of Warkworth.
+It is unfortunate that this, the most tragic and moving of all
+Northumbrian tales, should be most widely known by means of the prosy
+imitation ballad by Dr. Percy, whose ability as a poet did by no means
+equal his zeal as a collector of ballads. The hero of the sorrowful tale
+is said to have been a Bertram of Bothal, who loved fair Isabel,
+daughter of the lord of Widdrington. Bertram was a knight in Percy's
+train, and at a great feast made by the lord of Alnwick the fair maiden
+and her father were amongst the guests. As the minstrels chanted the
+praises of their lord, and sang of the valiant deeds by which his noble
+house had won renown, the heart of Isabel thrilled at the thought of her
+true knight rivalling those deeds of fame. Summoning one of her
+attendant maidens, she sent her to Bertram, bearing a helmet of steel
+with crest of gold. With the helmet the maiden gave her mistress'
+message, that she would yield to her knight's pleadings and become his
+bride, as soon as he had proved himself a valiant and worthy wearer of
+the golden-crested helm. Reverently Bertram accepted the commands of
+his lady, and vowed to prove his devotion wherever hard blows were to be
+given and danger to be found. The lord of Alnwick straightway arranged
+for an expedition on to Scottish land, in requital of old scores, and
+assembled together a goodly company to ride against the Scots. Earl
+Douglas and his men opposed them, and blows were dealt thick and fast on
+both sides. Bertram was sorely wounded, after showing wondrous prowess
+in the fight; but being rescued by Percy, was borne to the castle of
+Wark upon the Tweed, to recover from his wounds in safety. Isabel's aged
+father had seen the young knight's valour, and promised that the maiden
+herself should tend his hurts and care for him until he recovered. Day
+after day passed, however, and still she came not. At last the knight,
+scarcely able to take the saddle, rode back to Widdrington, tended by
+his gallant young brother, to satisfy himself of what had become of his
+lady. They reached Widdrington tower to find it all in darkness; and
+after repeated knockings the aged nurse came to the gateway and demanded
+the name of those who so insistently clamoured at the door. Bertram
+enquired for the lady Isabel; and then, indeed, all was dismay. The
+nurse, trembling with fear, told the two youths that her mistress had
+set out immediately on hearing of her lover's plight, reproaching
+herself for having led him to adventure his life so rashly, and it was
+now six days since she had gone. Weary and weak, Bertram rested the
+night at the castle, and then set out on his search for his lost lady.
+That they might the sooner search the country round, he and his brother,
+who loved him dearly, took different directions, one going eastward, and
+the other north. They put on various disguises as they went, Bertram
+appearing now in the guise of a holy Palmer, now as a wandering
+minstrel As he was sitting, despondent and well-nigh despairing,
+beneath a hawthorn tree, an aged monk came by, and on seeing the
+supposed minstrel's face of sorrow, said to him,
+
+  "All minstrels yet that e'er I saw
+  Are full of game and glee,
+  But thou art sad and woe-begone;
+  I marvel whence it be."
+
+Bertram replied that he served an aged lord whose only child had been
+stolen away, and that he would know no happiness until he had found her.
+The pilgrim comforted him and bade him hope, telling him that
+
+  "Behind yon hills so steep and high,
+  Down in a lonely glen,
+  There stands a castle fair and strong,
+  Far from the abode of men."
+
+Saying that he had heard a lady's voice lamenting in this lonely tower,
+he passed on, giving Bertram the hope that now at last his quest was
+ended. He made his way to that strong castle, and with his music
+prevailed upon the porter to let him stay near at hand in a cavern; for
+the porter refused to admit him to the castle in the absence of his
+lord, though at the same time giving him food and directing him to the
+cave. He piped all day and watched all night, and was rewarded by
+hearing his lady's voice lamenting within the walls of her prison. On
+the second night he caught a glimpse of her beauteous form, fair as the
+moonbeams that shone around the tower. On the third night, worn with
+watching, he slept, and only awakened as dawn drew nigh. Grasping his
+weapon, he stole near to the castle walls, when to his amazement, he saw
+his lady descend from her window by a ladder of rope, held for her by a
+youth in Highland dress. Stunned at the sight, he could not move to
+follow them, till they had left behind them the castle where the lady
+had been held captive, and were about to disappear over the hill.
+Silently and swiftly then he drew near, and crying furiously, "Vile
+traitor! yield that lady up!" fell upon the youth who accompanied her,
+who in his turn fought as furiously as he. In a few moments Bertram's
+antagonist lay stretched on the ground; and as he gave him the fatal
+thrust he cried, "Die, traitor, die!" The lady recognised his voice, and
+rushing forward, shrieked, "Stay! stay! it is thy brother." But the
+sword of Bertram, already descending with the force of rage and fury in
+the blow, could not be stayed until too late. The fair maid's breast was
+pierced by the sword of the knight who loved her, and she sank down by
+the side of the youth who had delivered her. It was indeed Bertram's
+brother, who had succeeded in his search; and the dying maiden found
+time to tell of his devotion, in rescuing her from this castle of the
+son of a Scottish lord who fain would have made her his bride, before
+she, too, lay lifeless by the side of her brave rescuer, leaving her
+lover too despairing and desolate to seek safety in flight, so that the
+band of searchers from the castle, seeking their prisoner on the hills,
+and dreading their lord's wrath on his return, bore him back with them
+to the dungeon. Their lord, however, had meantime been taken captive by
+Percy (Hotspur), who, as soon as he heard of Bertram's capture, quickly
+exchanged the Scottish chief for his friend. Bertram's sorrow lasted for
+the rest of his days; he gave away his lands and possessions to the
+poor, and retiring to a lovely spot on the banks of the Coquet, where
+rocky cliffs overhung the river, he carved out in the living stone a
+little cell, dormitory, and chapel, and dwelt there, passing his days in
+mourning, meditation, and prayer. In the chapel, with its gracefully
+arched roof, he fashioned on an altar-tomb the image of a lady, and at
+her feet the figure of a hermit, in the attitude of grief, one hand
+supporting his head and the other pressed against his breast, leaning
+over and gazing at the lady for ever. The poignant sentence "My tears
+have been my meat day and night," is carved over the entrance to the
+little chapel. Here, in this beautiful spot, almost under the shadow of
+the castle walls belonging to his noble friend, the sorrowing knight,
+now a holy hermit, spent the remainder of his life in the little
+dwelling he had wrought in the living rock. It remains to-day more
+beautiful, if possible, than ever, overhung by a canopy of waving
+greenery, and draped with ferns and mosses, their graceful fronds laved
+by the rippling Coquet whose gentle murmurings fill the still air with
+music.
+
+The next tale takes us to the neighbourhood of Belford, and out upon the
+old post road from London to Edinburgh. In the unsettled times of James
+the Second's reign, one Sir John Cochrane of Ochiltree was condemned to
+death for his part in the rising which was led by the Duke of Argyle.
+Powerful friends, heavily bribed by Sir John's father, the Earl of
+Dundonald, were working in Sir John's favour, and they had strong hopes
+of obtaining a pardon. But meanwhile, Sir John lay in the Tolbooth at
+Edinburgh, and the warrant for his execution was already on its way
+northward, in the post-bag carried forward by horseman after horseman
+throughout the length of the way. Could the arrival of the warrant only
+be delayed by some means, his life might be saved. In this strait, his
+daughter Grizzel, a girl of eighteen, conceived the desperate idea of
+preventing the warrant's reaching its destination. Saying nothing to
+anyone of her intentions, she stole away from home, and rode swiftly to
+the Border. Following the road for about four miles on the English
+side, she arrived at the house of her old nurse; and here she changed
+her clothes, persuading the old dame to lend her a suit belonging to her
+foster-brother. Making her way southward, she went to the inn at Belford
+where the riders carrying the mail usually put up for the night. Here,
+the same night, came the postman, and the seeming youth watched
+nervously, but determinedly, for an opportunity of finding out whether
+the fateful paper was in his bag or not. No slightest chance presented
+itself, however, and an attempt to obtain the mail-bag during the night
+failed by reason of the fact that the man slept upon it. One thing she
+did accomplish, which gave her hope that the encounter for which she was
+nerving herself might end successfully for her; she managed, unseen, to
+draw the charges from his pistols. Then the courageous girl rode off
+through the dark night to select a favourable spot in which to await his
+coming. For two or three lonely hours she waited, the thought that she
+was fighting for her father's life giving her courage. In the dim light
+of the early dawn she heard the sound of his horse's hoofs from where
+she stood in the shadow of a clump of trees; and steeling herself for
+the part she was to play, and in ignorance of whether he might have
+found out that the charges had been withdrawn from his pistols and might
+have re-loaded them, she waited until he was almost abreast of her, and
+fired at his horse, bringing it down. Before he could extricate himself
+she was upon him with drawn sword; but promising to spare his life if he
+would let her have the mail-bag, she seized it and darted away. He
+attempted to follow to recover his charge, but she reached her horse,
+and rode off like the wind. When she reached a place of safety and
+examined the contents of the bag, what was her joy to find that the
+warrant was there. It was speedily destroyed; and during the time that
+elapsed before the news of the loss could be sent to London and another
+one made out, the friends of Sir John succeeded in obtaining his pardon.
+"Cochrane's bonny Grizzy" lived to a good old age; and "Grizzy's clump"
+on the north road near the little village of Buckton keeps green the
+memory of her daring exploit.
+
+"Bonny Grizzy" was a Scottish maid, though her gallant if lawless deed
+was performed on Northumbrian soil; but there is one Northumbrian maiden
+whose fame will live as long as the sea-waves beat on the wild
+north-east coast, and as long as men's hearts thrill to a tale of
+courage and high resolve. Grace Darling's name still awakens in every
+bosom a response to all that is compassionate, courageous, and
+unselfish; and the thoughts of all north-country folk bold that
+admiration for the gentle girl which has been voiced as no other could
+voice it, in the magical words of Swinburne--
+
+  "Take, O star of all our seas, from not an alien hand,
+  Homage paid of song bowed down before thy glory's face,
+  Thou the living light of all our lovely stormy strand,
+  Thou the brave north-country's very glory of glories, Grace."
+
+The story of her gallantry has been many times re-told, but never grows
+wearisome. The memory of that stormy voyage of the _Forfarshire_, which
+ended in disaster on the Harcar rocks in the Farne group, remains in
+men's minds as the dark and tragic setting which throws into bright
+relief the gallant action of the father and daughter who dared almost
+certain death to rescue their fellow-creatures in peril. It was in
+September, 1838, that the ill-fated vessel left Hull for Dundee; but a
+leak in the boilers caused the fires to be nearly extinguished in the
+storm the vessel encountered. It reached St. Abb's Head by the aid of
+the sails, but then drifted southward, driven by the storm, and struck
+in the early morning, in a dense fog, on the Harcar rocks. Nine of the
+people on board managed to escape in a small boat, which was driven in a
+miraculous manner through the only safe outlet between the rocks. They
+were picked up by a passing boat and taken to Shields. Meanwhile a heavy
+sea had crashed down upon the _Forfarshire_, and broken it in half, one
+portion, with the greater number of crew and passengers, being swept
+away immediately. The remaining portion, the fore part of the vessel,
+was firmly fixed upon the rock. Here the shivering survivors clung all
+that stormy day, the waves dashing over them continually. The captain
+and his wife were washed overboard, clasped in each others' arms; and
+two little children, a boy of eight and a girl of eleven years of age,
+died from exposure and the relentless buffeting of the waves, their
+distracted mother clasping them by the hand long after life was extinct.
+To a terrible day succeeded a yet more terrible night.
+
+  "Scarce the cliffs of the islets, scarce the walls of Joyous Gard
+  Flash to sight between the deadlier lightnings of the sea;
+  Storm is lord and master of a midnight evil-starred,
+  Nor may sight nor fear discern what evil stars may be."
+
+Until the morning they endured; and in the stormy dawn the keeper of the
+Longstone lighthouse, William Darling, and his daughter Grace saw them
+huddled in a shivering heap upon the wave-swept fragments of the wreck.
+The girl begged her father to try to save them, and to allow her to help
+in the task, and after some natural hesitation he consented. The
+brave-hearted mother helped them to launch the boat, and they set forth.
+
+[Illustration: The Wreck of the "Forfarshire"]
+
+  "Sire and daughter, hand on oar and face against the night.
+  Maid and man whose names are beacons ever to the north.
+  ...... all the madness of the stormy surf
+  Hounds and roars them back, but roars and hounds them back in   vain.
+
+  Not our mother, not Northumberland, brought ever forth.
+  Though no southern shore may match the sons that kiss her mouth,
+  Children worthier all the birthright given of the ardent north,
+  Where the fire of hearts outburns the suns that fire the south."
+
+  They reached the rock, where nine persons were still
+  clinging to the wreck, and
+
+  "Life by life the man redeems them, head by storm-worn head,
+  While the girl's hand stays the boat whereof the waves are fain."
+
+With five of the exhausted survivors the boat returned to the Longstone;
+and two of the men went back with William Darling for the other four.
+All were safely housed in the lighthouse and tended by the noble family
+of the Darlings; but the storm raged for several days longer, and made
+it impossible for them to be put ashore. When at length they returned to
+their homes, and the story of the rescue was made known, the whole
+country was moved by it; and presents of all kinds, money, and offers of
+marriage poured in upon Grace, who remained quite unmoved by it all, and
+was still the gentle unassuming girl that she had always been. She
+refused to leave her home, though she was offered twenty pounds a night
+at the Adelphi if she would consent merely to sit in a boat for London
+audiences to gaze upon her. Sad to say, she died of consumption about
+two years afterwards, after having tried in vain to arrest the course of
+her sickness by change of air at Wooler and Alnwick; and she sleeps in
+Bamburgh churchyard, within sound of the sea by which she had spent her
+short life.
+
+  "East and west and south acclaim her queen of England's maids.
+  Star more sweet than all their stars, and flower than all their flowers."
+
+The actual boat in which the gallant deed was performed was long
+preserved at Newton Hall, Stocksfield; but the owners have lately
+presented it to the Marine Laboratory at Cullercoats.
+
+[Illustration:]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+BALLADS AND POEMS.
+
+
+The ballads of Northumberland, as all true ballads should do, partake of
+the characteristics of the district which is their home. As we should
+expect, they treat chiefly of warlike themes, of the chieftain's doughty
+deeds, the moss-trooper's daring and skill, of the knight's courtesies
+and gallant feats of arms, and the feuds of rival clans; in fact, they
+portray for us vividly the time of which they treat, and in a few
+graphic touches bring before us the very spirit of the period. In direct
+and simple phrases the narrative proceeds, giving with rare power just
+the necessary expression to the tale.
+
+These ballads fall naturally into three main divisions. The historical
+ballad is at its best in the famous "Chevy-Chase," which has been the
+delight of gentle and simple for centuries; and the oft-quoted
+declaration of Sir Philip Sidney concerning it still finds an echo in
+our own day.
+
+Of the two best known versions of the ballad, the one here given is the
+more poetical by far; the other, however, contains the account of the
+courage of Hugh Widdrington which has made the gallant squire immortal.
+
+The latter version is as evidently English as the former is Scottish; or
+rather, each has grown to its present form as the reciters exercised
+their art to please an English or a Scottish audience. In the one
+version it is Douglas who takes the offensive, and challenges Percy,
+waiting for him at Otterbourne; in the other we are told that
+
+  "The stout Erle of Northumberland
+  A vow to God did make,
+  His pleasure in the Scottish woods
+  Three summer days to take."
+
+On the death of Douglas--
+
+  "Erle Percy took
+  The dead man by the hand,
+  And said, 'Erle Douglas, for thy life
+  Would I had lost my land!'"
+
+When the battle is over,
+
+  "Next day did many widdowes come
+  Their husbands to bewayle;
+  Their bodyes bathed in purple blood
+  They bore with them away;
+  They kist them dead a thousand times
+  Ere they were cladd in clay."
+
+It was neither of these versions, however, that so moved the heart of
+gallant Sidney, but a much older one, beginning
+
+  "The Perse owt off Northomberlande
+    And a vow to God made he,
+  That he wold hunt in the mountayns
+    Off Chyviat within days iii."
+
+Other historical ballads are "The Rising of the North," "The Raid of the
+Reidswire," "Flodden Field," "Homildon Hill" and "Hedgeley Moor."
+
+The next division may be termed semi-historical; that is, they treat of
+events which actually happened, but which have chiefly a local interest;
+and these may therefore be said to be more truly Northumbrian than any
+others. Such are "Jock o' the Side," "Johnnie Armstrong," "Hobbie Noble"
+and "The Death of Parcy Reed."
+
+Of the third class, the romantic ballads, we have not so rich a store;
+yet "The Gay Goss-hawk," the "Nut-browne Mayde" and the touchingly
+beautiful "Barthram's Dirge" may stand amongst the best of their kind.
+
+"The Gay Gross-hawk" is one of those delightful and imaginative
+productions of which there are so many examples, in which birds and
+hounds share their lords' and ladies' secrets, and serve them staunchly
+in hours of peril; they belong to the times when fairies were still seen
+holding their moonlight revels, when witches exercised their baleful
+arts, and fearsome dragons wore still to be met and conquered--"and if
+you do not believe it," said Dr. Spence Watson, "I am sorry for you!"
+
+The "Nut-browne Mayde" is supposed to have been a Lady Margaret Percy,
+who lived in the reign of Henry VIII.; and the lover to whom she was so
+faithful, notwithstanding his trial of her love by declaring that he was
+an outlaw, and "must to the greenwood go, alone, a banished man," was
+Henry Clifford, son of the Earl of Westmoreland. The inordinate length
+of this ballad forbade its inclusion in the present selection; I am
+sensible that that selection may appear somewhat meagre, but only want
+of space has prevented the inclusion of others that many of my readers
+would doubtless have been glad to see.
+
+Of songs in dialect, Joe Wilson's "Aw wish yor Muthor wad cum!" stands
+easily first; and the other, "Sair feyl'd, hinny!" is given as an
+example of the Northumbrian muse in another mood.
+
+In conclusion, let me say that of the modern verse every example is from
+the pen of a Northumbrian.
+
+
+
+
+
+  CHEVY CHASE I.
+
+
+  It fell about the Lammas tide,
+  When muir-men win their hay,
+  The doughty Douglas bound him to ride
+  Into England to drive a prey.
+
+  He chose the Gordons and the Graemes,
+  With them the Lindsays, light and gay;
+  But the Jardines would not with them ride,
+  And they rue it to this day.
+
+  And he has burned the dales o' Tyne,
+  And part o' Bamburghshire;
+  And three good towers on Reidswire fells
+  He left them all on fire.
+
+  And he marched up to New Castel,
+  And rode it round about;
+  "O wha's the lord of this castel?
+  Or wha's the lady o't?"
+
+  And up spake proud Lord Percy then,
+  And O! but he spake hie!
+  "O I'm the lord of this castel,
+  My wife's the lady gay."
+
+  "If thou art the lord of this castel,
+  Sae weel it pleases me!
+  For ere I cross the Border fells,
+  The tane of us sall die."
+
+  He took a lang spere in his hand
+  Shod wi' the metal free,
+  And for to meet the Douglas there
+  He rode right furiouslie!
+
+  But oh! how pale his lady looked
+  Frae off the castle wa',
+  When down before the Scottish speare
+  She saw proud Percy fa'!
+
+  "Had we twa been upon the green,
+  And never an eye to see,
+  I wad hae had you, flesh and fell,
+  But your sword shall gae wi' me."
+
+  "But gae ye up to Otterbourne
+  And wait there dayis three,
+  And if I come not ere three dayis end,
+  A fause knight ca' ye me."
+
+  "The Otterbourne's a bonnie burn,
+  'Tis pleasant there to be;
+  But there is naught at Otterbourne
+  To feed my men and me.
+
+  "The deer rins wild on hill and dale,
+  The birds fly wild frae tree to tree,
+  But there is neither bread nor kale
+  To feed my men and me.
+
+  "Yet I will stay at Otterbourne
+  Where you sall welcome be;
+  And if ye come not at three dayis end
+  A fause lord I'll call thee."
+
+  "Thither will I come," proud Percy said,
+  "By the might of Our Ladye!"
+  "Thither will I bide thee," said the Douglas,
+  "My troth I plight to thee."
+
+  They lighted high on Otterbourne,
+  Upon the bent sae brown;
+  They lighted high on Otterbourne
+  And threw their pallions down.
+
+  And he that had a bonnie boy,
+  Sent out his horse to grass;
+  And he that had not a bonnie boy,
+  His ain servant he was.
+
+  And up then spake a little foot-page,
+  Before the peep o' dawn--
+  "O waken, waken ye, my good lord,
+  The Percy is hard at hand!"
+
+  "Ye lee, ye lee, ye leear loud!
+  Sae loud I hear ye lee!
+  For Percy had not men yestreen
+  To dight my men and me!"
+
+  "But I hae dreamed a dreary dream,
+  Beyond the Isle of Skye;
+  I saw a dead man win a fight,
+  An' I think that man was I."
+
+  He belted on his gude braid-sword,
+  And to the field he ran;
+  But he forgot his helmet good,
+  That should have kept his brain.
+
+  When Percy wi' the Douglas met
+  I wat he was fu' fain!
+  They swakked their swords till sair they swat,
+  The blude ran down like rain.
+
+  But Percy, with his gude braid-sword,
+  That could sae sharply wound,
+  Has stricken Douglas on the brow,
+  Till he fell to the ground.
+
+  Then he called on his little foot-page
+  And said, "Run speedilie,
+  And fetch my ain dear sister's son,
+  Sir Hugh Montgomerie."
+
+  "My nephew good," the Douglas said,
+  "What recks the death of ane?
+  Last night I dreamed a dreary dream,
+  And I ken the day's thy ain.
+
+  "My wound is deep, I fain wad sleep;
+  Take thou the vanguard of the three,
+  And hide me by the bracken bush
+  That grows on yonder lilye lea.
+
+  "O bury me by the bracken bush,
+  Beneath the bloomin' brier;
+  Let never a living mortal ken
+  That ever a kindly Scot lies here."
+
+  He lifted up that noble lord,
+  Wi' the saut tear in his e'e;
+  He hid him in the bracken bush
+  That his merrie men might not see.
+
+  The moon was clear, the day drew near,
+  The speres in flinders flew,
+  And mony a gallant Englishman
+  Ere day the Scotsmen slew.
+
+  The Gordons gude, in English blude
+  They steeped their hose and shoon;
+  The Lindsays flew like fire about
+  Till a' the fray was dune.
+
+  The Percy and Montgomerie met,
+  And either of other was fain;
+  They swakk�d swords, and sair they swat,
+  And the blude ran doun like rain.
+
+  "Now yield thee, yield thee, Percy!" he cried;
+  "Or else will I lay thee low."
+  "To whom sall I yield?" quoth Erle Percy,
+  "Sin I see it maun be so."
+
+  "Thou shalt not yield to lord or loon,
+  Nor yet shalt thou yield to me,
+  But thou shalt yield to the bracken bush
+  That grows on yon lilye lea."
+
+  "I will not yield to a bracken bush;
+  Nor yet will I yield to a brier;
+  But I would yield to Erle Douglas,
+  Or Hugh Montgomerie if he were here."
+
+  As soon as he knew it was Montgomerie
+  He stuck his sword's-point in the gronde;
+  The Montgomerie was a courteous knight,
+  And quickly took him by the honde.
+
+  This deed was done at the Otterbourne,
+  About the breaking of the day;
+  Erle Douglas was buried at the bracken bush.
+  And the Percy led captive away.
+
+
+
+
+  JOCK O' THE SIDE.
+
+  Now Liddesdale has ridden a raid,
+  But I wat they had better hae staid at hame;
+  For Michael o' Winfield he is dead,
+  And Jock o' the Side is prisoner ta'en.
+
+  For Mangerton house Lady Downie has gane,
+  Her coats she has kilted up to her knee;
+  And down the water wi' speed she rins,
+  While tears in spates fa' fast frae her e'e.
+
+  Then up and spoke our guid auld laird--
+  "What news, what news, sister Downie, to me?"
+  "Bad news, bad news, for Michael is killed,
+  And they hae taken my son Johnnie."
+
+  "Ne'er fear, sister Downie," quo' Mangerton,
+  "I have yokes of owsen, twenty and three,
+  My barns, my byres, and my faulds a' weel filled,
+  I'll part wi' them a' ere Johnnie shall dee.
+
+  "Three men I'll send to set him free,
+  A' harnessed wi' the best o' steel;
+  The English loons may hear, and drie
+  The weight o' their braid-swords to feel.
+
+  "The Laird's Jock ane, the Laird's Wat twa,
+  O Hobbie Noble, thou ane maun be!
+  Thy coat is blue, thou has been true
+  Since England banished thee to me."
+
+  Now Hobbie was an English man,
+  In Bewcastle dale was bred and born;
+  But his misdeeds they were so great,
+  They banished him ne'er to return.
+
+  Laird Mangerton them orders gave,
+  "Your horses the wrang way maun be shod;
+  Like gentlemen ye maunna seem,
+  But look like corn-cadgers ga'en the road.
+
+  "Your armour gude ye maunna show,
+  Nor yet appear like men of weir;
+  As country lads be a' array'd,
+  Wi' branks and brecham on each mare."
+
+  Sae their horses are the wrang way shod,
+  And Hobbie has mounted his gray sae fine;
+  Jock his lively bay, Wat's on his white horse behind.
+  And on they rode for the water of Tyne.
+
+  At the Cholerford they a' light doun,
+  And there wi' the help o' the light o' the moon,
+  A tree they cut, wi' fifteen nogs on each side,
+  To climb up the wa' of Newcastle toun.
+
+  But when they cam' to Newcastle toun,
+  And were alighted at the wa'
+  They fand their tree three ells ower laigh,
+  They fand their stick baith short and sma'.
+
+  Then up and spak the Laird's ain Jock,
+  "There's naething for't; the gates we maun force."
+  But when they cam' the gate untill,
+  A proud porter withstood baith men and horse.
+
+  His neck in twa the Armstrangs wrung;
+  With fute or hand he ne'er played pa!
+  His life and his keys at once they hae ta'en,
+  And cast the body ahint the wa'.
+
+  Now sune they reach Newcastle jail,
+  And to the prisoner thus they call:
+  "Sleeps thou, or wakes thou, Jock o' the Side,
+  Or art thou weary of thy thrall?"
+
+  Jock answered thus, wi' doleful tone,
+  "Aft, aft I wake--I seldom sleep;
+  But wha's this kens my name sae weel,
+  And thus to ease my wae does seek."
+
+  Then out and spake the gude Laird's Jock,
+  "Now fear ye na', my billie," quo' he;
+  "For here are the Laird's Jock, the Laird's Wat,
+  And Hobbie Noble, come to set thee free."
+
+  "Now haud thy tongue, my gude Laird's Jock,
+  For ever, alas! this canna be;
+  For if a' Liddesdale were here the night,
+  The morn's the day that I maun dee."
+
+  "Full fifteen stane o' Spanish iron
+  They hae laid a' right sair or me;
+  Wi' locks and keys I am fast bound
+  Into this dungeon dark and dreirie!"
+
+  "Fear ye nae that," quo' the Laird's Jock;
+  "A faint heart ne'er won a fair ladie;
+  Work thou within, we'll work without,
+  And I'll be sworn we'll set thee free."
+
+  The first strong door that they cam' at,
+  They loosed it without a key;
+  The next chain'd door that they cam' at
+  They gar'd it a' to flinders flee.
+
+  The prisoner now upon his back
+  The Laird's Jock has gotten up fu' hie;
+  And down the stair, him, irons and a',
+  Wi' nae sma' speid and joy brings he.
+
+  "Now Jock, my man," quo Hobbie Noble,
+  "Some o' his weight ye may lay on me."
+  "I wat weel no," quo' the Laird's ain Jock;
+  "I count him lighter than a flee."
+
+  Sae out at the gates they a' are gane,
+  The prisoner's set on horseback hie;
+  And now wi' speed they're ta'en the gate,
+  While ilk ane jokes fu' wantonlie.
+
+  "O Jock! sae winsomely 's ye ride,
+  Wi' baith your feet upon ae side;
+  Sae weel ye're harnessed, and sae trig,
+  In troth ye sit like ony bride!"
+
+  The night, tho' wat, they didna mind,
+  But hied them on fu' merrilie
+  Until they cam' to Cholerford brae,
+  Where the water ran baith deep and hie.
+
+  But when they came to Cholerford,
+  There they met with an auld man,
+  Says, "Honest man, will the water ride?
+  Tell us in haste, if that ye can."
+
+  "I wat weel no," quo' the gude auld man;
+  "I hae lived here thirty years and three,
+  And I ne'er yet saw the Tyne sae big,
+  Nor running anes sae like a sea."
+
+  Then out and spake the Laird's Saft Wat,
+  The greatest coward in the companie;
+  "Now halt, now halt, we needna try't,
+  The day is come we a' maun dee."
+
+  "Puir faint-hearted thief!" cried the Laird's ain Jock,
+  "There'll nae man die but him that's fey;
+  I'll guide ye a' right safely thro',
+  Lift ye the prisoner on ahint me."
+
+  Wi' that the water they hae ta'en;
+  By anes and twas they a' swam thro';
+  "Here we are a' safe," quo' the Laird's Jock,
+  "And puir faint Wat, what think ye now?"
+
+  They scarce the other brae had won
+  When twenty men they saw pursue;
+  Frae Newcastle toun they had been sent,
+  A' English lads baith stout and true.
+
+  But when the land-serjeant the water saw,
+  "It winna ride, my lads," says he;
+  Then cried aloud--"The prisoner take,
+  But leave the fetters, I pray, to me."
+
+  "I wat weel no," quo' the Laird's Jock;
+  "I'll keep them a'; shoon to my mare they'll be.
+  My gude bay mare--for I am sure
+  She has bought them a' right dear frae thee."
+
+  Sae now they are on to Liddesdale,
+  E'en as fast as they could them hie;
+  The prisoner is brought to his ain fireside,
+  And there o' his airns they mak' him free.
+
+  "Now, Jock, ma billie," quo' a' the three,
+  "The day is com'd thou was to dee.
+  But thou's as weel at thy ain ingle-side,
+  Now sitting, I think 'twixt thou and me."
+
+
+
+
+  BARTHRAM'S DIRGE.
+
+  They shot him dead at the Nine-stane Rig,
+  Beside the Headless Cross,
+  And they left him lying in his blood,
+  Upon the moor and moss.
+
+  They made a bier of the broken bough
+  The sauch and the aspin grey,
+  And they bore him to the Lady Chapel,
+  And waked him there all day.
+
+  A lady came to that lonely bower,
+  And threw her robes aside;
+  She tore her ling lang yellow hair,
+  And knelt at Barthram's side.
+
+  She bathed him in the Lady-Well,
+  His wounds sae deep and sair;
+  And she plaited a garland for his breast,
+  And a garland for his hair.
+
+  They rowed him in a lily sheet
+  And bare him to his earth;
+  And the Grey Friars sung the dead man's mass
+  As they passed the Chapel garth.
+
+  They buried him at the mirk midnight,
+  When the dew fell cold and still,
+  When the aspin grey forgot to play,
+  And the mist clung to the hill.
+
+  They dug his grave but a bare foot deep,
+  By the edge of the Nine-stane Burn,
+  And they covered him o'er with the heather-flower,
+  The moss and the lady-fern.
+
+  A Grey Friar staid upon the grave,
+  And sang till the morning tide;
+  And a friar shall sing for Barthram's soul
+  While the Headless Cross shall bide.
+
+
+
+
+  THE FAIR FLOWER OF NORTHUMBERLAND
+
+  It was a knight in Scotland born,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Was taken pris'ner and left forlorn,
+  Even by the good Earl of Northumberland.
+
+  Then was he cast in prison strong,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Where he could not walk nor lie along,
+  Even by the good Earl of Northumberland.
+
+  And as in sorrow thus he lay,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  The Earl's sweet daughter passed that way,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  And passing by, like an angel bright,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  The prisoner had of her a sight,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  And aloud to her this knight did cry,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  The salt tears standing in her eye,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  "Fair lady," he said, "take pity on me,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And let me not in prison dee,
+  And you the fair flower of Northumberland."
+
+  "Fair sir, how should I take pity on thee,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Thou being a foe to our countrie,
+  And I the fair flower of Northumberland?"
+
+  "Fair lady, I am no foe," he said,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  "Through thy sweet love here was I stayed,
+  And thou the fair flower of Northumberland."
+
+  "Why shouldst thou come here for love of me,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Having wife and bairns in thy own countrie,
+  And I the fair flower of Northumberland?"
+
+  "I swear by the Blessed Trinity,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  That neither wife nor bairns have I,
+  And thou the fair flower of Northumberland."
+
+  "If courteously thou wilt set me free,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  I vow that I will marry thee,
+  And thou the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  "Thou shalt be lady of castles and towers,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And sit like a queen in princely bowers,
+  Even thou the fair flower of Northumberland."
+
+  Then parted hence this lady gay,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And got her father's ring away,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  Likewise much gold got she by sleight,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And all to help this forlorn knight,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  Two gallant steeds both good and able,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand),
+  She likewise took out of the stable,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  And to the goaler she sent the ring,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Who the knight from prison forth did bring,
+  To meet the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  This token set the prisoner free,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Who straight went to this fair ladye,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  A gallant steed he did bestride,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And with the lady away did ride,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  They rode till they came to a water clear,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  "Good sir, how shall I follow you here,
+  And I the fair flower of Northumberland?
+
+  "The water is rough and wonderful deep,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And on my saddle I shall not keep,
+  And I the fair flower of Northumberland?
+
+  "Fear not the ford, fair lady," quoth he,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  "For long I cannot stay for thee,
+  Even thou the fair flower of Northumberland."
+
+  The lady prickt her gallant steed,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And over the water swam with speed,
+  Even she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  From top to toe all wet was she,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  "This have I done for love of thee,
+  Even I the fair flower of Northumberland."
+
+  Thus rode she all one winter's night.
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Till Edenborough they saw in sight,
+  The fairest town in all Scotland.
+
+  "Now I have a wife and children five,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  In Edenborough they be alive,
+  And thou the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  "And if thou wilt not give thy hand,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Then get thee home to fair England,
+  And thou the fair flower of Northumberland
+
+  "This favour thou shalt have, to boot,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  I'll have thy horse; go thou on foot,
+  Even thou the fair flower of Northumberland."
+
+  "O false and faithless knight," quoth she;
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  "And canst thou deal so bad with me,
+  Even I the fair flower of Northumberland?"
+
+  He took her from her stately steed,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And left her there in extreme need,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  Then she sat down full heavily,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  At length two knights came riding by,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  Two gallant knights of fair England,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And there they found her on the strand,
+  Even she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  She fell down humbly on her knee,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Crying, "Courteous knights, take pity on me,
+  Even I the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  "I have offended my father dear,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  For a false knight that brought me here,
+  Even I the fair flower of Northumberland."
+
+  They took her up beside them then,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And brought her to her father again,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  Now all you fair maids, be warned by me,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Scots never were true, nor ever will be,
+  To lord, nor lady, nor fair England.
+
+
+
+
+
+  WHITTINGHAM FAIR.
+
+  Are you going to Whittingham Fair
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  Remember me to one that lives there,
+  For once she was a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell her to make me a cambric shirt,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  Without any seam or needlework,
+  Then she shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell her to wash it in yonder well,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  Where never spring water or rain ever fell,
+  And she shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell her to dry it on yonder thorn,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  Which never bore blossom since Adam was born.
+  Then she shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Now he has asked me questions three,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  I hope he'll answer as many for me,
+  Before he shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell him to buy me an acre of land,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  Betwixt the salt water and the sea sand,
+  Then he shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell him to plough it with a ram's horn.
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  And sow it all over with one pepper corn.
+  And he shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell him to shear't with a sickle of leather,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  And bind it up with a peacock feather,
+  And he shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell him to thrash it on yonder wall,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  And never let one corn of it fall,
+  Then he shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  When he has done and finished his work,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  O tell him to come and he'll have his shirt,
+  And he shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+
+
+
+  O THE OAK AND THE ASH.
+
+
+  A North country mayde up to London had strayed,
+  Although with her nature it did not agree.
+  Which made her repent, and often lament,
+  Still wishing again in the North for to be.
+    "O the Oak and the Ash and the bonny Ivy tree,
+    They are all growing green in my North Countrie!"
+
+  "O fain wad I be in the North Countrie
+  Where the lads and the lasses are all making hay;
+  O there wad I see what is pleasant to me,--
+  A mischief 'light on them enticed me away!
+    O the Oak and the Ash and the bonny Ivy tree,
+    They are all growing green in my North Countrie!"
+
+  "Then farewell my father, and farewell my mother,
+  Until I do see you I nothing but mourn;
+  Remembering my brothers, my sisters, and others--
+  In less than a year I hope to return.
+    O the Oak and the Ash and the bonny Ivy tree.
+    They are all growing green in my North Countrie!"
+
+
+
+
+  SAIR FEYL'D, HINNY!
+
+
+     "Sair feyl'd, hinny!
+      Sair feyl'd now,
+      Sair feyl'd, hinny,
+      Sin' aw ken'd thou.
+  Aw was young and lusty,
+  Aw was fair and clear;
+  Aw was young and lusty
+  Mony a lang year.
+      Sair feyl'd, hinny!
+      Sair feyl'd now;
+      Sair feyl'd, hinny,
+      Sin' aw ken'd thou.
+
+  "When aw was young and lusty
+  Aw cud lowp u dyke;
+  But now aw'm aud and still.
+  Aw can hardly stop a syke.
+      Sair feyl'd, hinny!
+      Sair feyl'd now,
+      Sair feyl'd hinny,
+      Sin' aw ken'd thou.
+
+  "When aw was five and twenty
+  Aw was brave an bauld.
+  Now at five an' sixty
+  Aw'm byeth stiff an' cauld.
+      Sair feyl'd, hinny!
+      Sair feyl'd now.
+      Sair feyl'd, hinny,
+      Sin' aw ken'd thou"
+
+  Thus said the aud man
+  To the oak tree;
+  "Sair feyl'd is aw
+  Sin' aw kenn'd thee!
+      Sair feyl'd, hinny!
+      Sair feyl'd now;
+      Sair feyl'd, hinny,
+      Sin' aw ken'd thou."
+
+
+
+
+  AW WISH YOE MUTHER WAD CUM!
+
+
+  "Cum, Geordy, haud the bairn,
+  Aw's sure aw'll not stop lang,
+  Aw'd tyek the jewl me-sel,
+  But really aw's not strang.
+  Thor's flooer and coals te get,
+  The hoose-torns thor not deun,
+  So haud the bairn for fairs,
+  Ye're often deun'd for fun!"
+
+  Then Geordy held the bairn,
+  But sair agyen his will,
+  The poor bit thing wes gud,
+  But Geordy had ne skill,
+  He haddint its muther's ways,
+  He sat both stiff an' num,--
+  Before five minutes wes past
+  He wished its muther wad cum!
+
+  His wife had scarcely gyen,
+  The bairn begun te squall,
+  Wi' hikin't up an' doon
+  He'd let the poor thing fall,
+  It waddent haud its tung,
+  Tho' sum aud teun he'd hum,--
+  'Jack an' Gill went up a hill'--
+  "Aw wish yor muther wad cum!"
+
+  "What weary toil," says he,
+  "This nursin bairns mun be,
+  A bit on't's weel eneuf,
+  Ay, quite eneuf for me;
+  Te keep a crying bairn,
+  It may be grand te sum,
+  A day's wark's not as bad--
+  Aw wish yor muther wad cum.
+
+  "Men seldom give a thowt
+  Te what thor wives indure,
+  Aw thowt she'd nowt te de
+  But clean the hoose, aw's sure.
+  Or myek me dinner an' tea--
+  It's startin' te chow its thumb,
+  The poor thing wants its tit,
+  Aw wish yor muther wad cum."
+
+  'What a selfish world this is,
+  Thor's nowt mair se than man;
+  He laffs at wummin's toil,
+  And winnet nurse his awn;--
+  It's startin' te cry agyen,
+  Aw see tuts throo its gum,
+  Maw little bit pet, dinnet fret,--
+  Aw wish yor muther wad cum.
+
+  "But kindness dis a vast.
+  It's ne use gettin' vext.
+  It winnet please the bairn,
+  Or ease a mind perplext.
+  At last--its gyen te sleep,
+  Me wife'll not say aw's num,
+  She'll think aw's a real gud norse,
+  Aw wish yor muther wud cum!"
+
+  _Joe Wilson_
+
+
+
+
+  THE AULD FISHER'S LAST WISH
+
+
+  The morn is grey, and green the brae, the wind is frae the wast
+  Before the gale the snaw-white clouds are drivin' light and fast;
+  The airly sun is glintin' forth, owre hill, and dell, and plain,
+  And Coquet's streams are glitterin', as they run frae muir to main.
+
+  At Dewshill wood the mavis sings beside her birken nest,
+  At Halystane the laverock springs upon his breezy quest;
+  Wi' eydent e'e, aboon the craigs, the gled is high in air,
+  Beneath brent Brinkburn's shadowed cliff the fox lies in his lair.
+
+  There's joy at merry Thristlehaugh tie new-mown hay to win;
+  The busy bees at Todstead-shaw are bringing honey in;
+  The trouts they loup in ilka stream, the birds on ilka tree;
+  Auld Coquet-side is Coquet still--but there's nae place for me!
+
+  My sun is set, my eyne are wet, cauld poortith now is mine;
+  Nae mair I'll range by Coquet-side and thraw the gleesome line;
+  Nae mair I'll see her bonnie stream in spring-bright raiment drest,
+  Save in the dream that stirs the heart when the weary e'e's at rest.
+
+  Oh! were my limbs as ance they were, to jink across the green.
+  And were my heart as light again as sometime it has been,
+  And could my fortunes blink again as erst when youth was sweet,
+  Then Coquet--hap what might beside--we'd no be lang to meet'
+
+  Or had I but the cushat's wing, where'er I list to flee,
+  And wi' a wish, might wend my way owre hill, and dale, and lea.
+  'Tis there I'd fauld that weary wing, there gaze my latest gaze.
+  Content to see thee ance again--then sleep beside thy braes!
+
+  --_Thomas Doublerday_.
+
+
+
+
+  A SONNET.
+
+
+  Go, take thine angle, and with practised line.
+    Light as the gossamer, the current sweep;
+    And if thou failest in the calm, still deep,
+  In the rough eddy may a prize be thine.
+  Say thou'rt unlucky where the sunbeams shine;
+    Beneath the shadow, where the waters creep
+    Perchance the monarch of the brook shall leap--
+  For fate is ever better than design.
+
+  Still persevere; the giddiest breeze that blows,
+    For thee may blow with fame and fortune rife.
+  Be prosperous; and what reck if it arose
+    Out of some pebble with the stream at strife,
+  Or that the light wind dallied with the boughs?
+    Thou art successful.--Such is human life!
+
+  --_Thomas Doubleday_.
+
+
+
+
+  A VISION OF JOYOUS-GARDE.
+
+
+  "And so sir Launcelot brought sir Tristan and La Beate Isoud unto
+  Joyous-gard, the which was his owne castle that hee had wonne with his
+  owne hands."--_Malory_.
+
+  "Bamburgh ... the great rock-fortress that was known to the Celts as
+  Dinguardi, and was to figure in Arthurian romance as Joyous Garde ...
+  "--_C.J. Bates_ (History of Northumberland).
+
+    I wandered under winter stars
+    The lone Northumbrian shore;
+  And night lay deep in silence on the sea.
+    Save where, unceasingly,
+    Among the pillared scaurs
+  Of perilous Farnes, wild waves for ever more
+    Breaking in foam,
+  Sounded as some far strife through the star-haunted gloam.
+
+    Before me, looming through the night,
+    Darker than night's sad heart,
+  King Ida's castle on the sheer crag set
+    Waked darker sorrow yet
+    Within me for the light,
+  Beauty, and might of old loves rent apart,
+    Time-broken, spent,
+  And strewn as old dead winds among the salt-sea bent.
+
+    Till, dreaming of the glittering days,
+    And eves with beauty starred,
+  Time fell from me as some night-cloud withdrawn,
+    And in enchanted dawn,
+    All in a golden haze,
+  I saw the gleaming towers of Joyous Garde
+    In splendour rise,
+  Tall, pinnacled, and white to my dream-laden eyes.
+
+    While thither, as in days of old,
+    Launcelot homeward came,
+  War-wearied, and yet wearier of the strife
+    Of love that tore his life;
+
+    Burning, beneath the cold
+  Armour of steel, a never-dying flame:
+    The fierce desire
+  Consuming honour's gold on the heart's altar fire!
+
+    And thither in great love he brought
+    The fugitives of love,
+  Isoud and Tristram fleeing from King Mark.
+    One day 'twixt dark and dark
+    These lovers, by fate caught
+  In love's bright web, dreamed with blue skies above
+    Of love no tide
+  Of wavering life may part, or death's swift sea divide.
+
+    But Launcelot, in their bliss forlorn,
+    Fled from the laughter clear
+  Of happy lovers, and love's silent noon;
+    All night beneath the moon
+    He strode, his spirit torn
+  For Guenevere! All night on Guenevere
+    He cried aloud
+  Unto the moonlit foam and every windy cloud.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Then faded, quivering, from my sight
+    The memory-woven dream.
+  The towers of Joyous Garde shall never more
+    Lighten that desolate shore;
+    No longe'r through the night
+  Wrestling with love, beneath the pale moon gleam
+    That anguished form!--
+  But keen with snow and wind, and loud with gathering storm.
+
+  _--Wilfrid W. Gibson_.
+
+  (In "The Northern Counties Magazine," March, 1901).
+
+
+
+
+  MY NORTH COUNTRIE.
+
+
+  O though here fair blows the rose, and the woodbine waves on high,
+  And oak, and elm, and bracken fronds enrich the rolling lea,
+  And winds, as if in Arcady, breathe joy as they go by,
+  Yet I yearn and I pine for my North Countrie!
+
+  I leave the drowsing South, and in thought I northward fly,
+  And walk the stretching moors that fringe the ever-calling sea,
+  And am gladdened as the gales that are so bitter-sweet rush by.
+  While grey clouds sweetly darken o'er my North Countrie.
+
+  For there's music in the storms, and there's colour in the shades,
+  And joy e'en in the grief so widely brooding o'er the sea;
+  And larger thoughts have birth amid the moors and lonely glades
+  And reedy mounds and sands of my North Countrie!
+
+  --_Thomas Runciman_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: Sketch Map Of Northumberland.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Northumberland Yesterday and To-day
+by Jean F. Terry
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORTHUMBERLAND ***
+
+***** This file should be named 11124-8.txt or 11124-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/1/2/11124/
+
+Produced by Miranda van de Heijning, Margaret Macaskill and PG
+Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's
+eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII,
+compressed (zipped), HTML and others.
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over
+the old filename and etext number.  The replaced older file is renamed.
+VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving
+new filenames and etext numbers.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000,
+are filed in directories based on their release date.  If you want to
+download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular
+search system you may utilize the following addresses and just
+download by the etext year.
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/etext06
+
+    (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99,
+     98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90)
+
+EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are
+filed in a different way.  The year of a release date is no longer part
+of the directory path.  The path is based on the etext number (which is
+identical to the filename).  The path to the file is made up of single
+digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename.  For
+example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234
+
+or filename 24689 would be found at:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689
+
+An alternative method of locating eBooks:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL
+
+
diff --git a/old/11124-8.zip b/old/11124-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..18e524e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-8.zip
diff --git a/old/11124-h.zip b/old/11124-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8702477
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-h.zip
diff --git a/old/11124-h/11124-h.htm b/old/11124-h/11124-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..07c39d8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-h/11124-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,8777 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
+<title>Northumberland Yesterday and To-day, by Jean F. Terry</title>
+<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" />
+<style type="text/css">
+
+body { margin-left: 20%;
+       margin-right: 20%;
+       text-align: justify; }
+
+h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight:
+normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;}
+
+h1 {font-size: 300%;
+    margin-top: 0.6em;
+    margin-bottom: 0.6em;
+    letter-spacing: 0.12em;
+    word-spacing: 0.2em;
+    text-indent: 0em;}
+h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;}
+h3 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em;}
+h4 {font-size: 120%;}
+h5 {font-size: 110%;}
+
+hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;}
+
+div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;}
+
+p {text-indent: 1em;
+   margin-top: 0.25em;
+   margin-bottom: 0.25em; }
+
+.p2 {margin-top: 2em;}
+
+p.poem {text-indent: 0%;
+        margin-left: 10%;
+        font-size: 90%;
+        margin-top: 1em;
+        margin-bottom: 1em; }
+
+p.letter {text-indent: 0%;
+          margin-left: 10%;
+          margin-right: 10%;
+          margin-top: 1em;
+          margin-bottom: 1em; }
+
+p.noindent {text-indent: 0% }
+
+p.center  {text-align: center;
+           text-indent: 0em;
+           margin-top: 1em;
+           margin-bottom: 1em; }
+
+p.right {text-align: right;
+         margin-right: 10%;
+         margin-top: 1em;
+         margin-bottom: 1em; }
+
+p.footnote {font-size: 90%;
+           text-indent: 0%;
+           margin-left: 10%;
+           margin-right: 10%;
+           margin-top: 1em;
+           margin-bottom: 1em; }
+
+sup { vertical-align: top; font-size: 0.6em; }
+
+p.asterism {text-align: center;
+           font-size: 150%;
+           margin-top: 1em;
+           margin-bottom: 1em; }
+
+div.fig { display:block;
+          margin:0 auto;
+          text-align:center;
+          margin-top: 1em;
+          margin-bottom: 1em;}
+
+a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none}
+a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none}
+a:hover {color:red}
+
+</style>
+
+</head>
+
+<body>
+
+<pre>
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Northumberland Yesterday and To-day, by Jean F. Terry
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: Northumberland Yesterday and To-day
+
+Author: Jean F. Terry
+
+Release Date: February 17, 2004 [EBook #11124]
+[Most recently updated: June 7, 2020]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORTHUMBERLAND YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Miranda van de Heijning, Margaret Macaskill
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h1>Northumberland Yesterday and To-day</h1>
+
+<h2>by Jean F. Terry, L.L.A.</h2>
+
+<h3>(St. Andrews), 1913.</h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+<i>To Sir Francis Douglas Blake,<br/>
+this book is inscribed in admiration of<br/>
+an eminent Northumbrian.</i>
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+<table summary="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto">
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#pref01">INTRODUCTORY.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap00">NORTHUMBERLAND YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I. The Coast of Northumberland</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II. North and South Tyne</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III. Down the Tyne</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV. Newcastle-upon-Tyne</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V. Elswick and its Founder</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI. The Cheviots</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII. The Roman Wall</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII. Some Northumbrian Streams</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX. Drum and Trumpet</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X. Tales and Legends</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI. Ballads and Poems</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus01"></a>
+<a href="images/001.jpg">
+<img src="images/001.jpg" width="600" height="386" alt="Illustration:
+Bamburgh Castle." /></a>
+<p class="caption"><b>Bamburgh Castle.</b></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>List of Illustrations</h2>
+
+<table summary="" style="">
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus01">Bamburgh Castle.</a> <i>From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus02">The Priory, Tynemouth.</a> <i>From photograph by T.H. Dickinson, Sheriff Hill</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus03">Untitled</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus04">Hexham Abbey from North West.</a> <i>From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus05">The River Tyne at Newcastle (showing Swing Bridge Open).</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus06">Untitled</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus07">Newcastle-upon-Tyne.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus08">Untitled</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus09">North Gateway, Housesteads and Roman Wall.</a> <i>From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus10">Untitled</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus11">Alnwick Castle.</a> <i>From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus12">The Wreck of the &ldquo;Forfarshire&rdquo;.</a> <i>From illustration kindly lent by B. Rowland Hill, Newcastle</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus13">Drawing of boat</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus14">Sketch Map Of Northumberland.</a> <i>From a Drawing by C.H. Abbey</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="pref01"></a>INTRODUCTORY.</h2>
+
+<p>
+    The following book makes no pretensions to be a mine of deep historical
+    research or antiquarian lore; its object will have been achieved, and
+    its existence to some extent justified, if haply by its aid some of the
+    dwellers in this northern county of ours, with its past so full of
+    action, and its present so rich in the memorials of those actions, may
+    pass a pleasant hour in becoming acquainted through its pages with the
+    happenings which have taken place in their own particular fields, their
+    own streets, or by their own riverside.
+</p>
+<p>
+    I am aware that many learned volumes on this subject, representing an
+    enormous amount of patient labour and careful research in their
+    compilation, are already in existence. To such this little book can in
+    no sense be a rival; but there must be many people who have not a
+    superabundance of time, to enable them to dig out the information for
+    which they wish, from these various sources; nor can they always make
+    these volumes their own, to be consulted at leisure.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Northumbrians have always been interested in the records of their own
+    county, and are now-a-days not less so than when, some three-and-a-half
+    centuries ago, Roger North found them &ldquo;great antiquarians within their
+    own bounds.&rdquo; If to such as these this little book may perhaps bring in a
+    more convenient form the information they seek, and help them to become
+    better acquainted with the county which inspired Swinburne to write in
+    stirring phrases of &ldquo;Northumberland,&rdquo; and to address the home of his
+    people as
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Land beloved, where nought of legend&rsquo;s dream
+  Outshines the truth&rdquo;&mdash;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    I shall be more than satisfied. I would take this opportunity of
+    expressing my grateful thanks to the Rev. Canon Savage, of Hexham, for
+    information relating to the tomb of Alfwald the Just, in the Abbey,
+    given with courteous readiness; to the Rev. Canon Jeffery, of Bywell,
+    for similar kindness regarding Bywell St. Peter&rsquo;s; to R.O. Heslop, Esq.,
+    whose profound store of learning on the subject of &ldquo;Northumberland
+    words&rdquo; was in cases of uncertainty my final court of appeal; to E.T.
+    Nisbet, Esq., and J. Treble, Esq., to whom I am greatly indebted for
+    their goodness in reading my manuscript, and for their generous
+    encouragement following thereupon; to C.H. Abbey, Esq., for his kindness
+    in executing the map which accompanies these pages; and to Mr. G.P.
+    Dunn, of Corbridge, for much helpful criticism, and many suggestions
+    which only want of space has prevented my adopting in their entirety.
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+J.F.T.
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+    <i>31st May</i>, 1913.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap00"></a>NORTHUMBERLAND YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.<br/>THE COAST OF NORTHUMBERLAND.</h2>
+
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll see nae mair the sea banks fair,
+  And the sweet grey gleaming sky,
+  And the lordly strand of Northumberland,
+  And the goodly towers thereby.&rdquo;
+
+  &mdash;<i>A.C. Swinburne</i>.
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Wild and bleak it may be, hard and cruel at times it undoubtedly is,
+    but, nevertheless, this north-east coast of ours is at all times
+    inspiring, whether half-hidden by storm-clouds, its cliffs and hollows
+    lashed by the &ldquo;wild north-easter,&rdquo; or seen calmly brooding in the warm
+    haze of a summer&rsquo;s day, its grey-blue water smiling beneath the
+    grey-blue sky, and its stretches of sand and bents edging the sea with a
+    border of gold and silver.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In keeping with either mood of nature, the ancient Priory of Tynemouth,
+    standing on the sandstone cliffs on the northern bank of the Tyne,
+    rearing its grey and roofless walls above the harbour mouth, strikes a
+    note that is symbolic of the Northumbria of old and the Northumberland
+    of to-day&mdash;the note, that is, of the intimate commingling of the romance
+    of the warlike past and the romance of the industrial present. Here,
+    above the mouth of the river on which so many of the most noteworthy
+    advances in industrial science have been made, and out of which sail the
+    vessels which are often the last word of the moment in marine
+    engineering and construction, stand calmly looking down upon them all
+    the fragments of a building which was a century old when John signed
+    Magna Charta, and which stands upon the site of another that had already
+    braved the storms of nearly five hundred years.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Looking upon the Priory of St. Mary and St. Oswin we are carried back to
+    the days when Edwin, the first king of Northumbria to embrace
+    Christianity, built a little church here, in which his daughter took the
+    veil. King Oswald had the first wooden structure replaced by a stone
+    one; and here, in 651, the body of another good king&mdash;Oswyn&mdash;was brought
+    for burial from Gilling, near Richmond in Yorkshire, where, disbanding
+    his army, he sacrificed his cause and his life to Oswy of Bernicia, with
+    whom he had been about to fight.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus02"></a>
+<a href="images/010.jpg">
+<img src="images/010.jpg" width="315" height="500" alt="Illustration:
+The Priory, Tynemouth." /></a>
+<p class="caption"><b>The Priory, Tynemouth.</b></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+    When the pirate ships of the Danes swept down upon our coasts, the
+    Priory of St. Oswin, conspicuous on its bold headland, could not hope to
+    escape their ravages. It was destroyed by the fierce invaders; but King
+    Ecgfrith<a href="#fn-1" name="fnref-1" id="fnref-1"><sup>[1]</sup></a> of Northumbria restored the shattered shrine. Again, in the
+    year 865, it was sacked and burnt, and the poor nuns of St. Hilda, who
+    had already fled from Hartlepool to Tynemouth hoping to find safety,
+    were ruthlessly slain and earned the crown of martyrdom. It was again
+    restored; but, five years later, the destroying hands of the invaders
+    fell on the place once more, and for two hundred years the Priory stood
+    roofless and tenantless. After the Norman Conquest, Waltheof, Earl of
+    Northumberland bestowed it upon the monks of Jarrow. The rediscovery of
+    the tomb of St. Oswyn in 1065, had gladdened the hearts of the monks,
+    and forthwith the monastery was reared anew over the ashes of its former
+    self.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-1" id="fn-1"></a> <a href="#fnref-1">[1]</a>
+Pronounced &ldquo;Edge-frith.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+    Mowbray, the next Earl of Northumberland, re-endowed the building. He
+    had quarrelled with the Bishop of Durham, so in order to do him a
+    displeasure, he made Tynemouth Priory subordinate to St. Albans instead
+    of to Durham and brought monks from St. Albans to dwell there. The new
+    buildings were finished in 1110, and the bones of St. Oswyn enshrined
+    within them, the right of sanctuary being extended for a mile around his
+    resting-place. This right, however, was already in existence, and had
+    been appealed to in 1095 by Mowbray himself, who fled here pursued by
+    the followers of William Rufus, against whom he had rebelled. The King&rsquo;s
+    men disregarded the sanctuary right, captured Mowbray, and sent him
+    prisoner to Durham<a href="#fn-2" name="fnref-2" id="fnref-2"><sup>[2]</sup></a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-2" id="fn-2"></a> <a href="#fnref-2">[2]</a>
+See account of Bamburgh Castle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+    In later days the queens of Edward I. and Edward II. visited Tynemouth
+    Priory; and it was from Tynemouth that the foolish King Edward II. and
+    his worthless favourite Piers Gaveston fled from the angry barons to
+    Scarborough. In the reign of Edward III., after the battle of Neville&rsquo;s
+    Cross, David of Scotland was brought here by his captors on his way to
+    Bamburgh, from whence he was sent to the Tower.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. the Priory was
+    inhabited by eighteen monks with their Prior. They bowed to the King&rsquo;s
+    decree and left the monastery; but the church continued to be used as
+    the parish church until the days of Charles II., when Christ Church was
+    built.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Priory has many times formed the subject of pictures by famous
+    artists, the best known being that of no less a genius than J. M. W.
+    Turner; and its picturesque ruins are a well-known landmark to the
+    hundreds of voyagers who pass it on their journeys, outward or homeward
+    bound. Within the last few years the Priory has been in some measure
+    repaired and restored.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There is but little left of Tynemouth Castle, which was built as a
+    protection for the monastery against the attacks of the Danes. It stands
+    in a commanding position on a neighbouring cliff, and is now used as
+    barracks for garrison artillery corps. During the days when Scotland
+    harried the English borders, the Priors of Tynemouth maintained a
+    garrison here; and later, in Stuart days, Charles I. visited the North,
+    and the fortress was strengthened just before the outbreak of the Civil
+    War. It was captured, notwithstanding, by Leslie, Earl of Leven, after
+    he had left Newcastle. Colonel Lilburn, left in charge as governor,
+    shortly afterwards avowed himself on the side of King Charles; but he
+    speedily paid for his change of allegiance, for the Castle was re-taken
+    by a force from Newcastle under Sir Arthur Hazelrigg, and Lilburn lost
+    his life in the fight. The Castle has long been used as a dep &#244;t for the
+    storage of arms and ammunition. Behind the Spanish Battery which
+    commands the entrance to the Tyne stands a statue of the famous
+    North-countryman, Admiral Collingwood.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Connected with Tynemouth, by the fact that a small chantry belonging to
+    the Priory once stood there, is St. Mary&rsquo;s Island. One may walk
+    unhindered at low tide across the rocks to this favourite place, but
+    where the chantry stood there is now a lighthouse with a powerful
+    lantern, flashing its welcome light to the seafarers nearing the mouth
+    of the Tyne, and extending
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;To each and all our equal lamp, at peril of the sea,
+  The white wall-sided war-ships, or the whalers of Dundee.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Between Tynemouth and St. Mary&rsquo;s Island lie Cullercoats, Whitley Bay,
+    and Monkseaton, and together these places make practically one extended
+    seaside town, stretching for three or four miles along the sea-front,
+    and joined by a fine parade which leads to open links at Monkseaton. Of
+    these places Cullercoats is most noteworthy. This picturesque fishing
+    village, with quaint old houses perched in every conceivable position on
+    the curve of its rocky bay, is, needless to say, a favourite camping
+    ground for artists. The Cullercoats fishwife, with her cheerful
+    weather-bronzed face, her short jacket and ample skirts of blue flannel,
+    and her heavily laden &ldquo;crees&rdquo; of fish is not only appreciated by the
+    brotherhood of brush and pencil, but is one of the notable sights of the
+    district. At Cullercoats is struck a note of the most modern of modern
+    achievements&mdash;the Wireless Telegraphy Station (225 feet); and here, too,
+    is situated the Dove Marine Laboratory, looked after by scientists on
+    the staff of the Armstrong College at Newcastle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In fine weather the crowds which pass and repass along the top of the
+    bold cliffs which overlook the fine stretch of sands between Cullercoats
+    and Monkseaton show how many hundreds of Northumbria&rsquo;s busy workers
+    enjoy the fresh breezes from the sea on this pleasant and bracing coast.
+    Out at sea, opposite the Parade, vessels built in the busy shipyards on
+    the Tyne may be seen doing their speed trials over the measured mile.
+    The Peace of St. Oswyn may, in fact, be said to brood over Tynemouth,
+    even in these days, for it is an increasing custom for those who can do
+    so to remain in Newcastle and other busy centres of toil only during
+    business hours, and to leave workshop and office every evening for their
+    home by the sea: while the tide of noisy, happy, boisterous
+    excursionists has rolled on to Whitley Bay, leaving Tynemouth to its
+    old-time sleepy content. Northward to Hartley and Seaton Sluice the
+    cliffs are very fine. Hartley, with its bright-looking red-tiled houses,
+    once belonged to Adam of Gesemuth (Jesmond) who lived in the reign of
+    King John. Coming down to modern times, about thirty years ago a gallant
+    Hartley man, Thomas Langley, rescued two successive shipwrecked crews on
+    the same day, in one case allowing himself to be lowered over the cliffs
+    at a terrible risk in the furious storm.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Seaton Sluice belongs to the ancient family of the Delavals, whose
+    house, Delaval Hall, may be seen not far away, peeping from amongst the
+    trees which surround it. Seaton Sluice owes its name to the Delaval who
+    placed the large sluice gates upon the burn, in order to have a strong
+    current which, in rushing down to the sea, would be able to wash the
+    mouth of the stream clear from the silt and mud brought in by the
+    incoming tide. A later baronet, Sir John Hussey Delaval, made the
+    cutting through the solid rock which is so striking a feature of the
+    harbour. It was ready for the entrance of vessels in March, 1763.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Delaval Hall is now owned by Lord Hastings, the present representative
+    of the Delavals, which family became extinct in the male line early in
+    the nineteenth century. The last Delaval, a very learned man, was buried
+    in Westminster Abbey in 1814. The Hall was built for Admiral Delaval in
+    1707 to the design of Sir J. Vanbrugh, who also designed Blenheim
+    Palace, given by the nation to the great Duke of Marlborough about the
+    same time.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Hartley Colliery, about half a mile away, has a sad interest as being
+    the scene of the terrible accident in 1862, when a number of men and
+    boys were imprisoned in the workings owing to the blocking up of the
+    only shaft by a mass of d &#233;bris, caused by the fall of an iron beam
+    belonging to the pumping engine at the pit-head. Before the shaft could
+    be cleared and a way opened to the workings, all the poor fellows had
+    died, overcome by the deadly &ldquo;choke-damp.&rdquo; Joseph Skipsey, the pitman
+    poet, in a simple ballad, tells the pathetic story.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Oh, father! till the shaft is rid,
+  Close, close beside me keep;
+  My eyelids are together glued,
+  And I,&mdash;and I,&mdash;must sleep.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;Sleep, darling, sleep, and I will keep
+  Close by&mdash;heigh ho.&rdquo;&mdash;To keep
+  Himself awake the father strives.
+  But he&mdash;he, too&mdash;must sleep.
+
+  &ldquo;Oh mother dear! wert, wert thou near
+  Whilst&mdash;sleep!&rdquo; The orphan slept;
+  And all night long, by the black pit-heap
+  The mother a dumb watch kept.
+</pre>
+<p>
+    From here, northward, the coast is rather dull and uninteresting,
+    although the sands are fine, until we reach Blyth, at the mouth of the
+    little river of the same name. This town is growing rapidly in size and
+    importance; the export of coal has greatly increased since the harbour
+    was so much improved by Sir Matthew White Ridley, and now totals some
+    millions of tones a year. The river Wansbeck not far north of the mouth
+    of the Blyth, in the latter part of its course flows through a district
+    begrimed by all the necessary accompaniments of the traffic in &ldquo;black
+    diamonds,&rdquo; and reaches the sea between the colliery villages of Cambois
+    and North Seaton.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the point at the northern curve of Newbiggin Bay stands Newbiggin
+    Church, and ancient building, whose steeple, &ldquo;leaning all awry,&rdquo; is a
+    well-known landmark for sailors. The site of this church is in danger
+    of being undermined by the waves, and, indeed, part of the churchyard
+    crumbled away many years ago; but such defences as are possible have
+    been built up around it,&mdash;and the danger averted for a time. Newbiggin
+    itself is a large fishing village and an increasingly popular holiday
+    resort, for it possesses not only good sands but a wide moor near at
+    hand which provides one of the best of golf courses; and, also, a short
+    distance along the coast, are the attractive Fairy Rocks.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Newbiggin was a town of some importance in Plantagenet days, with a busy
+    harbour, and a pier; and in the reign of Edward II. it was required to
+    contribute a vessel towards the naval defence of the Kingdom.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Northward from Newbiggin Point is the magnificent sweep of Druridge Bay,
+    stretching in a fine curve of ten miles or more to Hauxley Haven. Here,
+    the sands of a warm golden colour, the wind-swept bents of silvery-grey,
+    and the vivid green of the grassy cliff tops edge the curve of the bay
+    with a line of bright and delicate colour, only thrown into greater
+    relief by the brown reefs and ridges which stretch out from the rocky
+    shores, and by the deep blue-green of the waves rolling inshore in long
+    majestic lines, to break into hissing foam on the sharp reefs, or slide
+    smoothly up the yellow sands in the centre of the bay. Above, beyond the
+    grassy tops of the cliffs, stretch deep woods, with the old pele-tower
+    of Cresswell looking out from amongst the trees, fields many-coloured
+    with their burden of varying crops, and wide lonely moors, where one may
+    walk for half a day without hearing any sound save the wild screaming of
+    sea-birds, or the whistle of the wind, with the low boom of the waves
+    below sounding a deep-toned accompaniment. The bay is not always so
+    peaceful, however, and many wild scenes and terrible shipwrecks have
+    taken place here, as everywhere along our wild north-east coast. The
+    Bondicar rocks, by Hauxley, and the cruel spikes of the reef at Snab
+    Point, near Cresswell, have betrayed many a gallant little vessel to her
+    doom. Not, however, without bringing on many an occasion proof of the
+    courage which is shown as a matter of course by the fisher folk on our
+    coasts. At Newbiggin, and Cresswell, for instance, deeds have been done,
+    which, in their simple unassuming heroism, may be taken as typical of
+    the hardy race which could count Grace Darling among its daughters.
+</p>
+<p>
+    About thirty years ago, a ship drove ashore off Cresswell one bitter
+    night in January, and the fisher folk crowded down to the shore,
+    watching with sorrowful eyes the hapless crew clinging to their
+    unfortunate vessel, which was slowly being broken up by the waves. There
+    was no lifeboat at Cresswell then, and all the men of the village,
+    except the old men who were past work, had gone northward, when the
+    oncoming storm prevented their return. The women and girls heard the
+    cries of the schooner&rsquo;s crew, and mourned to each other their inability
+    to help. But one gallant-hearted girl, named Peggy Brown, cried out, &ldquo;If
+    I thowt she could hing on a bit, I wad be away for the lifeboat.&rdquo; But
+    between them and Newbiggin, the nearest lifeboat station, the Lyne Burn
+    runs into the sea, and spreads widely out over the sands; and the older
+    people told Peggy she could never cross the burn in the dark. She set
+    off, however, the thought of the drowning men hastening her on. For four
+    miles she made her way in the storm and darkness, partly along the
+    shore, scrambling over rock&rsquo;s, and wading waist-deep through the Lyne
+    Burn and one or two other places where the waves had driven far up the
+    sands, and partly across Newbiggin Moor, where the icy wind tore at her
+    in her drenched clothing. She pressed on, however, and managed to reach
+    the coxswain&rsquo;s house and give her message. The lifeboat was immediately
+    run out, and the men reached the wreck in time to save all the crew
+    except one, who had been washed overboard.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On another occasion one of the fishermen, named Tom Brown, was preparing
+    to go out, with the help of his two sons, in his own fishing coble to
+    the aid of a ship in distress on the reef. A carter had come down to the
+    beach, the better to watch the progress of events, and, terrified by the
+    thundering waves, his horse took fright, and in its plunging drove the
+    cart against the little boat, making a hole clear through one side. &ldquo;Big
+    Tom,&rdquo; as he was generally called, merely took off his coat, rolled it
+    into a bundle and stuffed it against the hole. Then he beckoned to
+    another fisherman, saying to him &ldquo;Sit on that.&rdquo; The man clambered in,
+    and without the loss of another minute these four heroes set off to save
+    their fellow creatures&rsquo; lives, with a broken and leaking boat in a heavy
+    sea. And they did it, reaching the brig only just in time, for it went
+    to pieces a few minutes after the shivering crew had been safely landed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Incidents like these, which could be multiplied indefinitely, bring a
+    glow of pride to the heart, and a reassuring sense that the degeneration
+    of the race is not proceeding in such wholesale fashion&mdash;in the country
+    districts, at any rate&mdash;as the pessimists would have us believe.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At the northern extremity of Druridge Bay is the little fishing village
+    of Hauxley, with the chimneys and pit-head engines of Ratcliffe and
+    Broomhill Collieries darkening the sky to the south-west. Passing the
+    Bondicar rocks and rounding the point we enter the &ldquo;fairway&rdquo; for
+    Warkworth Harbour and Amble, where a brisk exportation of the coal of
+    the neighbourhood is carried on.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Lying out at sea, opposite Amble coastguard station, the white
+    lighthouse on Coquet Island keeps watch over the entrance to the
+    harbour. Some of the walls of the monastery, which stood on the island
+    in Saxon days, can now be seen forming part of the dwelling of the
+    lighthouse keeper. For many generations, too, hermit after hermit went
+    to dwell on this tiny islet, and St. Cuthbert himself is said to have
+    inhabited the little cell at one time. The island was captured by the
+    Scots in the Civil Wars of King Charles&rsquo;s reign, and held by them for a
+    time.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The situation of Amble, at the mouth of the Coquet, has been looked upon
+    as convenient from very early days, for there are signs which tell us of
+    a population here at an early period. Several cist-vaens, or ancient
+    stone coffins, have been found near the town, and a broken Roman altar
+    was unearthed in the neighbourhood. The monastery which stood here, like
+    that on Holy Island, was, in later times, inhabited by Benedictine
+    monks, who were under the authority of the Prior of Tynemouth. William
+    the Conqueror gave the then Prior the right to collect the tithes of the
+    little town.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A short distance from Amble, and practically encircled by the Coquet
+    which here makes a wide sweep, we come upon Warkworth, prettiest of
+    villages, combining the beauties of sea-shore and river scenery, and
+    rich in the possession of that romantic castle, the ruins of which carry
+    the mind back to Saxon times; for they stand on the site of an older
+    fortress erected by Ceolwulf, a Saxon King of Northumbria. He was the
+    patron of Bede, who dedicated his &ldquo;Ecclesiastical History&rdquo; to his royal
+    friend. Ceolwulf built both the fortress and the earliest church at
+    Warkworth, and a few stones of this latter building are still to be
+    seen. In 737, two years after the death of Bede, this royal Saxon laid
+    aside his kingly state and became a monk on Lindisfarne,
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;When he, for cowl and beads, laid down
+  The Saxon battle-axe and crown.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    It was when the castle was bestowed by Edward III. upon Lord Percy of
+    Alnwick that it became, for more than two hundred years, the chief
+    residence of that illustrious family; becoming in the next reign of
+    historical value as the home of that Hotspur whose valour and gallantry
+    made Henry IV. envy the Earl of Northumberland, in that he &ldquo;should be
+    the father of so blest a son.&rdquo; In Act II., Scene 3 of &ldquo;Henry IV.,&rdquo; Part
+    II., Shakespeare has laid the scene at Warkworth Castle, where Hotspur&rsquo;s
+    wife, troubled by her lord&rsquo;s moody abstraction, tries to win from him
+    the reason of his secret care. And after the battle of Shrewsbury,
+    Rumour, flying with the news of Hotspur&rsquo;s death, says:&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Thus have I rumoured through the peasant towns,
+  Between the royal field of Shrewsbury
+  And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,
+  Where Hotspur&rsquo;s father, old Northumberland,
+  Lies crafty-sick.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Two years after this, the castle was besieged by Henry IV. himself, and
+    surrendered to him after a brief bombardment by the newly invented
+    cannon. The keep was re-built by Hotspur&rsquo;s son, after the family
+    possessions had been restored to him by Henry V., and it is now the only
+    remaining part of the castle which is almost perfect. One of the
+    half-ruinous towers remaining is called the Lion Tower, from the
+    sculptured lion on its walls; while another rejoices in the curious name
+    of Cradyfargus. A strange story is told of a blue stone to be seen in
+    the courtyard of the castle. Many years ago, so runs the tale, one of
+    the custodians of Warkworth Castle dreamed three nights in succession
+    that a large treasure was concealed beneath a blue stone in a certain
+    part of the castle grounds. He told this dream to a neighbour, and after
+    allowing two or three days to pass, finding the dream constantly
+    recurring to his mind, he thought he would go to the place indicated,
+    and see what he could find. To his disappointment, however, he
+    discovered that some one had been there before him; a large hole had
+    been dug, and on the edge of it lay the blue stone.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Needless to say, the hole was empty, nor could the keeper discover
+    anything about the treasure in the neighbourhood. It is said that a
+    certain family in the village became suddenly rich; and, many years
+    afterwards, a large and ancient pot, supposed to have been that in which
+    the buried treasure had been contained, was found in the Coquet.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The main street of Warkworth leads straight up to the postern gate of
+    the castle, and many stirring sights have the successive inhabitants of
+    the little village looked upon, as the fortunes of the owners of the
+    castle waxed and waned throughout the many centuries in which the lords
+    of Warkworth played a notable part in the history of England. They saw
+    Henry Percy, entrusted with a share in the safe keeping of the country,
+    set out from Warkworth for Durham, to help in winning the victory of
+    Neville&rsquo;s Cross.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They saw Hotspur&rsquo;s force set out for the Cheviots to intercept Douglas
+    and his followers, which they did at Homildon Hill, near Wooler; and it
+    was the quarrel in connection with the prisoners taken on that day which
+    led Hotspur and his father openly to throw off their allegiance to
+    Henry IV., so that a few months later the peasants of Warkworth saw
+    their idolised young lord set out for what was to prove the fatal field
+    of Shrewsbury. They saw Hotspur&rsquo;s father, the first Henry Percy to
+    receive the title of Earl, (a title which had been given him at the
+    coronation of Richard II.) set out with a brave force after Hotspur&rsquo;s
+    departure; and they saw his return, almost alone, dejected and broken in
+    spirit, having learnt that the help so tardily given had come too late,
+    and the life of his gallant son was ended.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They saw the siege train of Henry Bolingbroke laid against the castle,
+    directed by Henry in person, provoked into these active measures by the
+    open rebellion of father and son, though Northumberland had tried to
+    make it appear that he was innocent of any treasonable act. After
+    capturing the castle, Bolingbroke bestowed it on his third son, John of
+    Lancaster, and the villagers saw the young prince riding in and out
+    among them daily so long as he made the castle his home.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Then, in the next reign, they welcomed the return of Hotspur&rsquo;s son,
+    Henry, to the home of his fathers, restored to him by Henry V.; and,
+    within a short time, saw him bring home his bride, Eleanor Neville,
+    daughter of his friend and neighbour, the Earl of Westmoreland.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the Wars of the Roses, Warkworth Castle saw many changes of fortune,
+    as the tide of victory flowed this way and that. The Percies were all
+    Lancastrians, though Sir Ralph Percy changed sides twice. The castle
+    fell into the hands of the Yorkists, and the great Earl of Warwick, the
+    &ldquo;King-maker&rdquo; himself, made it his headquarters for a time, while he
+    superintended the sieges of Alnwick, Dunstanborough, and Bamburgh, which
+    were all invested at the same time. Eventually, after the Wars of the
+    Roses concluded, Warkworth was restored, along with the other Percy
+    estates, to its original owners.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Finally, the inhabitants of the little village saw the church entered by
+    the Jacobites in 1715, when Mr. Buxton, chaplain of the little force,
+    prayed for James III. and Mary the Queen-mother; and General Forster,
+    dressed as a trumpeter, proclaimed King James III. at the village cross.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A few miles north from the mouth of the Coquet, the little Aln spreads
+    over the sandy flats near Alnmouth, and reaches the sea. It has changed
+    its course, for at one time it flowed to the south of Church Hill,
+    instead of to the north as at present. The town of Alnmouth, viewed from
+    the train just before entering Alnmouth Station, looks very picturesque,
+    especially if the rare sunshine of an English summer should be lighting
+    up the bay, bringing out the vivid red of the tiled roofs against the
+    grassy hills fringing the links which lie on their seaward side, and
+    lighting up, also, the yellow sands and long lines of sparkling wavelets
+    edged with white.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Alnmouth depends for its living on a fleet of fishing boats, and on the
+    numbers of visitors who seek its fresh breezes and inviting shores each
+    summer. Golfers, indeed, find it pleasant all the year round, as there
+    is only a scarcely appreciable interval in the winter months when their
+    favourite pastime cannot be followed on the breezy links. On Church
+    Hill, now crowned by a few old stones, once stood a Norman church,
+    dedicated to St. Valery, which, in its turn, occupied the site of an
+    older Saxon building, supposed to have been the church which Bede refers
+    to as being at Twyford, where a great synod of clergy was held in the
+    year 684, and Cuthbert appointed Bishop of Lindisfarne. It is a matter
+    of dispute whether this Twyford was Alnmouth or Whittingham, but the
+    two fords at Alnmouth seem to point to a decision in favour of that
+    place. The old Norman church, which fell into ruin at the beginning of
+    last century, was fired at by the famous pirate Paul Jones; the cannon
+    shot, weighing 68 pounds, missed the church, but struck a neighbouring
+    farm house, doing great damage.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The coast north of Alnmouth becomes rocky and wild, and very
+    picturesque, and the villages along the coast are being sought out by
+    holiday makers in increasing numbers, year by year. Boulmer, one of
+    these villages, was a famous place for smuggling in the old days, and
+    many an exciting scene and sharp encounter took place between the
+    smugglers and the King&rsquo;s men. Not far away is Howick Dene, a lovely
+    little glen leading down to the sea from Howick Hall, the home of Earl
+    Grey.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Cullernose Point, a striking crag, is formed by the outcrop of a portion
+    of the Great Whin Sill, which from here can be traced to the south-west,
+    and thence right across the county.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At Craster, another fishing village and a favourite holiday haunt, is
+    Craster Tower, which has been the home of the family of Craster since
+    before the Conquest. Not far to the north is the famous Rumble Churn in
+    the rocks below Dunstanborough Castle, where the waves roll in and out
+    of the caves and chasms with weird and hollow rumblings. There is
+    another Rumbling Churn in the cliffs near Howick.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The famous divine of the Middle Ages, John Duns Scotus, was born in this
+    parish&mdash;that of Embleton; the group of buildings known as Dunston Hall,
+    or Proctor&rsquo;s Steads, is supposed to have been his birthplace, and a
+    portrait of the learned doctor is to be seen there.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Dunstanborough Castle stands in lonely grandeur on great whinstone
+    crags, close to the very edge of the sea, and on the first sight of it,
+    Keats&rsquo; wonderful lines spring involuntarily to the lips:&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Magic casements, opening on the foam
+  Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Forlorn, indeed, though not in exactly the sense conveyed by the poem,
+    is this huge fortress now; it abides, says Freeman, &ldquo;as a castle should
+    abide, in all the majesty of a shattered ruin.&rdquo; The primitive cannon of
+    the days of the Wars of the Roses began to shatter those mighty walls,
+    and, unlike Bamborough, it has never been strengthened since. Simon de
+    Montford once owned this estate, and the next lord of Dunstanborough was
+    a son of Henry III., to whom Earl Simon&rsquo;s forfeited estate was given.
+    His eldest son, Thomas of Lancaster, took part with the barons in
+    bringing the unworthy favourite of Edward II., Piers Gaveston, to his
+    death. Under the King&rsquo;s anger, Lancaster went away to his Northumbrian
+    estate, and began to build this mighty fortress, though he already owned
+    the castles of Kenilworth and Pontefract. In the Wars of the Roses,
+    Dunstanborough Castle was taken and retaken no less than five times, and
+    Queen Margaret found refuge here, as well as at Bamburgh; but apart from
+    these occasions, Dunstanborough has not taken nearly so great a part in
+    either local or national history as the other Northumbrian castles of
+    Bamburgh, Warkworth, and Alnwick, though greater in extent than any of
+    them. In 1538 an official report describes &ldquo;Dunstunburht&rdquo; as &ldquo;a very
+    reuynous howse&rdquo;; and the process of dilapidation was soon aided by
+    enterprising dwellers in the neighbourhood using the stones of the
+    forsaken castle to build their own homesteads.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From the castle northward curves Embleton Bay, in which, after having
+    been buried in the sand for ages, a sandstone rock was uncovered by the
+    tide, having on its surface, chiselled in rough but distinct lettering,
+    the name &ldquo;Andra Barton.&rdquo; Sir Andrew Barton, daring Scottish sea-captain
+    and fearless freebooter, was slain in a sea-fight off this part of the
+    coast, in the days of Henry VIII., by the sons of Surrey, one of whom,
+    Sir Thomas Howard, was Lord Admiral at the time, and so, in a measure,
+    responsible for the defence of the English coast. The loss of his brave
+    sea-captain and his &ldquo;goodly ships&rdquo; was one of the grievances in the long
+    list which led King James IV. to declare war against England, and led to
+    the fatal field of Flodden, in which Admiral Sir Thomas Howard and his
+    brother took part under the command of their father, the Earl of Surrey.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The wide sweep of grassy common beyond the sands in Embleton Bay is, in
+    summer time, covered with a profusion of wild flowers, chief amongst
+    them being the wild geranium, or meadow cranes-bill, whose
+    reddish-purple blossoms grow in such abundance as to arrest the
+    attention of every visitor. A little way back from the sea-shore, in the
+    middle of this wide space, lies the village of Embleton, which possesses
+    an ancient and interesting church, and a vicarage, part of which is
+    formed by an old pele-tower. Embleton would seem to have a reputation to
+    keep up in the way of famous churchmen. Duns Scotus has been already
+    mentioned; and one of the vicars here was a cousin of Richard Steele,
+    the essayist and friend of Addison; and he described the country squires
+    of his day in a paper which he contributed to the &ldquo;Spectator&rdquo; of that
+    date, 1712.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Another Vicar of Embleton, who lived here from 1874 to 1884, was Dr.
+    Mandell Creighton, the learned historian, who became Bishop of London.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The well-known journalist, W.T. Stead, was born in the parish of
+    Embleton, though his childhood was passed in very different
+    surroundings, in the narrow streets and grimy atmosphere of
+    Howdon-on-Tyne. His recent death on the ill-fated <i>Titanic</i> will be
+    fresh in the minds of all.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Newton-by-the-Sea is reached by a pleasant walk along the sea-shore. (It
+    is to be understood that in this journey along the coast we are moving
+    northward always). There is here a cheery-looking white-washed
+    coastguard station standing on the bold headland of Newton Point.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Past this point is Beadnell Bay, with green and grassy Beadnell just
+    beyond Little Rock. The small fishing harbour at Beadnell has the unique
+    distinction of being the only harbour on the east coast whose mouth
+    faces west, and the short pier, running <i>inland</i> from rocks to shore,
+    acts as a breakwater against the heavy easterly or southeasterly seas
+    and makes the harbour a safe anchorage for fishing craft or small
+    yachts. The rocks around this bay are very interesting, showing the
+    various strata very plainly, and containing many fossils. The striking
+    cliff called Ebbe&rsquo;s Nook is supposed to have been named after the Saxon
+    princess Ebba, sister to King Oswald, and the ruins which were
+    discovered on the headland, to be all that is left of a chapel erected
+    to her memory.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At Seahouses is an extensive fish-curing establishment, a fact which
+    proclaims itself unmistakably as you near the village, especially if the
+    day chance to be at all warm. A little distance from the shore is
+    another fishing village, North Sunderland, and northward from Seahouses
+    is the inn called The Monkshouse, from the fact that it once belonged to
+    the community on Lindisfarne.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Bamburgh Castle, magnificently placed on a lofty crag rising
+    perpendicularly from the greensward on the west or landward side, and
+    almost as steeply from the sea which washes the north and east sides,
+    lies like a majestic lion on its mighty rock &ldquo;brooding on ancient
+    fame.&rdquo; The voices of children at play on the sands below sound faint and
+    far in the still air; the sea birds, with the summer sunshine flashing
+    on their outspread wings, sweep round and round; in the far distance a
+    trail of smoke low down on the horizon marks the track of a passing
+    steamer; and near at hand, southward a little way from the castle cliff,
+    the rocky islets of the Farne group lie drowsily asleep on the
+    gently-heaving swell of the grey-blue waters. Behind the castle lies the
+    pretty old-fashioned village with its quaint hostelries and grove of
+    trees; and from the higher parts of the new golf-links the player may
+    look round on a view which would be difficult to match, comprising as it
+    does, the Farne Islands and Dunstanborough to the south, and northward,
+    Holy Island, with its castle and abbey and the bluish haze of smoke
+    lying over Berwick; while, on the western skyline, on a clear day, may
+    be seen the rounded caps of the Cheviots.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The beginnings of Bamburgh take us back more than a thousand years, to
+    that long-ago summer of 547, when the <i>cyuls</i> (keels) of the marauding
+    Bernician chieftain Ida and his followers grounded on the shore of our
+    Northland, and the work of conquest began. Ida was not slow to grasp the
+    importance of such a commanding site as this isolated mass of basaltic
+    crag, and the rude stronghold which crowned it. It became in time a
+    formidable fortress, and remained for centuries the headquarters of the
+    kings of the North.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Here reigned Ida and his sons&mdash;six of them&mdash;for more or less short and
+    stormy periods, and Ethelric of Bernicia, who vanquished the
+    neighbouring prince of Deira, and thus reigned as the first king of
+    Northumbria as Northumbria. The Celtic name of the fortress was
+    Dinguardi, or Dinguvardy; and tradition has it that this was Sir
+    Lancelot&rsquo;s castle of Joyeuse Garde, where he had often feasted the
+    Knights of the Round Table, and where he, at last, came home to die. The
+    fact that Bamburgh is the only pre-Conquest castle in Northumberland
+    disposes of the claim of Alnwick.
+</p>
+<p>
+    &ldquo;My fair lords,&rdquo; said sir Launcelot, &ldquo;wit ye well, my careful body will
+    into the earth; I have warning more than I will now say; therefore, I
+    pray you, give me my rights.&rdquo; So when he was houseled and eneled, and
+    had all that a Christian man ought to have, he prayed the bishop that
+    his fellows might bear his body unto Joyous Gard.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Some men say Anwick, and some men say to Bamborow; &ldquo;how-beit,&rdquo; said sir
+    Launcelot, &ldquo;me repenteth sore; but I made mine avow aforetime, that in
+    Joyous Gard I would be buried; and because of breaking of mine vow, I
+    pray you all lead me thither.&rdquo; Then was there weeping and wringing of
+    hands among all his fellows.
+</p>
+<p>
+    And so, within fifteen days, they came to Joyous Gard, and there they
+    laid his corpse in the body of the quire, and read many psalters and
+    prayers over him and about him.... And right thus, as they were at their
+    service, there came sir Ector de Maris, that had sought seven years all
+    England, Scotland and Wales, seeking his brother sir Launcelot.... Then
+    went sir Bors unto sir Ector, and told him how there lay his brother sir
+    Launcelot dead.
+</p>
+<p>
+    And then sir Ector threw his shield, his sword, and his helm from him;
+    and when he beheld sir Launcelot&rsquo;s visage, he fell down in a swoon; and
+    when he awoke, it were hard for any tongue to tell the doleful
+    complaints that he made for his brother. &ldquo;Ah! sir Launcelot,&rdquo; said he,
+    &ldquo;thou wert head of all Christian knights!&rdquo; &ldquo;And now, I dare say,&rdquo; said
+    sir Bors, &ldquo;that sir Launcelot, there thou liest, thou wert never matched
+    of none earthly knight&rsquo;s hands; and thou wert the courtliest knight that
+    ever bare a shield; and thou wert the truest friend to thy lover that
+    ever bestrod horse; and thou wert the truest lover of a sinful man that
+    ever loved woman; and thou wert the kindest man that ever stroke with
+    sword; and thou wert the goodliest person that ever came among press of
+    knights; and thou wert the meekest man, and the gentlest, that ever eat
+    in hall among ladies; and thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal
+    foe, that ever put spear in the rest.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    Then there was weeping and dolor out of measure.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &mdash;<i>Malory&rsquo;s Morte d&rsquo;Arthur</i>.
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Ethelfrith, who succeeded Ethelric, gave the fort to his second wife,
+    Bebba, after whom it was named Bebbanburgh, which soon became Bamburgh.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the days of King Edwin, who succeeded Ethelfrith, Bamburgh was the
+    centre of a kingdom which extended from the Humber to the Forth, and as
+    Northumbria was at that time the most important division of England, the
+    royal city of Bernicia was practically the capital of the country. The
+    reign of King Oswald, though shorter than that of Edwin, was equally
+    noteworthy from the fact that in his days the gentle Aidan settled in
+    Northumbria, and king and monk worked together for the good of their
+    people, and Bamburgh became not only the seat of temporal power but the
+    safeguard and bulwark of the spiritual movement centred on the little
+    isle of Lindisfarne. On the accession of Edwin, Oswald, son of
+    Ethelfrith, had fled from Bernicia and taken refuge with the monks of
+    Iona, living with them till the time came for him to rule Northumbria in
+    his turn. As soon as possible after the inevitable fighting for his
+    political existence was over, he sent to Iona for a teacher to come and
+    instruct his people in the truths he had learned; and a monk named
+    Corman was sent. He, however, was unable to make any impression on the
+    wild and warlike Saxons of the northern kingdom, and he soon returned to
+    Iona with the report that it was useless to try to teach such obstinate
+    and barbarous people. One of the brethren, listening to his account,
+    ventured to ask him if he were sure that all the fault lay with the
+    people. &ldquo;Did you remember,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that we are commanded to give them
+    the milk first? Did you not rather try them with the strong meat?&rdquo; With
+    one accord the brethren declared that he who had spoken such wise words
+    was the man best fitted for the task, and the gentle Aidan was sent to
+    Oswald&rsquo;s help. In such a fashion came the Gospel to Northumbria, and
+    Aidan became the first of the long roll of saints whose deeds and lives
+    had such incalculable influence on Northumbrian history. From Aidan&rsquo;s
+    arrival in 635 until the death of Oswald the relations between the king
+    and the monk who had settled on Medcaud or Medcaut, soon to be known as
+    Lindisfarne, and later as Holy Island, were those of friend to friend
+    and fellow-worker, rather than those of king and subject.
+</p>
+<p>
+    After the death of Oswald, his conqueror Penda, the fierce King of the
+    Mercians, harried Northumbria, and appearing before the walls of
+    Bamburgh prepared to burn it down. Piles of logs and brushwood were laid
+    against the city and the fire was applied. Aidan, in his little cell on
+    Farne Island, to which he had retired, saw the clouds of flame and smoke
+    rolling over the home of his beloved patron. Raising his hands to
+    Heaven, he exclaimed, &ldquo;See, Lord, what ill Penda is doing!&rdquo; Scarcely had
+    he uttered the words, when the wind changed, and drove the flames away
+    from Bamburgh, blowing them against Penda&rsquo;s host, who thereupon ceased
+    all further attempts against the city.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Not long after this, Aidan was at Bamburgh, when he was seized with
+    sudden illness, and died with his head resting against one of the wooden
+    stays of the little church. Penda came again the next year, and this
+    time both village and church were burnt, all except, says tradition, the
+    beam of wood against which Aidan had rested in his last moments.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the Danish ships appeared off our shores, in the two centuries
+    following, Bamburgh was attacked and plundered several times. In the
+    days of William Rufus, as we have seen, Robert de Mowbray, Earl of
+    Northumberland, rebelled against the Red King, in company with his
+    uncle the Bishop of Coutances, Robert of Normandy, and William of St.
+    Carileph, Bishop of Durham. Rufus marched into Northumberland, but the
+    quarrel was adjusted for the time; though private strife between the two
+    Bishops led to Mowbray&rsquo;s driving the monks of Durham from the Priory at
+    Tynemouth and replacing them by monks from St. Albans.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Later, however, Mowbray disobeyed a summons from the Red King, who once
+    more marched into Northumberland. He reached Bamburgh, and invested it,
+    but failed to make any impression on that impregnable stronghold, within
+    whose walls were Mowbray and his young wife, the Countess Matilda, and
+    his nephew, who was Sheriff of Northumberland. Rufus, finding all
+    attempts to carry the fortress useless, began to build a wooden fort,
+    called a <i>Malvoisin</i>, or &ldquo;Bad neighbour&rdquo;; and so anxious was he to have
+    it speedily erected that he made knights and nobles as well as his
+    men-at-arms take part in the work.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Mowbray, from the battlements, called out to many of these by name,
+    openly taunting those who had secretly promised to join him, or had
+    expressed themselves as in sympathy with his disobedience. His words
+    gave great amusement to Rufus and the nobles who were truly loyal, and
+    much mortification and vexation to those whom he so ruthlessly exposed.
+    Rufus left the &ldquo;Bad neighbour&rdquo; to continue the siege and went southward.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Mowbray, led to believe that Newcastle would receive him, and take his
+    part, stole away from Bamburgh by sea, and reached Tynemouth. On
+    proceeding to Newcastle, however, he found he had been mistaken, and
+    hurriedly fled hack to Tynemouth, pursued by his enemies. He held out
+    against them for a day or two, but was then captured and taken to
+    Durham. Meanwhile the high-spirited Countess held Bamburgh against all
+    assailants; but Mowbray&rsquo;s capture gave Rufus an advantage he was not
+    slow to use. Returning to the North, he ordered Mowbray to be brought
+    before the walls of Bamburgh, and threatened to put his eyes out if the
+    Countess did not immediately surrender. Needless to say, she preferred
+    to give up the castle, and Mowbray&rsquo;s reign as Earl of Northumberland was
+    over.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thereafter Bamburgh was visited by various sovereigns in turn, when
+    their affairs brought them to the northerly parts of their kingdom. When
+    Balliol, tired of long years of conflict, surrendered most of his rights
+    to Edward III., it was at Bamburgh that the convention was concluded. In
+    this reign the castle was greatly strengthened.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the Wars of the Roses, Bamburgh was held for the queen by the
+    Lancastrian nobles of the north country&mdash;Percy and Ros&mdash;with the Earl of
+    Pembroke and Duke of Somerset; but was obliged on Christmas Eve, 1462,
+    to capitulate to a superior force. The next year the Scots and the
+    queen&rsquo;s French allies surprised it, and re-captured it for Henry VI. and
+    his courageous queen; but Warwick, &ldquo;the King-maker,&rdquo; came upon the
+    scene, and after a stout resistance the garrison surrendered.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the Union of the Crowns took place in 1603, Bamburgh was no longer
+    necessary as a defence against the Scots, and its defences were
+    neglected. The Forsters, into whose hands it passed in the days of James
+    I., were a spendthrift family, and gradually wasted their rich estate,
+    until in 1704 it had to be sold, and was bought by Lord Crewe. He was
+    Bishop of Durham at the time, having been promoted to that position by
+    Charles II., who liked his handsome figure and pleasing manners. When at
+    the age of fifty-eight, he wished to marry Dorothea Forster, daughter of
+    Sir William Forster, of Bamburgh, the lady, who was many years younger,
+    refused him at first; but some years later he renewed his suit, and this
+    time was accepted. When the Forster estates were sold and their debts
+    paid, there was scarcely anything left for the heirs&mdash;Lady Crewe and her
+    nephew, Thomas Forster, who afterwards became the General of the
+    ill-fated Jacobite rising in 1715, and whose escape after his capture
+    was contrived by his high-spirited sister, Dorothy Forster the second.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Lord Crewe, in his will, left a great part of his fortune to found the
+    Bamburgh Trust, for which his name will ever be remembered. The most
+    notable of the trustees, Archdeacon Sharp, administered the moneys in so
+    wise and beneficent a manner that to him most of the credit is due for
+    the real usefulness of the Crewe charities. These include a surgery and
+    dispensary; schools; the relief of persons in distress; the clothing and
+    educating of a certain number of girls; the maintenance of a lifeboat,
+    life-saving apparatus, and everything necessary for the relief of
+    ship-wrecked persons. A lifeboat, kept in the harbour at Holy Island, is
+    always ready to go out on a signal from Bamburgh Castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The castle was extensively restored and repaired by the late Lord
+    Armstrong; but, sad to say, since his death it has been stripped of many
+    of its treasures. The church, dedicated to St. Aidan, stands at the west
+    end of the village; but there is no vestige remaining of the one built
+    in Saxon times, the present building having been erected when Henry II.
+    was king. In the churchyard is the grave of Grace Darling, and many
+    hundreds come to look on the last resting place of the gentle girl who
+    was yet so heroic, when her compassionate heart nerved her girlish frame
+    to the gallant effort on behalf of her fellow-creatures in dire peril,
+    when she
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;.... rode the waves none else durst ride,
+                 None save her sire.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The beautiful monument over her grave is by Raymond Smith, and is an
+    exact duplicate of the original one, also by him, which was being
+    injured so much by the weather that it was removed to a position inside
+    the church. The duplicate was commissioned by Lord (then Sir William)
+    Armstrong.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The island on which yet stands the lighthouse which was Grace&rsquo;s home is
+    the Longstone, almost the farthest seaward of the rocky group of the
+    Farnes, lying almost opposite Bamburgh. The Longstone is only about four
+    feet above high-water mark, so that in stormy weather the lighthouse is
+    fiercely assailed by the heavy seas, and the keepers are often driven
+    for refuge to the upper chambers. To the Longstone might with truth be
+    attributed the opening lines of Kipling&rsquo;s poem, &ldquo;The Coastwise
+    Lights&rdquo;:&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Our brows are bound with spindrift, and the weed is on our knees,
+  Our loins are battered &rsquo;neath us by the swinging, smoking seas;
+  From reef, and rock, and skerry, over headland, ness, and voe,
+  The coastwise lights of England watch the ships of England go.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    There are about twenty of these little islets to be seen at low tide,
+    and very curious are some of their names&mdash;The Megstone, The Crumstone,
+    The Navestone, The Harcars, The Wedums, The Noxes (Knokys), and The
+    Wawmses. The largest, Farne Island, is the nearest to the coast, and is
+    the one to which St. Aidan retired, and on which St. Cuthbert made
+    himself a cell, and where he lived for some years, leaving Lindisfarne
+    (Holy Island) very often for months together, to dwell alone on this
+    almost bare rock and devote himself to holy meditation and prayer.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To this island came King Ecgfrith of Northumbria with Archbishop
+    Trumwine and other representatives of the Synod to beg the hermit to
+    accept the Bishopric of Hexham; and it was on this island that St.
+    Cuthbert died, the monks who had gone to look after him signalling the
+    news of his death to his brethren at Lindisfarne by means of torches.
+    The island is rocky and precipitous, with deep chasms between the high
+    cliffs; and when a north wind blows, the columns of foam and spray, from
+    the waters dashing into the chasms and over the tops of the cliffs, may
+    be seen from the mainland rising high into the air.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Before the first lighthouse was built on Farne Island, in 1766, a coal
+    fire was kindled every night on the top of the tower-like building used
+    as a fort. This method of warning passing vessels had been used
+    continuously since the days of Charles II. In great contrast to this is
+    the modern lighthouse, with its acetylene gas lights and its automatic
+    flash apparatus.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Close to Stapel Island are the three high basaltic pillars, of rock
+    called the Pinnacles. On all these islands sea-birds breed, but
+    especially on the Pinnacles, the Big and Little Harcar, and the islet
+    called the Brownsman.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thousands and thousands of them perch and chatter on the rocks and fly
+    screaming in the air, amongst them being guillemots, kittiwakes, gulls,
+    terns, cormorants, puffins, and eider-ducks, for which latter St.
+    Cuthbert is said to have had great affection; certainly they are the
+    gentlest of these wild sea-fowl.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Bidding farewell to the rocky Farnes, we sail past Budle Bay, into which
+    runs the Warenburn and the Elwick burn, and underneath whose sandy flats
+    is the buried town of Warnmouth, once a busy seaport, to which Henry
+    III. granted a charter. Approaching Lindisfarne, &ldquo;Our isle of Saints,
+    low-lying on the blue breast of the curling waters, is hushed and silent
+    in the lightly-purple mists of morning, like the wide aisles of a great
+    cathedral at daybreak, before the feet and tongues of sightseers disturb
+    the solemn stillness. The tideway is covered with water, and the
+    footprints of the pilgrims who came yesterday to the shrine of St.
+    Cuthbert have passed into oblivion like footmarks on the sands of time.&rdquo;
+    (<i>Galloway Kyle</i>.) The modern pilgrim to Holy Island generally takes
+    train to Beal station, and from there walks to the seashore, and crosses
+    the long stretch of sand between Holy Island and the mainland. The
+    governing factor in the possibility or otherwise of making the journey
+    is the state of the tide, for these sands are entirely covered by the
+    sea twice a day, so that Holy Island can only be said to be an island at
+    high tide.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;For with the flow and ebb, its style
+  Varies from continent to isle;
+  Dry-shod, o&rsquo;er sands, twice every day
+  The pilgrims to the shrine find way;
+  Twice every day the waves efface
+  Of staves and sandall&rsquo;d feet the trace.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    There are dangerous quicksands on the way, too, and a row of stakes
+    points out the proper course to be taken.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We have already seen that St. Aidan settled on Lindisfarne and have
+    treated of him in connection with Bamburgh. After his death another monk
+    of Iona, Finan, succeeded him and carried on his work; and after Finan
+    came Colman, who resigned after the Synod of Whitby had decided to keep
+    Easter according to southern instead of northern usage. St. Cuthbert was
+    Prior of Lindisfarne at this time. Later, the seat of the bishopric was
+    removed from Lindisfarne to York, when it was held by that restless and
+    able prelate, Wilfrid, for a time. Then the bishopric was divided and a
+    see of Hexham formed, as well as that of Lindisfarne, which included
+    Carlisle, out of the northern portion of the diocese of York.
+</p>
+<p>
+    St. Cuthbert was bishop of Lindisfarne for two years, having exchanged
+    sees with bishop Eata, who went to Hexham. The stone coffin in which St.
+    Cuthbert&rsquo;s body was pieced, after his death on Farne Island, was buried
+    on the right side of the altar in the Abbey of Lindisfarne, which by
+    this time had arisen on the little island. A later bishop, Edfrid,
+    executed a wonderful copy of the Gospels, which was illuminated by his
+    successor, Ethelwald. Another bishop enclosed it in a cover of gold and
+    silver, adorning it with jewels; and, later, a priest of Lindisfarne,
+    Aldred, wrote between the lines a translation into the vernacular, and
+    added marginal notes. This precious manuscript, a wonderful example of
+    the beautiful work done in monastic houses in the north so many
+    centuries ago, is now in the British Museum, where it is known as the
+    &ldquo;Durham Manuscript.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the pirate keels of the Danes appeared off our coasts about the end
+    of the eighth century, Lindisfarne Abbey was one of the first points of
+    attack; and in 793 it was plundered of most of its wealth, and many of
+    the monks were slain. For nearly a century afterwards it was left in
+    peace, but in 875 the Danish ships appeared again approaching from the
+    south, where they had just sacked Tynemouth Priory. The bishop,
+    Eardulph, last of the Lindisfarne prelates, and the brethren hastily
+    collected their most treasured possessions, and with the body of St.
+    Cuthbert, the bones of St. Aidan, and other precious relics, they fled
+    from their island home, and journeyed north, west, and south for many
+    years before they found a resting place at Chester-le-Street near
+    Durham. For seven years they carried with them the body of St. Cuthbert;
+    and it is said that the final choice of a resting place for the body of
+    their beloved saint was indicated to them by supernatural means as they
+    approached Durham.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1069 William the Conqueror marched northward to visit with sternest
+    punishment the hardy north-men, who were so long in submitting to his
+    authority; and the monks of Durham fled before the advance of the
+    relentless Norman, carrying with them, as before, the body of St.
+    Cuthbert. They reached Lindisfarne in safety to find the Abbey in the
+    ruinous state in which it had been left by the Danes two centuries
+    earlier. Thus, once again, the body of St. Cuthbert rested on the little
+    island where so many years of his life had been spent.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1070 the brethren returned to Durham and in 1093 the building was
+    begun, almost simultaneously, of the present glorious Cathedral of
+    Durham and a new Priory and Church on Lindisfarne, and a strong
+    resemblance may be traced between the two buildings The Abbey was
+    deserted on the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII., and
+    gradually fell into ruins.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Castle, which stands on a lofty whinstone rock at the south-east
+    corner of the island, is a conspicuous object for many miles, whether
+    viewed by land or sea. It is supposed to have been built in the reign of
+    Henry VIII., at a time when defences were commanded to be made to all
+    harbours. If the Castle has had any appreciable share of romantic
+    incidents in its history, the records thereof seem to be unknown; but
+    one which has come down to us is the account of its daring capture by an
+    ardent North-country Jacobite, Lancelot Errington, in 1715. The
+    garrison consisted of seven men, five of whom were absent. Errington,
+    who was master of a small vessel lying in the harbour, discovered this,
+    and immediately made his way to the Castle accompanied by his nephew,
+    and overpowered the two men who were left in charge, turning them out of
+    the Castle. He then signalled to the mainland for reinforcements, but
+    none were forthcoming. A company of King&rsquo;s men came instead and
+    re-occupied the place, Errington and his nephew escaping, to wander
+    about in the neighbourhood for several days, hiding from pursuit, before
+    they got clear away. The Castle was for many years the home of the
+    coastguardsmen, who must have found it a most advantageous position for
+    their purpose, as they had an uninterrupted view of miles of coast line.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Northward from Holy Island, but on the mainland, lies Goswick, from
+    whose red sandstone quarries came the material for building the Abbey of
+    Lindisfarne. Further north we come in sight of the coal pits and smoke
+    of Scremerston, while beyond it, Spittal and Tweedmouth bring us right
+    up to Berwick-on-Tweed itself, that grey old Border town which has seen
+    so many turns of fortune, and been harried again and again, only to draw
+    breath after each wild and cruel interlude, and go calmly on its quiet
+    way until it was once more called upon to fight for its very existence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Though definitely forming part of English soil since 1482, it is not
+    included in any English county, but, with about eight square miles
+    around it, forms a county by itself. Hence the addition, to any Royal
+    proclamation, of the well-known words &ldquo;And in our Town of
+    Berwick-upon-Tweed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    Sir Walter Scott&rsquo;s description of the Northumbrian coast, in his poem of
+    Marmion may well be recalled here. It will be remembered that the
+    Abbess of Whitby, with some of her nuns, was voyaging to Holy Island,
+    and we take up the description when
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;.... the vessel skirts the strand
+  Of mountainous Northumberland;
+  Towns, towers, and halls successive rise,
+  And catch the nuns&rsquo; delighted eyes.
+  Monkwearmouth soon behind them lay,
+  And Tynemouth&rsquo;s Priory and bay. They
+  marked, amid her trees, the hall Of lofty Seaton Delaval;
+  They saw the Blyth and Wansbeck floods
+  Rush to the sea through sounding woods;
+  They passed the tower of Widdrington,
+  Mother of many a valiant son;
+  At Coquet-isle their beads they tell
+  To the good saint who owned the cell.
+  Then did the Alne attention claim,
+  And Warkworth, proud of Percy&rsquo;s name;
+  And next they crossed themselves, to hear
+  The whitening breakers sound so near,
+  Where, boiling through the rocks, they roar
+  On Dunstanborough&rsquo;s caverned shore.
+  Thy tower, proud Bamburgh, marked they there,
+  King Ida&rsquo;s castle, huge and square,
+  From its tall rock look grimly down
+  And on the swelling ocean frown.
+  Then from the coast they bore away
+  And reached the Holy Island&rsquo;s bay.
+</pre>
+
+<hr />
+
+<pre>
+  As to the port the galley flew,
+  Higher and higher rose to view
+  The castle with its battled walls,
+  The ancient monastery&rsquo;s halls,
+  A solemn, huge, and dark-red pile
+  Placed on the margin of the isle.
+
+  In Saxon strength that abbey frowned,
+  With massive arches, broad and round.
+</pre>
+
+<hr/>
+
+<pre>
+  On the deep walls, the heathen Dane
+  Had poured his impious rage in vain;
+  And needful was such strength to these,
+  Exposed to the tempestuous seas,
+  Scourged by the winds&rsquo; eternal sway,
+  Open to rovers fierce as they.
+  Which could twelve hundred years withstand
+  Winds, waves, and northern pirates&rsquo; hand.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus03"></a>
+<img src="images/043.jpg" width="300" height="200" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.<br/>NORTH AND SOUTH TYNE.</h2>
+
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;On Kielder-side the wind blaws wide;
+  There sounds nae hunting horn
+  That rings sae sweet as the winds that beat
+  Round banks where Tyne is born.&rdquo;
+   &mdash;<i>A.C. Swinburne</i>.
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Between Peel Fell and Mid Fell, almost the farthest western heights of
+    the Cheviot Hills, a little mountain stream takes its rise, and flows to
+    the south and east. This little burn is the North Tyne, the beginnings
+    of that stream which, deep, dark, and swift at its mouth, bears the
+    mighty battleships there built to carry the war-flags of the nations
+    round the world. In the wild and lovely district where the North Tyne
+    takes its rise, is Kielder Castle, a shooting box belonging to the Duke
+    of Northumberland.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This neighbourhood is the scene of two romantic ballads; that of the
+    &ldquo;Cowt (colt) of Kielder&rdquo; and the Ettrick Shepherd&rsquo;s ballad of &ldquo;Sir David
+    Graeme.&rdquo; The deadly enemy of the young &ldquo;Cowt,&rdquo; so called from his great
+    strength, is Lord Soulis of Hermitage Castle, on the Scottish side of
+    the border. The Cowt, with his followers, was enticed into the Castle,
+    where Lord Soulis purposed his death; but the gigantic youth burst
+    through the circle of his foes and escaped. The evil Brownie of the
+    moorland, however, gave to Lord Soulis the secret which safeguarded the
+    young Cowt. His coat of mail was sword-proof by a spell of enchantment,
+    and he wore in his helmet rowan and holly leaves; but these would all be
+    of no avail against the power of running water. The Cowt was pursued
+    until, in crossing a burn, he stumbled and lost his helmet, and ere he
+    recovered, his enemies were upon him, and they held him under water
+    until he was drowned.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Not far from the mouth of the Bell Burn, which here runs into the Tyne,
+    a circle of stones outside an ancient burial ground is known as the
+    Cowt&rsquo;s Grave.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;This is the bonny brae, the green,
+  Yet sacred to the brave,
+  Where still, of ancient size, is seen
+  Gigantic Kieldar&rsquo;s grave.
+</pre>
+
+<hr />
+
+<pre>
+  Where weeps the birch with branches green
+  Without the holy ground,
+  Between two old grey stones is seen
+  The warrior&rsquo;s ridgey mound.
+
+  And the hunters bold of Kieldar&rsquo;s train,
+  Within yon castle&rsquo;s wall,
+  In a deadly sleep must aye remain
+  Till the ruined towers down fall.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    In the ballad of &ldquo;Sir David Graeme,&rdquo; by James Hogg, the lady of the
+    story watched out of her window in vain for the coming of her &ldquo;noble
+    Graeme,&rdquo; who had vowed that the hate of her father and brothers would
+    not keep him from coming to carry off his fair lady on St. Lambert&rsquo;s
+    night.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;The sun had drunk frae Kieldar Fell
+  His beverage o&rsquo; the morning dew;
+  The deer had crouched her in the dell,
+  The heather oped its bells o&rsquo; blue.
+</pre>
+
+<hr />
+
+<pre>
+  The lady to her window hied,
+  And it opened o&rsquo;er the banks o&rsquo; Tyne;
+  An&rsquo; &ldquo;O! alack,&rdquo; she said, and sighed,
+  &ldquo;Sure ilka breast is blythe but mine?&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Her forebodings prove only too true, for her lover&rsquo;s faithful hound
+    seeks her out, and with mournful looks induces her to follow him over
+    Deadwater Fell, and guides her to a lonely spot where the body of the
+    gallant Graeme, slain by her brothers, is lying.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the neighbourhood of these desolate Fells are to be found many traces
+    of ancient British Camps.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The little mountain streams which here help to swell the stream of the
+    North Tyne are, on the south side, the Lewis and Whickhope Burns, and on
+    the north, the Plashetts and Hawkhope Burns. On both sides of the Tyne,
+    near the Whickhope and the Hawkhope Burns are many remains of an ancient
+    pre-historic forest, the largest being near the Whickhope Burn where the
+    abnormally thick stems of trees may be seen.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The little village of Falstone is set amongst trees, in the midst of
+    pleasant meadows, a welcome relief from the bare fells and moorlands
+    around it; yet this wild scenery has a distinct fascination of its own,
+    and adds not a little to the charm of the varied landscape within the
+    bounds of our northern county. At Falstone a fragment of an ancient
+    cross was discovered, with an inscription carved upon it&mdash;in Roman
+    letters on one side and in the Runes of the Anglo-Saxons on the other.
+    The inscription states that a certain Eamer set up the cross in memory
+    of his uncle Hroethbert, and asks for prayers for his soul. The
+    existence of a similarly inscribed cross is not known, so that the
+    Society of Antiquaries, in whose keeping this cross rests, has in it
+    probably a unique treasure.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Tarset Burn, upon which stands the village of Thorneyburn, runs into
+    the Tyne not far from Falstone, and reminds us of the old Border-riding
+    days, when the rallying-cry of the men of the district in many a feud
+    with neighbouring clans was&mdash;&ldquo;Tarset and Tarret Burn, Hard and
+    heather-bred, yet-yet-yet.&rdquo; Near the spot where the Tarset Burn joins the
+    Tyne is a grassy hill on which once stood Tarset Castle, a stronghold of
+    that Red Comyn whom Bruce slew in the little chapel at Dumfries, and of
+    whose death Bruce&rsquo;s friend Kirkpatrick said he would &ldquo;mak&rsquo; siccar&rdquo;!
+</p>
+<p>
+    The village of Charlton, on the north bank of the Tyne, and the mansion
+    of Hesleyside on the other, carry the mind back to the old reiving
+    plundering days, for it was at Hesleyside that the incident of the
+    ancient spur of the Charlton&rsquo;s took place, doubtless many a time and
+    oft, when the good lady of Hesleyside served up the spur at dinner as a
+    gentle hint that the larder was empty, and it behoved her lord to mount
+    and away to replenish the same, preferably with stock from the Scottish
+    side of the border, or if not, a neighbour&rsquo;s cattle would serve equally
+    well.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Charltons, Robsons (possibly the lineal descendants of &ldquo;Hroethbert&rdquo;
+    of the ancient cross) and Armstrongs, held almost undisputed sway over
+    this region, and the district teems with reminders of their prowess and
+    traditions of their exploits. The men of Tynedale (the North Tyne) and
+    Redesdale were known as the fiercest and most lawless in all that wild
+    district. Redesdale is a district of monotonous, almost dreary,
+    moorlands, and wild, bare fells, where sheep graze on what scanty
+    provender the bleak hills afford, finding better fare, however, in the
+    valleys near the river banks, where the pasture is fresh and green.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Bellingham is to-day the most considerable village of the neighbourhood;
+    it stands conveniently at the foot of the hills where the little Belling
+    Burn, or Hareshaw Burn, joins the main stream. In Hareshaw woods is the
+    beautiful Hareshaw Linn, where the stream falls down through a break in
+    the sandstone cliffs, and forms a picturesque waterfall, fringed with
+    ferns and trees and cool mosses. It well repays one for the walk of a
+    mile or so through tangled underwoods by the side of the burn.
+    Bellingham gives its mime to the family of de Bellingham, whose chief
+    seat, however, is now in Ireland and no longer in the little
+    north-country town.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The massive church here, with its roof of stone, bears eloquent
+    testimony to the need for fireproof buildings in a village so near to
+    Scotland in the days of Border warfare. Outside the churchyard wall is
+    the well of St. Cuthbert, or &ldquo;Cuddy&rsquo;s Well,&rdquo; which was greatly venerated
+    in early days, and many stories are told of the miraculous power of its
+    waters. Inside the churchyard a grave is pointed out as the burial place
+    of the robber whose tragic end was told by James Hogg in his gruesome
+    story of &ldquo;The Long Pack.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    The village itself is plain and bare, as might be expected from a
+    settlement which would probably find that unattractiveness in either
+    wealth or appearance was a tolerable safeguard.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Below Bellingham the North Tyne is joined by its longest and most noted
+    tributary, the Rede Water, which also rises in the Cheviots. Rising in
+    the hills north of Carter Fell, it flows south-east, through a wild
+    region, passing, while still high up amongst the hills, the little
+    village of Byrness, and the new reservoir at Catcleugh, where a supply
+    of pure water is stored for the use of the dwellers in distant
+    Newcastle. On its way to the Tyne, it passes many an old pele-tower, and
+    the Roman stations of Bremenium (Rochester) and Habitancum, near
+    Woodburn. The ancient Roman road of Watling Street crosses the Rede at
+    Woodburn, leading from Habitancum to Bremenium.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Many mountain streams, clear and sparkling, or peaty and brown, join the
+    Rede Water on its way, amongst others the little Otter Burn, by whose
+    banks took place that stirring episode in the constant quarrels between
+    the Douglases and Percies known as &ldquo;Chevy Chase,&rdquo; from which the fierce
+    battle-cries ring down the five centuries that have passed since that
+    time, with sounds that echo still.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The pretty village of Redesmouth (or Reedsmouth) stands where the Rede
+    Water enters the North Tyne, and a few miles further on the rapid little
+    Houxty Burn pours its peaty waters into the main stream.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the right bank of the Tyne stands Wark, conveniently placed at one of
+    the most important fords of the Tyne in former days. Like other towns
+    and villages so placed on different streams throughout the country, the
+    advantages of its situation have evidently been appreciated by the
+    successive inhabitants of the land, for there are traces of its
+    occupation by Celt, Roman, and Saxon; and, later, the town was the most
+    considerable in Upper Tynedale. During the time that this part of
+    England was ceded to the Scottish Kings, David and Alexander, it was at
+    Wark that the Scottish law courts for Tynedale held their sittings. The
+    mound called the Mote Hill, near the river, marks the spot where, in all
+    probability, the ancient Celtic inhabitants met together to administer
+    the rude justice of prehistoric times, and to make the laws of their
+    little settlement, which grew to much greater proportions in later
+    years. In fact, it is supposed that the Kirkfield marks the site of a
+    church which stood in the midst of the once extensive town.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A little way up the Wark Burn, above the bridge, there may be seen some
+    upright stems of Sigillaria in the exposed face of the cliffs. On the
+    opposite side of the river from Wark is Chipchase Castle, one of the
+    finest mansions in Northumberland, standing in the midst of the
+    beautifully wooded and picturesque scenery which, from this point
+    onwards is characteristic of the North Tyne. Of the former village of
+    Chipchase scarcely a trace remains, though its name, if nothing else,
+    shows that here has been a village or small town, important enough to
+    have its well-known, market; for &ldquo;Chip,&rdquo; like the various &ldquo;Chippings&rdquo;
+    throughout England is derived from the Anglo-Saxon <i>ciepan</i>&mdash;to buy and
+    sell, to traffic. In the reign of Henry II., Chipchase was the property
+    of the Umfravilles of Prudhoe; but later it passed into the hands of the
+    well-known Northumbrian family of Heron.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Not far from Chipchase Castle are the famous Gunnerton Crags, formed by
+    an out-crop of the Great Whin Sill. These lofty cliffs have been the
+    site of a considerable settlement of the ancient British tribes who
+    dwelt in the district in such numbers, as is evident from the scores of
+    camps, which may be traced all over this part of Northumberland. The
+    naturally strong position on the Gunnerton Crags, would be certain to
+    commend itself to a people, the first requisite of whose dwelling places
+    was strength and consequent safety.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At Barrasford the making of the railway cutting led to the opening up of
+    a large barrow, or burial place, of the ancient Britons; and a single
+    &ldquo;menhir,&rdquo; supposed to be the solitary survivor of a large group of these
+    huge stones, stood near the village school some years ago.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Passing Chollerton and Humshaugh, embowered amongst spreading trees, we
+    arrive at Chollerford, the prettiest village of North Tyne, lying near
+    the river where it was crossed by the Roman Wall. From the bridge which
+    spans the Tyne at Chollerford one of the finest views of the river, both
+    up and down the stream, is to be seen; and to watch the swift brown
+    stream, after a flood or a freshet, foaming through the arches is an
+    exhilarating sight. The bridge itself is a modern one, for we know that
+    all the bridges on the Tyne, except that of Corbridge, were swept away
+    by the great flood of 1771.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1394, that prince of bridge-builders, Bishop Walter de Skirlaw of
+    Durham, granted thirteen days&rsquo; indulgence to all who should assist in
+    rebuilding the bridge at Chollerford; so that already there was one here
+    which had evidently fallen into disrepair. Yet, in the ballad of &ldquo;Jock
+    o&rsquo; the Side,&rdquo; the rescuers, with Jock in their midst, reach Chollerford,
+    and, after some anxious questioning of an old man as to whether the
+    &ldquo;water will ride,&rdquo; are compelled to swim the Tyne in flood, which their
+    pursuers, coming up, will not attempt to do. Now Bishop Skirlaw&rsquo;s
+    bridges did not usually disappear; those of Yarm, Shincliffe, and
+    Auckland have stood until to-day, with occasional repairs. Are we then
+    reluctantly to question the truth of &ldquo;Jock o&rsquo; the Side&rdquo;? Surely, if the
+    choice remain of the accuracy of the ballad or the fact of the bridge,
+    it is the duty of all leal North-country people to swear by the ballad.
+    Perhaps the good Bishop did not personally oversee the rebuilding of
+    Chollerford Bridge: more probably the Wear and Tees do not come down
+    with the angry impetuosity of the Tyne in flood!
+</p>
+<p>
+    The remains of the great Roman camp of Cilurnum (The Chesters) may be
+    seen here within Mrs. Clayton&rsquo;s park. This was the largest military
+    station in Northumberland, Corstopitum, which is very much larger, being
+    more of a civil settlement. At some little distance below the present
+    bridge some of the piers of the old Roman bridge are still to be seen
+    when the river is low.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Eastward from Chollerford is the little church of St. Oswald, standing
+    where the battle of Heavenfield took place. When Penda of Mercia, and
+    the British Prince Cadwallon, were warring against Northumbria, the
+    greatest Northumbrian King, Edwin, was defeated and slain by them; and
+    on their return to the attack, Ethelfrith&rsquo;s eldest son, called back from
+    exile to take the vacant throne, and rule in his father&rsquo;s seat of
+    Bamburgh, also fell before their fierce onslaught. His brother Oswald
+    now took command of the Bernicians and prepared to lead them against the
+    foe. Oswald posted his men in a strong position on the north side of the
+    great Wall; and, setting up a huge cross of wood, called upon all his
+    followers to bow before the God of whom he had learnt during his exile
+    in Iona, and to pray to Him for victory. His army obeyed, and, in the
+    battle which followed, Oswald&rsquo;s forces were completely victorious. The
+    Mercians, and their allies, the western Britons, were routed, and driven
+    out of Bernicia, and Cadwallon was pursued as far as the Denise Burn,
+    and there slain. The Denise Burn is supposed to have been the Rowley
+    Burn, which flows into the Devil&rsquo;s Water, on whose banks stands Dilsten
+    Castle. Some time later, on the spot where Oswald&rsquo;s Cross had stood, a
+    church was erected and dedicated to the royal Saint. It was served from
+    Hexham Abbey.
+</p>
+<p>
+    After passing Wall, which, however, is not quite so near the Roman Wall
+    as Chollerford is, we come to the pretty village of Warden, nestling
+    beneath the woods of Warden Hill; and here, just above Hexham, the North
+    Tyne unites with its sister river in the rich meadow lands which lie
+    near the old town.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The South Tyne has journeyed from Cross Fell, where it takes its rise,
+    northward through a corner of Cumberland, past Garrygill and Alston,
+    until it enters Northumberland where the Ayle Burn on the one hand, and
+    the Gilderdale Burn on the other, flow into it. Here is Whitley Castle,
+    where was a small Roman station called Alio, and Kirkhaugh Church,
+    charmingly placed on the bank of the river, which continues its course
+    northward past Slaggyford, Knaresdale, Eals, and Lambley, till it flows
+    past the fine Castle of Featherstone, and the ruins of Bellister, where
+    it turns eastward to Haltwhistle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The little streams which enter the South Tyne up to this point flow
+    through wild and romantic glens, two of them owning the Celtic names of
+    <i>Glen Cune</i> and <i>Glen Dhu</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The family of Featherstonehaugh is one of the oldest in the North; and
+    it was concerning the death of one of this family&mdash;Sir Albany
+    Featherstonehaugh, who was High Sheriff of Northumberland in the days of
+    Henry VIII.&mdash;that Mr. Surtees, the antiquary, wrote the well-known
+    ballad, which, when Surtees gave it him, deceived even Sir Walter Scott
+    into thinking it genuinely ancient. The first verse of the ballad shows
+    with what a verve and swing the lines go.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Hoot awa&rsquo;, lads, hoot awa&rsquo;
+  Ha&rsquo; ye heard how the Ridleys, an&rsquo; Thirlwalls, an&rsquo; a&rsquo;
+  Ha&rsquo; set upon Albany Featherstonehaugh;
+  And taken his life at the Deadmanshaw?
+  There was Willimoteswick,
+  And Hard-riding Dick,
+  An&rsquo; Hughie o&rsquo; Hawdon, an&rsquo; Will o&rsquo; the Wa&rsquo;
+  I canno&rsquo; tell a&rsquo;, I canno&rsquo; tell a&rsquo;
+  And mony a mair that the de&rsquo;il may knaw.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The ruins of Bellister Castle stand against a sombre background of
+    woods, only a little way from Haltwhistle. The Castle once belonged to
+    the Blenkinsopp family, who also owned Blenkinsopp Castle, about two
+    miles away. The name was formerly spelt Blencan&rsquo;s-hope&mdash;the hope being
+    valley or hollow&mdash;and the Castle, like many other places, has its
+    legendary &ldquo;White Lady.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    Haltwhistle is a little straggling town lying on both sides of the main
+    road above the South Tyne, where it is joined by the Haltwhistle Burn.
+    By going up the valley of this pretty little stream we shall arrive near
+    the Roman station of AEsica, on the Wall. The town of Haltwhistle is
+    peaceful enough now, but it had a stirring existence in the days when
+    Ridleys, Armstrongs, and Charltons, to say nothing of the men of
+    Liddesdale and Teviotdale, had so strong a partiality for a neighbour&rsquo;s
+    live-stock and so ready a hand with arrow and spear. In the old ballad
+    of &ldquo;The Fray of Hautwessel,&rdquo; we are told that
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;The limmer thieves o&rsquo; Liddesdale
+  Wadna leave a kye in the haill countrie,
+  But an<a href="#fn-3" name="fnref-3" id="fnref-3"><sup>[3]</sup></a> we gi&rsquo;e them the cauld steel,
+  Our gear they&rsquo;ll reive it a&rsquo; awaye,
+  Sae pert they stealis, I you saye.
+  O&rsquo; late they came to Hautwessel,
+  And thowt they there wad drive a fray.
+  But Alec Ridley shot too well.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-3" id="fn-3"></a> <a href="#fnref-3">[3]</a>
+But an = unless.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+    The most notable feature of present-day Haltwhistle is the finely placed
+    parish church, of which the chancel is the oldest part, having been
+    built in the twelfth century, so that it was already an old church when
+    Edward I. rested here for a night in 1306, on his way to Scotland for
+    the last time. When William the Lion of Scotland returned from his
+    captivity, after being taken prisoner at Alnwick in 1174, he founded the
+    monastery of Arbroath in thanksgiving for his freedom, and bestowed on
+    the monks the church of Haltwhistle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    All that remains of the old Castle, or &ldquo;Haut-wysill Tower,&rdquo; is the
+    building standing near the Castle Hill, which latter has been fortified
+    by earthworks. The Red Lion Hotel is a modernised pele-tower. The
+    general aspect of the place is singularly bare and bleak; but from
+    several points in the town, notably from the churchyard terrace, fine
+    views of the river valley may be obtained.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Henshaw (Hethinga&rsquo;s-haugh) is a little village which King David of
+    Scotland, when he was Lord of Tynedale, gave to Richard Cumin and his
+    wife, who afterwards bestowed it on the Cathedral of Durham. It lies by
+    the side of the main road to Bardon Mill, which is the most convenient
+    station for travellers to alight at who wish to visit the Roman Wall and
+    the Roman city of Borcovicus, and the Northumberland lakes. Some little
+    distance up the hill from Bardon Mill station is a very pretty little
+    village whose name speaks eloquently of other invaders than the
+    Romans&mdash;the village of Thorngrafton (the &ldquo;ton&rdquo; or settlement on Thor&rsquo;s
+    &ldquo;graf&rdquo; or dyke). Near at hand there are quarries from which the Romans
+    obtained much building material for the Wall; and in one of these old
+    quarries some workmen discovered a bronze vessel full of Roman coins, a
+    few of gold, but most of silver. This was known as the &ldquo;Thorngrafton
+    Find,&rdquo; and the interesting story of it is told by Dr. Bruce.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the opposite side of the South Tyne from Henshaw, Willimoteswick
+    Castle stands on the level plains which are as characteristic of the
+    south bank of the river as are the steep slopes of the north bank. One
+    of the towers of this old Castle yet remains, and forms part of the more
+    modern farm-house which stands there. Willimoteswick was long in the
+    possession of the Ridleys, and it is generally accepted as having been
+    the birthplace of Bishop Ridley, though Unthank Hall, nearer to
+    Haltwhistle, and also a home of that family, disputes the honour. The
+    Bishop, who suffered death at the stake in the troublous times of Queen
+    Mary, in touching letters bids farewell to his Cousin at Willimoteswick
+    and his sister and her children at Unthank.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the same side of the Tyne is Beltingham Church, with some wonderful
+    old trees in the churchyard, and Ridley Hall, which takes its name from
+    that family, although not now occupied by them. Here the Allen flows
+    into the South Tyne, and nowhere in the whole of the county is there a
+    more beautiful and romantic scene. By the side of the stream the Ridley
+    woods stretch for a mile or two, and the delightful mingling of graceful
+    ferns, overhanging trees, tall, rugged cliffs, flowering plants, and
+    sparkling waters forms a succession of lovely scenes throughout their
+    length, which, with the play of lights and shadows on the dimpled
+    surface of the stream, and frequent glimpses of grassy glades and cool
+    green alleys, make a walk through these enchanting woods an
+    unforgettable delight.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Allen Burn, which gives its name to the beautiful district of
+    Allendale, is, like the Tyne, formed by the junction of two streams, the
+    East and West Allen, which rise near each other in hills on the border
+    of Northumberland and Durham, down the opposite slopes of which run the
+    little streams which feed the Wear. After flowing apart for some miles,
+    the East and West Allen unite not far from Staward railway station. Both
+    rivers flow, for the first part of their course, through a wild and
+    hilly region, rich, however, in minerals. On the East Allen are the
+    towns of Allenheads, formerly a busy centre of the lead-mining industry,
+    and Allendale Town, which lies about 1,400 feet above the sea-level.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As the lead-mining industry has decreased, Allendale has turned its
+    attention to other methods of living, and now caters for the army of
+    visitors who, each summer, climb its hills and wander through its woods
+    and lanes, and by its riverside, as did the Allendale maid whose memory
+    is perpetuated in the simple lines of the little poem, &ldquo;Lucy Gray of
+    Allendale.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Say, have you seen the blushing rose,
+  The blooming pink, or lily pale?
+  Fairer than any flower that blows
+  Was Lucy Gray of Allendale.
+
+  Pensive at eve, down by the burn,
+  Where oft the maid they used to hail,
+  The shepherds now are heard to mourn
+  For Lucy Gray of Allendale.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Not far from the village of Catton, the name of &ldquo;Rebel Hils&rdquo; reminds us
+    that it was a vicar of Allendale, Mr. Patten, who joined young
+    Derwentwater in the rising of &ldquo;The Fifteen,&rdquo; and was appointed chaplain
+    of the little army. He met some half-dozen men of the neighbourhood at
+    this hill, when they set off together to join the rest of the forces at
+    Wooler.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the West Allen is the lonely little hamlet of Ninebanks, with
+    Ninebanks Tower, concerning which little is known with certainty; and on
+    this stream also are two of the most strikingly beautiful places in
+    Northumberland&mdash;the delightfully picturesque village of Whitfield, and
+    the well-known Staward-le-Peel.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The ruins of the &ldquo;Pele&rdquo; tower stand on a high grassy platform,
+    safeguarded on three sides by tall cliffs and tumbled boulders; the
+    remains of a ditch may also be traced. From this point a splendid view
+    of the river valley, with its steep precipices, overhanging pinewoods
+    intermingled with trees of less sombre hue, and the bright course of the
+    river, may be obtained. At a point a little higher up the valley, where
+    the waters of the stream are held back by some huge rocks, they form a
+    deep pool, and then flow onwards through a narrow gorge called Cyper&rsquo;s
+    Linn. Following the stream now until it has merged its waters in those
+    of the South Tyne, we turn eastward with the main stream and come to
+    Haydon Bridge.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This considerable village, gradually growing to the proportions of a
+    small town, lies on both sides of the river, which is here crossed by
+    the substantial bridge from which the village takes its name; for the
+    original village of Haydon stood at some distance up the hill on the
+    north side of the stream. On the hillside may still be seen the ruins of
+    the old church, in which services are occasionally held in the summer
+    time. The chancel, apparently dating from the twelfth century, and a
+    later little chapel to the south of it, are all that are left of the
+    building. Some very quaint inscriptions are to be seen in the
+    churchyard, and there are many sculptured grave-covers within the
+    church. Many of the stones used in the building have evidently been
+    brought from the great Wall, or probably from the Roman station of
+    Borcovicus, some six or seven miles to the north; and what a rush of
+    bewildering fancies crowds upon one&rsquo;s mind on first discovering that the
+    font was originally a Roman altar!
+</p>
+<p>
+    The old church must have looked down on many a wild and curious scene in
+    the days when Scot and Englishman sought only opportunities to do each
+    other an injury, and the river-valleys were the natural passes through
+    which the tide of invasion, raid, and reprisal flowed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the beginning of the reign of Edward III., about 24,000 Scots, under
+    Douglas and Murray, crossed the Tyne near Haydon Bridge, and rode on to
+    plunder the richer lands that lay to the south and west. They reached
+    Stanhope and encamped there for a time. The young king set out
+    northwards with a great army to punish these marauders, and he was told
+    by his scouts that they had hastily left Stanhope on his approach. He
+    and his army pushed on quickly until they reached Bardon Mill; and,
+    crossing the Tyne, marched down to Haydon Bridge, expecting the Scots to
+    return by the way they went. It was miserable weather, and the feeding
+    of so many thousands of men was no little problem. They scoured all the
+    country round for provisions, getting the most from the Hexham Abbey
+    lands. Meanwhile it rained and rained, and no Scots appeared. After a
+    week of waiting, Edward, in great disappointment, went to Haltwhistle,
+    while his followers reconnoitered in all directions. Finally, he had the
+    mortification of learning that the Scots were still at Stanhope, but
+    before anything more could be done, they betook themselves back to
+    Scotland by a different route, and there was nothing left for Edward but
+    to give up the expedition in despair.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The bridge at Haydon appears to have been the only one for some distance
+    up and down the river in the sixteenth century, for we read of its being
+    barred and chained, on various occasions of marauding troubles in
+    Tynedale, to prevent the free-booters re-crossing the river.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the days of Charles I. Colonel Lilburn marched to Haydon Bridge in
+    command of some troops of the Roundheads, on his way to join their
+    comrades at Hexham as a counter-move to the operations of the Royalist
+    troops in the North. Little more than thirty years after this, when the
+    days of Cromwell&rsquo;s power had come and gone, and Charles II. ruled at
+    Whitehall, the old Grammar School was founded at Haydon Bridge in 1685
+    by a clergyman, the Rev. John Shafto. Various changes have taken place
+    in the school from time to time, necessitated by the gradual changes and
+    educational needs of the passing years; and now, like the Grammar School
+    of Queen Elizabeth at Hexham, it has been entirely re-constituted to
+    meet modern requirements. John Martin, the famous painter of &ldquo;The Plains
+    of Heaven,&rdquo; received the beginnings of his education at this school. He
+    was born at East Land Ends farm in 1789. In after years the authorities
+    of Haydon Bridge Reading Room, wishing no doubt to afford a perfect
+    example to future generations of the truth of the proverb concerning a
+    prophet and his own country, refused some of Martin&rsquo;s pictures, which
+    the gifted painter himself offered to them&mdash;an act which their
+    successors have doubtless regretted.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At a little distance along the Langley Road, which leads past the
+    school, a memorial cross is standing. It was erected in 1883 by the late
+    Mr. C.J. Bates, the historian of Northumberland, to the memory of the
+    last of the Derwentwater family, whose castle of Langley he purchased.
+    The inscription on the cross reads:&mdash;&ldquo;To the memory of James and
+    Charles, Viscounts Langley, Earls of Derwentwater, beheaded on Tower
+    Hill, London, 24th February, 1716, and 8th December, 1746, for loyalty
+    to their lawful sovereign.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    A striking testimony, this, to the fact that freedom in England is a
+    reality, and not merely a name. In what other land would an inscription
+    such as this have been allowed to remain for more than twenty-four
+    hours?
+</p>
+<p>
+    A couple of miles or more down the South Tyne is Fourstones, so called
+    because of four stones, said to have been Roman altars, having been used
+    to mark its boundaries. A romantic use was made of one of these stones
+    in the early days of &ldquo;The Fifteen.&rdquo; Every evening, as dusk fell, a
+    little figure, clad in green, stole up to the ancient altar, which had
+    been slightly hollowed out, and, taking out a packet, laid another in
+    its place. The mysterious packets, placed there so secretly, were
+    letters from the Jacobites of the neighbourhood to each other; and the
+    little figure in green was a boy who acted as messenger for them. No
+    wonder that the people of the district gave this altar the name of the
+    &ldquo;Fairy Stone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    Between Haydon Bridge and Fourstones are both freestone and limestone
+    quarries, which latter have supplied many fossils to visitors of
+    geological tastes. Halfway between Fourstones and Hexham, the two
+    streams of North and South Tyne unite, and flow together down to the old
+    town of Hexham, with its quaintly irregular buildings clustering in
+    picturesque confusion round its ancient Abbey, which dominates the
+    landscape from whatever point we approach.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Warden Village, already mentioned, lies in the angle formed by the
+    meeting of the two streams, and has an ancient church which, however,
+    has been largely rebuilt. From High Warden, near at hand, a delightful
+    view may be obtained for a long distance up the valleys of North and
+    South Tyne. On the summit of this hill there are the remains of a
+    considerable British camp, showing that they had seized upon this point
+    of vantage, and though the ancient British name has not come down to us,
+    it is evident from the Saxon name of Warden (<i>weardian</i>) that Saxons as
+    well as Britons were fully alive to the merits of the situation,
+    &ldquo;guarding&rdquo; the valley at such a commanding point.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.<br/>DOWN THE TYNE.</h2>
+
+<p>
+    The town of Hexham, standing on hilly ground overlooking the Tyne,
+    immediately below the point at which the North and South Tyne unite, and
+    spreading from thence down to the levels all round, is one of the most
+    ancient in the kingdom. To write of Hexham with any measure of fulness
+    would require much more space than can be given to it within the limits
+    of a small book; only a mere summary can be offered here. Britons,
+    Romans, and Saxons, in turn, have dwelt on and around the hill which, in
+    Saxon days, was to be crowned with Wilfrid&rsquo;s beautiful Abbey, which, we
+    read, surpassed all others in England at that time for beauty and
+    excellence of design and workmanship; nor was there another to equal it
+    anywhere on this side of the Alps.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The name of Hexham is generally understood to be derived from the names
+    of two little streams, the Hextol and the Halgut, now the Cowgarth and
+    the Cockshaw Burns, which here flow into the Tyne; or, as Mr. Bates
+    suggests, it may have been the &ldquo;ham&rdquo; of &ldquo;some forgotten Hagustald,&rdquo;
+    which the name perpetuates. In any case its name was Hagustaldesham when
+    King Ecgfrith (or Egfrid) of Northumbria gave it to his queen,
+    Etheldreda, who wished to take the veil. Queen Etheldreda, however,
+    preferred to go to East Anglia, which was her home; she retired to a
+    convent at Ely, and bestowed the land at Hagustaldesham on Wilfrid, a
+    monk of Lindisfarne, clever, ambitious and hardworking, who had become
+    Bishop of York, which meant Bishop of all Northumbria.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Wilfrid had been to Rome, and seen the churches of that city and of the
+    lands through which he travelled; and, on his appointment to power, he
+    set himself to make the churches of his diocese worthy to compare with
+    those of older civilizations. He did much to the cathedral of York, and
+    built that of Ripon; but the Abbey of Hexham was his masterpiece. He
+    built a monastery and church, dedicating the latter to St. Andrew, for
+    it was in the church of St. Andrew at Rome that, kneeling, he felt
+    himself fired with enthusiasm for his work, in the same church from
+    which Augustine had set out on his journey to Britain some fifty years
+    before. The year 674 is generally accepted as the date on which this
+    noble Abbey was founded.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Wilfrid lived in great splendour at York, and ruled his immense diocese
+    with a firm hand; in fact, he was the first of that line of great
+    ecclesiastics who have moved with such proud, and oft-times turbulent,
+    progress through the pages of English history. King Ecgfrith&rsquo;s second
+    wife, Ermenburga, was jealous of the great power and magnificence of the
+    Northumbrian prelate, and through her influence, Archbishop Theodore was
+    induced to divide the huge diocese of Northumbria into four
+    portions&mdash;York, Hexham, Ripon and Withern in Galloway. Wilfrid,
+    naturally indignant, found all his protests disregarded, and immediately
+    set out for Rome, to obtain a decree of restitution from the Pope. It
+    was given to him, but little cared the Northumbrians for that. Wilfrid
+    was imprisoned for nine months, and then banished from Northumbria.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He went southwards and dwelt in Sussex, where his genius for hard work
+    found scope in a mission to the Saxons of the south lands, and where he
+    built and founded more churches and monasteries. Readers of &ldquo;Rewards
+    and Fairies&rdquo; will have made acquaintance with Wilfrid in his Sussex
+    wanderings and hardships. On his recall to the North by King Aldfrith,
+    he returned to Hexham. On the death of Aldfrith, the new King, Edwulf,
+    banished Wilfrid once more, ordering him to leave the kingdom within six
+    days; but the friends of Aldfrith&rsquo;s young son, whom Edwulf had
+    dispossessed, obtained the ascendancy, and Wilfrid was re-instated in
+    his Abbeys of Hexham and Ripon.
+</p>
+<p>
+    While on his way back from Rome, on his last visit, Wilfrid had a severe
+    illness, but was granted a vision in which he was told that he had four
+    years more to live, and that he must build a church to the honour of the
+    Blessed Virgin. The little church of St. Mary, which stood close to the
+    walls of the great Abbey of Hexham, was erected in fulfilment of this
+    command.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the Abbey church itself, all that was known for centuries of the
+    original work of Wilfrid was the famous crypt, which is almost unique,
+    that of Ripon, also the work of Wilfrid, being the only one like it; but
+    recent excavations have brought much more of the ancient cathedral to
+    light, and laid bare, not only its original plan, but some of the walls,
+    and part of the very pavement trodden by the feet of Wilfrid and his
+    fellows so many centuries ago. The tomb of Wilfrid, however, is not at
+    Hexham, but at his other foundation of Ripon.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The ancient Abbey suffered much at the hands of the Danes, and in later
+    years from the ravages of the Scots, having been burnt several times,
+    notably in 1296, when 40,000 Scots ravaged the North of England,
+    plundering, burning, and laying waste wherever they went, exactly as the
+    Danes had done four hundred years before. Some of the stones of the old
+    Abbey yet bear traces of the fires by which the ancient building was so
+    often nearly destroyed, and in these frequent conflagrations all
+    records, charters, etc., of the Abbey, from which might have been
+    compiled a complete history, not only of the Abbey but of much of the
+    provincial and national history of the times, were lost.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Abbey was restored and rebuilt again and again, but for varying
+    reasons was without a nave for some hundreds of years. Within the last
+    ten years, however, a complete restoration has been carried out, under
+    the loving, and, what is more to the point, the capable superintendence
+    of Canon Savage and his colleagues, in the spirit and manner, as nearly
+    as possible, of the beautiful portions already standing; and several
+    disfiguring so-called &ldquo;restorations&rdquo; of nineteenth century work, which
+    could only detract from the beauty and dignity of the noble building,
+    have been removed entirely. This work was completed in 1908, and all who
+    have the honour of our famous county at heart must rejoice that its
+    noblest church is at last more worthy of its own high rank and glorious
+    past.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Among the many deeply interesting objects to be seen in the Abbey is the
+    stone Sanctuary seat&mdash;the Frid Stool, or seat of peace&mdash;at which
+    fugitives, fleeing from their enemies, might find refuge. It is believed
+    that this was the &ldquo;Cathedra&rdquo; of St. Wilfrid himself. The arms and back
+    of the chair are ornamented with a twisted knot-work pattern. The right
+    of Sanctuary extended for a mile round the Abbey, the boundaries being
+    marked by crosses, one at each point of the compass at that distance.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus04"></a>
+<a href="images/066.jpg">
+<img src="images/066.jpg" width="600" height="352" alt="Illustration:
+Hexham Abbey from North West" /></a>
+<p class="caption"><b>Hexham Abbey from North West</b></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+    Other treasures of the Abbey are the beautiful Old Rood Screen, dating
+    from the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century;
+    some wonderful old paintings, especially the portraits of the early
+    Bishops of Hexham, Alcmund, Wilfrid, Acca, Eata, Frithbert, Cuthbert,
+    and John, which date from the fifteenth century; the mediaeval carved
+    and painted pulpit, and the tomb of good King Alfwald of Northumbria.
+    Many of the stones used by Wilfrid&rsquo;s builders were of Roman workmanship,
+    and seem to have come from the Roman city of Corstopitum, at Corbridge.
+    An inscription on one of these old stones in the crypt takes us back
+    some centuries before even Wilfrid&rsquo;s time, for it commemorates the
+    Emperor Severus and his two sons, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Caracalla)
+    and Publius Septimius Geta, and has the name of the latter erased, as
+    was done on all similar inscriptions throughout the Empire, by order of
+    the inhuman Caracalla, after his murder of his brother.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A very interesting feature of the building is the stone stairway in the
+    South transept, by which the monks ascended to their dormitories above.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Quite near to the Abbey, at the other side of the Market Place, the
+    ancient Moot Hall claims attention. The modern visitor to the old town
+    walks beneath the gloomy archway, with its time-worn stones, which forms
+    the basement over which the Moot Hall stands. Another building, grim and
+    dark, near at hand, is the Old Manor House, in which the business
+    connected with the ancient Manor of Hexham was transacted.
+</p>
+<p>
+    An old foundation in the town was the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School,
+    which, after having fallen into desuetude for many years, has been
+    revived in a form appropriate to modern needs, and housed in a worthy
+    building, formally opened by Sir Francis Blake on November 2nd, 1910.
+    The site on which the new Grammar School of Queen Elizabeth stands is
+    one of the finest in the county, commanding, as it does, an
+    uninterrupted view of the river valley for some distance, and of the
+    rising ground beyond.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At the beginning of last century, Hexham was famed for its
+    glove-making: but that industry has forsaken the town for many years.
+    Now, Hexham is surrounded by acres of market-gardens, from which the
+    produce of Tynedale is carried far and wide.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The spacious stretch of level meadow-land below Hexham, rising gradually
+    up to the swelling ridges beyond, is said to have been the scene which
+    John Martin had in mind when he painted the &ldquo;Plains of Heaven&rdquo;; though
+    the level reaches above Newburn, unencumbered with buildings in John
+    Martin&rsquo;s time, and then a scene of quiet pastoral beauty, also claim
+    that honour.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Flowing now between well ordered gardens, green meadows, and ferny
+    banks, brawling musically over shingly shallows, or crooning gently
+    between fringing woods, the Tyne rolls onward to Corbridge, receiving on
+    its way the Devil&rsquo;s Water, a sparkling stream which flows through scenes
+    of enchanting beauty, whether between rugged cliffs and heather clad
+    hills as in its upper course, through the graceful overhanging trees and
+    cool green recesses of Dipton woods or between rich meadows and green
+    pasture-land where it loses itself in the bosom of the Tyne.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There is no more delightful experience than to wander through the woods
+    of Deepdene (Dipton) on a summer&rsquo;s day, when it requires no stretch of
+    the imagination to believe oneself in an enchanted forest, or, on
+    hearing a crackle of twigs, or faint sounds of the outside world
+    filtering through the green solitudes, to turn round expecting to see a
+    maiden on a &ldquo;milk-white steed,&rdquo; or one of the Knights of the Round Table
+    come riding by, in bravery of glistening armour and gay surtout, and to
+    find oneself murmuring, &ldquo;Now, Sir Gawain rode apace, and came unto a
+    right fair wood, and findeth the stream of a spring that ran with a
+    great rushing, and nigh thereunto was a way that was much haunted. He
+    abandoneth his high-way, and goeth all along the stream from the spring
+    that lasteth a long league plenary, until that he espieth a right fair
+    house and right fair chapel enclosed within a hedge of wood.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the green meadows of Hexham Levels and near Dilston Castle&mdash;two spots
+    of more than ordinary historical interest&mdash;the Lancastrian cause
+    received, in 1464, a blow from which it never rallied, though the
+    courageous Queen fought gallantly till the final disasters at Barnet and
+    Tewkesbury. The general of her forces, the Duke of Somerset, was
+    beheaded in Hexham market-place, and, together with several others of
+    rank and station, buried at Hexham. The well-known incident of Queen
+    Margaret&rsquo;s escape into Dipton, or Deepdene woods, where she and young
+    Prince Edward met with robbers, and afterwards escaped by the aid of
+    another member of that fraternity, took place a year before this, after
+    the first battle of Hexham in 1463. The year had been one of constant
+    warfare between York and Lancaster in the north, the Castles of Alnwick
+    and Bamburgh having fallen into the hands of Queen Margaret&rsquo;s friends
+    once more, after having been raptured by Edward of York the year before;
+    the Scots with Margaret and King Henry VI., had besieged Norham, but
+    were put to flight by the Earl of Warwick and hid brother, Lord
+    Montague; the royal fugitives sought safety at Bamburgh, whence the
+    Queen, with Prince Edward, sailed for Flanders, leaving King Henry in
+    the Castle where he was in no immediate danger; Warwick, with his
+    forces, retired southward again, and the gentle King remained in his
+    rocky stronghold, and enjoyed there nine months of unwonted peace.
+    Shortly after this, the Duke of Somerset deserted the cause of York for
+    that of Lancaster, and became the leader of the Queen&rsquo;s forces. In
+    April, 1464, he and Sir Ralph Percy opposed, at Hedgeley Moor, the
+    troops of Lord Montague journeying northward to escort the Scottish
+    delegates who were coming to York to make terms with Edward of York. Sir
+    Ralph Percy was slain, exclaiming as he fell &ldquo;I have saved the bird in
+    my bosom&rdquo;&mdash;that enigmatic sentence which has given rise to so much
+    conjecture, but which is generally held to mean that he had saved his
+    honour, by dying at last, after so many changes of front, in the service
+    of that King and Queen to whom he originally owed allegiance. &ldquo;Percy&rsquo;s
+    Cross,&rdquo; marking the site of his death, may be seen by the side of the
+    railway near Hedgeley Station, on the Alnwick and Wooler line.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The rest of the force dispersed, and made their way to Hexham; and Lord
+    Montague marching upon them from Newcastle, a sharp engagement took
+    place on the Levels, near the Linnels Bridge, with the result, as we
+    have seen, of the defeat and death of Somerset, and the overthrow of
+    Queen Margaret&rsquo;s hopes in the north, where she had had a strong
+    following.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The historical interest centred on Dilston Castle brings us to much
+    later times, and enshrines a story which possesses a pathetic interest
+    beyond that of any other place in Northumberland. Originally the home of
+    the family of D&rsquo;Eivill, later Dyvelstone (which explains the name
+    &ldquo;Devil&rsquo;s Water&rdquo;) Dilston Castle came into the possession of the
+    Radcliffes by marriage, and in the days of the Commonwealth the
+    Radcliffe of the day forfeited his estates on account of his loyalty to
+    the house of Stuart. Charles II. restored them, and the close attachment
+    between the houses of Stuart and Radcliffe continued until the fortunes
+    of both were quenched in disaster and gloom. The figure of the young
+    and gallant James Radcliffe, last Earl of Derwentwater, holds the
+    imagination no less than the heart as it moves across the page of
+    history for a brief space to its tragic end. Though born in London, in
+    June 1689, young Radcliffe passed his childhood and youth in France in
+    the closest companionship with James Stuart, son of the exiled James II.
+    At the age of twenty-one he returned to his home in Northumbria, and
+    took up his residence there, his charming manners, kind heart, and
+    openhanded hospitality speedily endearing him to all classes. His
+    servants and tenants, in particular, were passionately devoted to him.
+    In the words of the old ballad of &ldquo;Derwentwater&rdquo;&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;O, Derwentwater&rsquo;s a bonnie lord,
+  And golden is his hair,
+  And glintin&rsquo; is his hawkin&rsquo; e&rsquo;e
+  Wi&rsquo; kind love dwelling there.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    On his marriage in 1712, the young bride and bridegroom remained for two
+    years at the home of the bride&rsquo;s father, and preparations were made for
+    restoring the glories of Dilston on an extensive scale. On
+    Derwentwater&rsquo;s return to his beautiful Northumbrian seat in 1714, the
+    death of Queen Anne had excited the hopes of all the friends of the
+    house of Stuart, and plots and secret meetings were being planned
+    throughout Scotland and the north of England, the objective being the
+    restoration of the exiled Stuarts to the throne. Derwentwater took
+    little part in these attempts to organise rebellion for some time, but
+    at length was drawn into the dangerous game, as he was too valuable an
+    asset to be passed over by the Jacobite party.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At last rumours of the projected rising reached London, and a warrant
+    was issued for the arrest of Derwentwater, even before it was known
+    whether he had actually joined the plotters, his well-known friendship
+    with the exiled Prince making it almost certain that he would be an
+    important figure in any movement on their behalf. For the next few weeks
+    the young Earl found himself obliged to remain in hiding, finding safety
+    in the cottages of his tenants, and in the houses of friends and
+    neighbours. Finally, though his good sense warned him that he was
+    embarking on an almost hopeless enterprise, he decided to throw in his
+    lot with the Jacobites.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Tradition has it that his decision was brought about by the taunts of
+    his Countess, who, like the rest of the Jacobite ladies, was more
+    enthusiastic than the men. Throwing down her fan, she scornfully offered
+    that to her husband as a weapon, and demanded his sword in exchange. The
+    immediate result was seen on that October morning when Derwentwater and
+    his little band of followers rode over the bridge at Corbridge with
+    drawn swords, on their way to Beaufront, which was their first
+    rendezvous; and from there proceeded to Greenrigg, near the great Wall,
+    which had been appointed as a general meeting-place.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There they were joined by Mr. Forster, of Bamburgh, with his contingent,
+    and a few from the surrounding district. Rothbury next saw the little
+    army, which was joined on Felton Bridge by seventy Scots; and thereafter
+    Warkworth, Alnwick, and Morpeth heard James Stuart proclaimed King under
+    the title of James III.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Newcastle was to have been their next objective, but, hearing that the
+    city had closed its gates, and intended to hold out for King George, the
+    Jacobite force, after some indecision, returned northward to Rothbury,
+    where they were joined by a large company of Scottish Jacobites under
+    Lord Kenmure. Northward again they marched to Kelso, where more than a
+    thousand Scots joined forces with them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The little army numbered now almost 2,000, and a council was held to
+    determine what their next step should be. On its being resolved to enter
+    England, some hundreds of the Highlanders returned home, leaving an army
+    of about 1,500 to march southwards to Lancashire. On their way they put
+    to flight at Penrith a motley force which was raised to oppose them;
+    and, elated with a first success, moved forward to Preston, grievously
+    disappointed on the way at the failure of the people of Lancashire to
+    rise with them, for they had been given to understand that thousands in
+    that county were only awaiting an opportunity to declare for &ldquo;King
+    James.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    At Preston they barricaded the principal streets, and repulsed General
+    Willis; but the arrival of General Carpenter from Newcastle changed the
+    face of affairs. Young Derwentwater had fought valiantly and worked
+    arduously at the barricades, but Forster&mdash;whose appointment as General
+    had been made in the hope of attracting other Protestant gentry to the
+    Jacobite cause&mdash;offered to submit to General Carpenter under certain
+    conditions. Carpenter&rsquo;s reply was a demand for unconditional surrender,
+    and the hopeless little tragi-comedy was played out. The last scene took
+    place on Tower Hill three months later, when the gallant young Earl,
+    then only twenty-six years old, laid down the life which, after all, had
+    been spent in the service of others, with no selfish purpose in view,
+    and which was offered him, together with wealth and freedom, if he would
+    forsake his faith and throw aside his allegiance to the house of Stuart.
+    Refusing to purchase life at such a price, he was condemned, and
+    executed on Tower Hill on February 24th, 1716.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His brother Charles, who had been by his side throughout the rising,
+    had the good fortune to escape from Newgate Prison, and passed most of
+    his life abroad. Thirty years later, on his return to take up arms on
+    behalf of James&rsquo; son Charles&mdash;&ldquo;bonnie Prince Charlie&rdquo;&mdash;when he also drew
+    the sword in an attempt to regain the throne of his fathers, Radcliffe
+    was captured and beheaded. (For account of a monument to the memory of
+    these two brothers see in previous chapter paragraph relating to Haydon
+    Bridge.)
+</p>
+<p>
+    The story of General Forster&rsquo;s escape from Newgate is told by Sir Walter
+    Besant, as all readers of his novel, &ldquo;Dorothy Forster&rdquo; know, though the
+    author has taken those minor liberties with unimportant facts which are
+    by common consent allowable in fiction.
+</p>
+<p>
+    James Radcliffe&rsquo;s friends were allowed to have his body, though they
+    were forbidden to carry it home for burial; for such were the love and
+    esteem borne for the young Earl in the hearts of all his North-country
+    friends and dependents, that the authorities feared a disturbance of the
+    peace should his body be brought amongst them while their rage and grief
+    were still at their height. Notwithstanding the prohibition, however,
+    the body was brought secretly to Dilston, and buried in the vault of the
+    chapel, which, with the ruined tower, are all that remain of the home of
+    the Radcliffes. Standing amidst luxuriant foliage, and overlooking a
+    romantic dell, the ruins of tower and chapel remain as they fell into
+    decay on the death of their luckless owners. The confiscated estates
+    were bestowed on Greenwich Hospital, whose agents administer them still,
+    with the exception of certain portions purchased from time to time by
+    various landowners. No other family took the place of the Radcliffes in
+    the deserted halls; but tradition holds that the unfortunate Earl and
+    his sorrowful lady still revisit their ancient home. The Earl&rsquo;s body is
+    now at Thorndon, in Essex. Below is Surtees&rsquo; beautiful ballad, &ldquo;Lord
+    Derwentwater&rsquo;s Farewell.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  LORD DERWENTWATER&rsquo;S FAREWELL
+
+  &ldquo;Farewell to pleasant Dilston Hall,
+  My father&rsquo;s ancient seat;
+  A stranger now must call thee his,
+  Which gars my heart to greet.
+  Farewell each kindly well-known face
+  My heart has held so dear;
+  My tenants now must leave their lord
+  Or hold their lives in fear.
+
+  No more along the banks of Tyne
+  I&rsquo;ll rove in autumn grey;
+  No more I&rsquo;ll hear, at early dawn,
+  The lav&rsquo;rocks wake the day;
+  Then fare thee well, brave Witherington,
+  And Forster ever true;
+  Dear Shaftsbury and Errington,
+  Receive my last adieu.
+
+  And fare thee well, George Collingwood,
+  Since fate has put us down;
+  If thou and I have lost our lives,
+  Our king has lost his crown.
+  Farewell, farewell, my lady dear,
+  Ill, ill thou counsell&rsquo;dst me;
+  I never more may see the babe
+  That smiles upon thy knee.
+
+  And fare thee well, my bonny gray steed,
+  That carried me aye so free;
+  I wish I had been asleep in my bed
+  The last time I mounted thee;
+  The warning bell now bids me cease,
+  My trouble&rsquo;s nearly o&rsquo;er;
+  Yon sun that rises from the sea
+  Shall rise on me no more.
+
+  Albeit that here in London Town
+  It is my fate to die;
+  O carry me to Northumberland,
+  In my father&rsquo;s grave to lie.
+  There chant my solemn requiem
+  In Hexham&rsquo;s holy towers;
+  And let six maids of fair Tynedale
+  Scatter my grave with flowers.
+
+  And when the head that wears the crown
+  Shall be laid low like mine;
+  Some honest hearts may then lament
+  For Radcliffe&rsquo;s fallen line.
+  Farewell to pleasant Dilston Hall,
+  My father&rsquo;s ancient seat;
+  A stranger now must call thee his,
+  Which gars my heart to greet.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Near to Corbridge the waters of the Tyne lave the ancient piers of the
+    old Roman bridge which led to Corstopitum, the most considerable of the
+    Roman stations in this region. The recent careful excavations have laid
+    bare the evidence of what must have been a most imposing city, and many
+    treasures of pottery, coins and ancient jewellery and ornaments,
+    together with large quantities of the bones of animals, some of them
+    identical with the wild cattle of Chillingham, have been brought to
+    light. The famous silver dish known as the Corbridge Lanx, which was
+    found at the riverside by a little girl in 1734, had evidently been
+    washed down from Corstopitum. It is now preserved at Alnwick Castle.
+    The antiquity of Corbridge is thus superior to that of Hexham, as far as
+    may be known; but on the other hand, while Hexham in Saxon times grew to
+    power, Corbridge declined. Yet, in its time, it was more than the home
+    of a famous Abbey; it was a royal city, albeit the date of its elevation
+    to royal rank coincided with the decline of the kingdom of which it was
+    the final capital. When the fierce and ruthless internal quarrels, which
+    rent Northumbria after Edbert&rsquo;s glorious reign, had weakened it so that
+    it fell a prey to the gradual encroachments of its northern neighbours,
+    the once royal city of Bamburgh was left in the hands of a noble Saxon
+    family, and the court was removed to Corbridge, which remained the abode
+    of the kings of Northumbria until Northumbria possessed royal rank no
+    longer. The tale of the two hundred years during which Corbridge was the
+    capital city is a tale of red slaughter and ruin, murder and bitter
+    feud, not against outside foes, but between one family and another,
+    noble against king, king against relatives of other noble houses,
+    amongst which might possibly be found the thegn to succeed him, or to
+    murder him in order to bring about his own more speedy elevation to a
+    precarious throne.
+</p>
+<p>
+    So much was this the case, that Charles the Great, at whose court the
+    learned Northumbrian, Alcuin, was secretary, said that the Northumbrians
+    were worse than the invading heathen Danes, who, by this time, had begun
+    their ravages in the land. Amongst the rulers of Northumbria in those
+    days, the name of Alfwald the Just, who was called &ldquo;the Friend of God,&rdquo;
+    shines out with enduring light across the stormy darkness of that
+    terrible period; yet even his just and merciful rule and noble life
+    could not save him from the hand of the assassin. He was buried with
+    much mourning and great pomp in the Abbey at Hexham; and during the
+    recent excavations the fact of a Saxon interment was verified as having
+    taken place beneath the beautiful tomb which tradition has always held
+    to be that of King Alfwald the Just. This fact also helped to
+    demonstrate the extent of the original Abbey.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There was a monastery at Corbridge in the year 771, which is supposed to
+    have been founded by St. Wilfrid. Of the four churches which were
+    erected in later times, only one survives&mdash;the parish church of St.
+    Andrew, which occupies the site of the early monastery. In this ancient
+    church may be seen part of the original Saxon work, and many stones of
+    Roman workmanship are built up in the structure.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Like most other old churches in the north, it suffered severely at the
+    hands of the Scots, and, as at Hexham Abbey, traces of fire may be seen
+    on some of the stones.
+</p>
+<p>
+    King David of Scotland, on his invasion of England in 1138, which was to
+    end at the &ldquo;Battle of the Standard,&rdquo; at Northallerton, encamped at
+    Corbridge for a time, and terrible cruelties were committed in the
+    district by his followers. In the next century, King John turned the
+    little town upside down in his efforts to find treasure which he was
+    convinced must be concealed somewhere in the houses; but his search was
+    fruitless. In the days of the three Edwards, during the long wars with
+    Scotland, Corbridge suffered terribly, being fired again and again; on
+    one occasion, in 1296, the destruction included the burning of the
+    school with some two hundred hapless boys within its walls.<a href="#fn-4"
+    name="fnref-4" id="fnref-4"><sup>[4]</sup></a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-4" id="fn-4"></a> <a href="#fnref-4">[4]</a>
+<i>See</i> Bates, p. 149.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+    Those heroes of our childhood&rsquo;s days, William Wallace and Robert Bruce,
+    were far from guiltless in these cruelties, though in justice to them
+    personally, the wild and lawless character of the men who formed their
+    undisciplined hosts must be remembered; and we know that Wallace tried
+    to save the holy vessels in Hexham Abbey, but, as soon as his back was
+    turned, they were swept away in the very presence of the officiating
+    priest.
+</p>
+<p>
+    During these terrible years most of Northumberland was a desolate waste;
+    and divine service had almost ceased to be performed between Newcastle
+    and Carlisle, even Hexham being deserted for a time. After the battle of
+    Bannockburn, matters were worse, if possible, and all the north lay in
+    fear of the Scots, but from time to time spasmodic efforts at
+    retaliation were made by the boldest of the Northumbrian landowners. In
+    the reign of Edward III., however, many of these great landowners
+    thwarted the King&rsquo;s designs by making a traitorous peace with their
+    turbulent neighbours.
+</p>
+<p>
+    David II. of Scotland encamped at Corbridge for a time during his second
+    attempt to invade England but this expedition ended in his defeat and
+    capture at Neville&rsquo;s Cross. Thereafter the north had rest for some
+    years, and Corbridge seems to have been left in peace. The Wars of the
+    Roses passed it by; and the Civil Wars in Stuart days also, except for
+    an unimportant skirmish; and the only part Corbridge saw of the Jacobite
+    rising of &ldquo;The Fifteen&rdquo; was the little cavalcade from Dilston which
+    clattered over the old bridge on its way to Beaufront. That bridge is
+    the same which we cross to-day; the date of its erection, 1674, may be
+    seen on one of its stones, and it was the only one on the Tyne which
+    withstood the great flood of 1771, when even the old Tyne Bridge at
+    Newcastle was swept away.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Quite close to the church there is an old pele-tower, which is in an
+    excellent state of preservation, little of it having disappeared except
+    the various floors. The vicars of Corbridge must have been often
+    thankful for such a refuge at hand, where they could bid defiance to
+    marauding bands, whether of Scottish or English nationality. In the
+    Register of the parish church may be seen a most interesting entry,
+    showing the Earl of Derwentwater&rsquo;s signature as churchwarden.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At a little distance from Corbridge, to the northward, is the fortified
+    manor-house of Aydon Castle, standing embowered in trees where the Cor
+    burn runs through a little rocky ravine, down whose steep sides Sir
+    Robert Clavering threw most of a marauding band of Scotsmen who had
+    attacked the grange; the place known as &ldquo;Jock&rsquo;s Leap&rdquo; obtained its name
+    from one of the Scots who escaped the fate of his comrades by his leap
+    for life across the ravine. The Castle, or hall, as it is variously
+    called, has not suffered such destruction as might have been expected,
+    seeing that it dates from the thirteenth century; but the thickness of
+    its walls, and the arrow-slits and narrow windows are obvious proof of
+    the necessity for defence which existed when it was first erected in the
+    days of Edward I. Many features of great interest, notably the ancient
+    fireplaces, remain in the interior of the building.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Returning down the Cor burn to the Tyne, our way lies eastward by the
+    side of the river, which here, after splashing and sparkling over the
+    shallows below Corbridge, narrows again to a deeper stream of swifter
+    current, and flows between green meadows and leafy woods, fern-clad
+    steeps and level haughs, all the way down to Ryton, where the
+    picturesque aspect of the river ceases, and it becomes an industrial
+    waterway. On this reach of the river are several places of considerable
+    interest.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Riding Mill, a pretty village in a well-wooded hollow, enclosed by steep
+    hills which rise ever higher and higher to the moors by Minsteracres and
+    Blanchland, stands where Watling Street, or Dere Street, leading down
+    the long slope of the country from Whittonstall, on reaching the Tyne
+    turned westward to Corstopitum. Further down the stream is Stocksfield,
+    where the aged King Edward I. halted on his last journey into Scotland,
+    on that expedition which was to have executed a summary vengeance upon
+    the Scots; he journeyed forward by slow stages, but was taken ill at
+    Newbrough, where he stayed for some time, before continuing his journey
+    by Blenkinsopp, Thirlwall, and Lanercost to Carlisle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the opposite side of the stream from Stocksfield is the lovely
+    village of Bywell, a &ldquo;haunt of ancient peace,&rdquo; &ldquo;sleeping soft on the
+    banks of the murmuring Tyne.&rdquo; This little peaceful spot was at one time
+    a very busy centre of life and industry on a small scale; in the Middle
+    Ages the inhabitants drove a thriving trade in all the necessities for a
+    people who spent a great part of their lives upon horseback, especially
+    in the making of the ironwork required&mdash;&ldquo;bits, stirrups, buckles, and
+    the like, wherein they are very expert and cunning.&rdquo; The Nevilles, lords
+    of Raby and earls of Westmoreland, held Bywell at this time; before that
+    it was in the hands of the Balliols, of Scottish fame, who, like the
+    Bruces, were Norman knights high in favour with their kings, Norman and
+    Plantagenet, though they afterwards became their most determined foes.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Long before the advent of the Normans, a church was built here by St.
+    Wilfrid, and in it&mdash;St. Andrew&rsquo;s or the &ldquo;White&rdquo; Church&mdash;Egbert, twelfth
+    bishop of Lindisfarne, was consecrated by Archbishop Eanbald in the year
+    803. More than a thousand years afterwards, in 1896, an Ordination
+    service was again held at Bywell, in St. Peter&rsquo;s church, when five
+    deacons were ordained by Bishop Jacob. And in times yet more remote
+    than Wilfrid&rsquo;s age, Roman legionaries crossed the Tyne at this point
+    over a bridge of their own construction, of which the piers might be
+    seen until our own day. Bywell, too, had its &ldquo;find&rdquo; of Roman silver; in
+    1760 a silver cup was found in the Tyne, bearing the inscription
+    &ldquo;Desidere vivas&rdquo; around the neck of the vessel.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the Nevilles were lords of the manor of Bywell, they began to build
+    a castle here, which, however, was left unfinished; the ancient tower
+    still standing, with its picturesque draping of ivy, was the gate-house
+    of the intended fortress. On the rebellion of the northern earls in
+    1569, Westmoreland&rsquo;s forfeited lands passed to the crown, so that Bywell
+    was held by Queen Elizabeth for a year or two, until she sold the estate
+    to a branch of the Fenwick family.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Bywell is unique in Northumberland in possessing two churches side by
+    side yet in different parishes. The town of Bywell, we are told by the
+    same authority before quoted, lay in a long line by the north bank of
+    the Tyne, and was &ldquo;divided into two separate parishes&rdquo; even then, so
+    that there ought to be traces of former buildings westward from the
+    present village. In connection with the two churches which adjoin each
+    other so closely, tradition tells the well-known story of the two
+    quarrelsome sisters who could not agree on the building of a church and
+    therefore each built one. One might have imagined, with some show of
+    reason, that there being two parishes, the two churches were placed
+    there in sheltering proximity to the castle, were it not for the fact
+    that the churches were in existence long before the stronghold of the
+    Nevilles was contemplated.
+</p>
+<p>
+    St. Andrew&rsquo;s, called the &ldquo;White&rdquo; church from the fact of its being
+    served in later days by the White friars, is the more ancient of the
+    two. As we have seen, a church erected by St. Wilfrid stood on this
+    site, and a goodly portion of the Saxon work remains in the tower. The
+    hagioscope, or &ldquo;squint&rdquo; in this church, and the &ldquo;leper&rdquo; window in St.
+    Peter&rsquo;s are interesting relics of the Middle Ages.
+</p>
+<p>
+    St. Peter&rsquo;s, or the &ldquo;Black&rdquo; church which once belonged to the
+    Benedictines or Black friars, is of much later date than its neighbour,
+    though still an ancient building, being supposed to date from the
+    eleventh century. Its most interesting possessions are two very old
+    bells, bearing Latin inscriptions, one announcing &ldquo;I proclaim the hour
+    for people rising, and call to those still lying down,&rdquo; and the other
+    reading &ldquo;Thou art Peter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    Bywell suffered greatly in the flood of 1771, when the bridge was swept
+    away, many houses destroyed, several people drowned, and both churches
+    greatly damaged.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is not surprising that this tranquil little village&mdash;&ldquo;the retreat of
+    the old doomed divinities of wood and fountain, banished from their
+    native haunts,&rdquo; to quote Mr. Tomlinson&rsquo;s happy phrase&mdash;has always been
+    beloved of artists, many of whom have transferred to their canvasses the
+    beauties of its mingled scenery of graceful woods and sparkling waters,
+    ancient fortress, peaceful meadows, and gray old towers. Many noteworthy
+    and fine old trees are to be found in and around this artists&rsquo; haunt.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the opposite side of the river, Bywell&rsquo;s younger sister, Stocksfield,
+    grows apace, reaching out towards the lulls and along the eastward
+    lanes, though not as yet in such measure as to cover the hillsides with
+    any semblance of a town, being still almost hidden amongst the profusion
+    of trees that clothe most of the district in their leafy greenery. On
+    the north bank of the stream the village of Ovingham now rises into
+    view, its name telling us plainly that there was a settlement here in
+    Saxon times &ldquo;the home of the sons of Offa&rdquo;; and the slope above the
+    river is fittingly crowned by the ancient church of St. Mary, whose
+    tower, with its curiously irregular windows, is the work of the Saxon
+    builders of the original church. The rest of the building, except some
+    Saxon work at the west end of the nave, dates from early Norman days.
+    Here is the burial place of the famous brothers John and Thomas Bewick,
+    who were born at Cherryburn House, just across the river. In this
+    delightful spot the boy Thomas Bewick grew up, absorbing unconsciously
+    the natural beauties that are to be found here by the Tyne and in the
+    little ravine through which the Cherry Burn flows, which beauties he so
+    lovingly reproduced on his engraving blocks later in life.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At the fords of Ovingham, Eltringham, and Bywell, the Scots under
+    General Leslie crossed the Tyne in 1644, and made their way into Durham,
+    leaving six regiments to watch Newcastle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The picturesque ruins of Prudhoe Castle, whose lofty towers dominate the
+    valley for some distance up and down the stream, stand on a commanding
+    rocky ridge above the Tyne. The lands of Prudhoe were given, soon after
+    the Norman Conquest, to one of Duke William&rsquo;s immediate followers,
+    Robert de Umfraville; and it was Odinel de Umfraville who built the
+    present castle in the twelfth century. Its strength was soon put to the
+    test, for a few years after it was built William the Lion of Scotland
+    found that the place baffled all his attempts to capture it. In his
+    anger he determined to reduce the fortress of Odinel, who had spent much
+    time at the Scottish court in his youth, the Kings of Scotland being at
+    that time lords of Tynedale. The attempt ended in total failure, the
+    greatest harm the Scots did on that occasion being to destroy the
+    cornfields and strip the bark from the apple trees near the Castle;
+    while, a day or two afterwards, Odinel de Umfraville, with Glanvile and
+    Balliol, captured the Scottish monarch himself at Alnwick.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Another Umfraville, Richard, quarrelled with his neighbour of Nafferton,
+    on the opposite side of the river, for having begun to erect a fortress
+    much too near Umfraville&rsquo;s own. He sent a petition to the King on the
+    subject and King John commanded Philip de Ulecote&rsquo;s building operations
+    to cease. The unfinished castle, known as Nafferton Tower, remains to
+    this day as Philip&rsquo;s masons left it so many centuries ago.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Sir Ingram de Umfraville was by the side of Edward II. at Bannockburn,
+    when, before the battle, Bruce ordered his men to kneel in prayer.
+    Edward looked on the kneeling host, and turning to Umfraville, exclaimed
+    &ldquo;See! Yon men kneel to ask mercy.&rdquo; &ldquo;You say truth, sire,&rdquo; answered the
+    knight of Prudhoe; &ldquo;they ask mercy&mdash;but not of you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    The last Umfraville, who died in 1381, left a widow, the Countess Maud,
+    who married a Percy of Alnwick, and so the castle passed into the hands
+    of that family, in whose possession it still remains.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When Odinel de Umfraville was building the keep of his castle, every one
+    in the neighbourhood was pressed into the service, and all lent their
+    aid except the men of Wylam. Wylam had been given to the church of St.
+    Oswyn at Tynemouth, and, as was customary, was freed by charter from the
+    duty of castle building, or any other feudal service excepting such as
+    were rendered to the Prior of Tynemouth as occasion arose. So, in spite
+    of the angry surprise of the lord of Prudhoe, the Wylam men quietly held
+    to their charter, and not all Odinel&rsquo;s threats or persuasions moved them
+    one whit.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Stanley Burn, which enters the Tyne close to Wylam railway station,
+    divides this part of the county of Durham from Northumberland, so that
+    from Wylam to the sea the south side of the Tyne is in the county of
+    Durham. The most noteworthy object at Wylam, or, to be precise, a little
+    way along the old post-road, leading to Newcastle from Hexham, is the
+    red-tiled cottage in which George Stephenson was born in 1781. It stands
+    on the north bank of the Tyne, where it can be distinctly seen from
+    passing trains. Its neighbour cottage has been repaired and re-roofed,
+    but Stephenson&rsquo;s cottage remains unaltered.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Mr. Blackett, who owned Wylam Colliery at the beginning of the
+    nineteenth century, took the keenest interest in the question of
+    locomotives, and had tried more than one on his estate before George
+    Stephenson brought them to the point of practical use. At Newburn, just
+    four miles down the Tyne, George Stephenson passed many years of his
+    youth; here he learned to read and write, when he was old enough to earn
+    a man&rsquo;s wage and could afford the few pence necessary; and here, in the
+    parish church, may be seen, with an interval of twenty years between
+    them, the entries of his two marriages.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Newburn is important nowadays for its steel works, within whose
+    workshops is incorporated an old building formerly known as Newburn
+    Hall; but in days long past its importance arose from its being on the
+    ford of the Tyne nearest to Newcastle. This ford was frequently made use
+    of, notably by the Scots in the reign of Charles I. Their chief camping
+    ground is pointed out to us by the name of Scotswood, which also
+    describes what Scotswood was like in those days&mdash;a great contrast to its
+    present appearance, when the lines of brick and mortar stretching out
+    uninterruptedly from Newcastle make it practically one with that town.
+    In 1640, the Scottish army, under General Leslie, faced the Royalist
+    troops, under Lord Conway, on the south side of the river. The Scots
+    mounted their rude cannon on Newburn Church tower, and the English
+    raised earthworks along the bank of the river, which was here fordable
+    in two places. The two armies calmly watered their horses on opposite
+    banks of the stream all the next morning, but a shot at a Scottish
+    officer from the English ranks precipitated the battle; and the Scottish
+    army, having made a breach in both earthworks with their artillery,
+    waded across the fords and drove the Royalist troops up the bank, after
+    one spasmodic rally, which, however, failed to check the Scottish
+    advance. The way was now open for the Scottish army to continue down the
+    south bank of the Tyne and attack Newcastle from Gateshead. It had been
+    Lord Conway&rsquo;s task to prevent this, but owing to his incapacity or want
+    of whole-hearted enthusiasm for his cause, he failed entirely.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Not until 1644, however, was a Scottish attack on Newcastle actually
+    made, for on this occasion Leslie, as we have already seen, led his men
+    across the fords higher up the river and marched southwards. The
+    earthworks thrown up by Conway&rsquo;s troops may still be seen on Stella
+    Haughs.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is supposed that the Romans had a fort here, commanding the passage
+    of the river; indeed it would have been strange had this not been the
+    case, for the Romans were not the people to disregard any point of
+    strategical importance, especially one so near their stations of Pons
+    AElii and Condercum. Many stones of Roman workmanship have been used in
+    the building of the Newburn church.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From this point to its mouth, nearly fifteen miles away, both banks of
+    the Tyne present an unbroken scene of industry. Between the steel works
+    of Newburn and the iron and chemical works, the brick and tile works of
+    Blaydon and past the famous yards of Elswick, down to the wharves and
+    shipyards of North and South Shields, the Tyne rolls its swift dark
+    waters through a scene of stirring activity; the air is dusky with soot
+    and smoke, and reverberant with the clang of hammers and the pulsing
+    beat of machinery. Some old and world-famed works have been closed or
+    removed, like Hawks&rsquo; and Stephenson&rsquo;s, but others, many others, have
+    opened; and the map of the positions of Tyne industries, published under
+    the auspices of the Newcastle and Gateshead Chamber of Commerce, is a
+    record of resolute toil and brilliant achievement in the many aspects of
+    industrial life represented on the river.
+</p>
+<p>
+    And, apart from the mere prosperity and commercial supremacy of the
+    district, there is another cause for pride in the many notable
+    inventions which hail from Tyneside; from the locomotive and the
+    &ldquo;Geordie&rdquo; lamp of Stephenson, the hydraulic machinery and the big guns
+    of Armstrong, to the wonderful turbine engines of Parsons; the invention
+    of water-ballast, too, belongs to the Tyne, for it was the idea of a
+    Gateshead man, and first used at Jarrow.
+</p>
+<p>
+    And, in connection with ships and seafarers, though not in any
+    commercial sense, we may proudly recall the fact that the first Lifeboat
+    was launched on the Tyne and named after the river; and the first
+    Volunteer Life Brigade was formed at Tynemouth. The Worth Eastern
+    Railway is carried across the Tyne by the Scotswood Bridge; and it was
+    on this part of the river that the boat-races, for which the Tyne was
+    once famous, were rowed. At Newcastle, the river is bridged by four huge
+    structures&mdash;The Redheugh Bridge, the new King Edward VII. bridge, the
+    High Level, and Swing Bridges,&mdash;all connecting Newcastle with the sister
+    town of Gateshead. An interesting sight it is to see the Swing Bridge
+    gradually turning on its central pivot, until it lies in a straight line
+    up and down the stream, allowing some huge liner to pass, or some new
+    battleship, fresh from Elswick, to sail down the river, on its way to
+    make its trial trip over the &ldquo;measured mile&rdquo; in the open sea at the
+    mouth of the river, and thereafter to take its place among the armaments
+    of the nations.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The High Level Bridge allows ships of any height to pass under its lofty
+    and graceful arches, which look so light, but are yet so strong. This
+    splendid bridge is an enduring monument of Robert Stephenson, whose work
+    it was; and the story of its erection, at the cost of nearly half a
+    million of money, makes most interesting reading. It took nearly two and
+    a half years to build, and was opened for traffic in 1849&mdash;little more
+    than three years after the first pile was driven in. A few months later,
+    in 1850, the newly built Central Station, with its imposing portico, was
+    opened by Queen Victoria.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Passing down the Tyne from Newcastle, which requires separate notice,
+    and Walker, with its reminiscences of &ldquo;Walker Pit&rsquo;s deun weel for me,&rdquo;
+    we arrive at Wallsend, which in twenty-five years has grown from a
+    colliery village with a population of 4,000 to a town of 23,000
+    inhabitants. Here are great shipbuilding and repairing yards, chemical
+    works and cement works; here, too, are Parsons&rsquo; Steam Turbine Works,
+    where was designed and built the little &ldquo;Turbinia,&rdquo; on which tiny vessel
+    the early experiments were made with the new engines; and here are the
+    famous mines which have made &ldquo;Best Wallsend&rdquo; a synonym for best
+    household coal all over the land. These mines, after having been closed
+    for many years, were reopened at the beginning of the century, and now
+    turn out upwards of one thousand tons of coal per day.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The church of St. Peter, at Wallsend, is little more than a hundred
+    years old; the old Church of Holy Cross, now long disused, was built
+    towards the end of the twelfth century. But Wallsend itself, as all the
+    world knows, is of much greater antiquity, for was it not, as its name
+    proclaims, situated at the end of the Great Wall? Its name then,
+    however, was not Wallsend but Segedunum.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Willington Quay, further down the river, was, for a time, the home of
+    George Stephenson, and here his son, Robert, was born. At Howdon, which
+    used to be known as Howdon Pans, from the salt-pans there, the painter
+    John Martin and his brothers once worked when boys, being employed in
+    some rope-works. Here, too, the Henzells, a family of refugees who
+    settled in the district in the days of Elizabeth, founded some glass
+    works, for which industry the Tyne has been famous from that day to
+    this.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus05"></a>
+<a href="images/092.jpg">
+<img src="images/092.jpg" width="600" height="389" alt="Illustration:
+The River Tyne at Newcastle (showing Swing Bridge Open)." /></a>
+<p class="caption"><b>The River Tyne at Newcastle (showing Swing Bridge Open).</b></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+    Before the railway on the south side of the river was laid down,
+    passengers who wished to reach Jarrow had to alight at Howdon and cross
+    the river; and a racy dialect song&mdash;&ldquo;Howdon for Jarrow&rdquo; with its refrain
+    of &ldquo;Howdon for Jarra&mdash;ma hinnies, loup oot&rdquo;&mdash;commemorates the fact.
+    Willington Quay and Howdon carry on the line of shipbuilding yards to
+    Northumberland Dock and the staithes of the Tyne Commissioners, where
+    the waggon ways from various collieries bring the coal to the water&rsquo;s
+    edge. Tyne Dock, just opposite, and the Albert Edward Dock near North.
+    Shields, provide abundance of shipping accommodation, besides what is
+    afforded by the river itself; and now the river flows between the steep
+    banks of North and South Shields. As the names declare, these two
+    growing and prosperous towns once consisted of a few fishermen&rsquo;s huts,
+    or &ldquo;shielings&rdquo;; but that was long ago, when the north shore of the Tyne
+    was owned by the Prior of Tynemouth, and the southern shore by the
+    Bishop of Durham, and the citizens of Newcastle complained to King
+    Edward I. that these two ecclesiastics had raised towns, &ldquo;where no town
+    ought to be,&rdquo; and that &ldquo;fishermen sold fish there which ought to be sold
+    at Newcastle, to the great injury of the whole borough, and in detriment
+    to the tolls of our Lord the King.&rdquo; These quarrels between Newcastle and
+    the other settlements on the Tyne continued with varying results, until
+    in the days of Cromwell, Ralph Gardiner of Chirton, a little village
+    close to North Shields, took up the cudgels for the growing towns; and
+    by dint of great perseverance, and in spite of much persecution and
+    ill-will, succeeded in getting most of the unjust privileges of their
+    stronger neighbour abolished.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There were salt-pans, too, on both sides of the mouth of the Tyne, which
+    were worked in connection with the monasteries from very early days; and
+    Daniel Defoe, when he visited the north in 1726, declared that he could
+    see from the top of the Cheviot &ldquo;the smoke of the salt-pans at Sheals,
+    at the mouth of the Tyne, which was about forty miles south of this.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    North Shields clings haphazard to the steep bank of the Tyne, and
+    spreads away up and beyond it, reaching out towards Wallsend on the
+    river shore and Tynemouth along by the sea, the older parts by the
+    river looking black and grimy to the last degree; but there is a silver
+    lining to this very black cloud&mdash;not visible, it is true, but distinctly
+    audible&mdash;in the great shipbuilding and repairing works known as Smith&rsquo;s
+    Dock, one of the largest concerns of the kind in Great Britain, where so
+    many hundreds of men earn their daily bread; and in the fishing
+    industry, which was the foundation of the town&rsquo;s prosperity, and bids
+    fair to be so for many years to come, as it is increasing year by year.
+    The Fish Quay at North Shields is a sight worth seeing; and, in the
+    herring season, it is increasingly frequented by Continental buyers.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The fortunes of South Shields and Jarrow, though these towns are not in
+    Northumberland, are yet so bound up with the story of the Tyne that no
+    one would ever think of that river without them. Especially is this the
+    case with Jarrow, which &ldquo;Palmer&rsquo;s&rdquo; has raised from a small colliery
+    village to a large and flourishing town. In those famous yards,
+    everything that is necessary for the building of the largest ironclad,
+    from the first smelting of the ore until the last rivet is in place, can
+    be done. All Northumbria&mdash;Northumbria in the ancient and widest sense
+    of the word&mdash;owes a debt of gratitude to Jarrow, for was it not the home
+    of Bede? The monk of Jarrow, who spent all his long life in the same
+    monastery by the Don, coming to it when he was a child of ten, made that
+    spot of Northumbrian ground famed to the farthest limits of the
+    civilized Europe of his day; and scholars from all over the Continent
+    came to learn at the feet of the Northumbrian teacher. Beloved and
+    revered by all, and in harness to the last hour of his busy life, he
+    died in the year 735, just one hundred years after the coming of Aidan
+    to Lindisfarne. &ldquo;First among English scholars, first among English
+    theologians, first among English historians, it is in the monk of
+    Jarrow that English literature strikes its roots.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>J.R. Green</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Jarrow of to-day, and all its neighbours of industrial Tyneside,
+    possess no beauty of aspect such as the towns that are more fortunately
+    situated on the upper reaches of the river; they are muffled in clouds
+    of smoke and soot, and darkened by the necessities of their toil in
+    grimy ores and the ever-present coal. But no one who has ever looked on
+    these smoky reaches of the Tyne with a seeing eye, or steamed down the
+    river on a day either of gloom or sunshine, can refuse to acknowledge
+    that it has a certain grandeur, a stern beauty of its own, that can stir
+    the heart and the imagination more deeply than any mere prettiness.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From the numberless hives of activity on both sides of the river clouds
+    of smoke roll heavily upward, and jets of steam from panting machinery
+    leap up in momentary whiteness on the dark background; the white wings
+    of flocks of wheeling gulls flash in the occasional sunshine which
+    lights up the scene, and between the clouds there are glimpses of blue
+    sky. Towards sunset, the evening mists drape the darkening banks and
+    crowded shipping in a soft robe of gray, which, together with the
+    glowing sky behind, produces most wonderful Turneresque effects; and the
+    fall of night on the river only changes the aspect without diminishing
+    the interest of the scene. The blaze from a myriad workshops and forges
+    glows against the darkness, the lamps twinkle overhead on the steep
+    banks, and the lights from wharf and steamer are reflected in a thousand
+    shimmering lines on the dark water, which flows on soundlessly, like the
+    river of a dream.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On a day of wind and sun all these beauties are intensified a
+    thousandfold; the smoke is blown hither and thither in flying clouds,
+    the current seems to rush more swiftly, and a sense of vigorous life
+    permeates the whole scene, giving to the beholder a feeling of keen
+    exhilaration, as of new life rushing through his veins. Especially is
+    this the case on reaching the mouth of the river and meeting the dancing
+    waters of the open harbour, where the twin piers of South Shields and
+    Tynemouth reach out sheltering arms. Within the wide bay they enclose,
+    the storm-driven vessel may always find comparatively smooth water, how
+    wildly soever the waves may rage and roar outside.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is difficult to believe that so lately as the years 1858-60, the
+    &ldquo;bar&rdquo; at the mouth of the Tyne was an insuperable obstacle to all but
+    vessels of very moderate draught; and that ships might lie for days, and
+    sometimes weeks, after being loaded, before there came a tide high
+    enough to carry them out to sea. The river was full of sand-banks, and
+    little islands stood here and there&mdash;one in mid-stream, where the
+    ironclads are now launched at Elswick. Three or four vessels might be
+    seen at once bumping and grounding on the &ldquo;bar&rdquo; unable to make their way
+    over. Well might the old song say&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;The ships are all at the bar,
+  They canna get up to Newcastle!&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    An old map of the Tyne shows a number of sand-banks down the lower
+    reaches of the river, with ships aground on each, of them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But the River Tyne Commissioners have changed all that, and their
+    implement of warfare has been the hideous but necessary dredger. No
+    longer need vessels of heavy tonnage desert the Tyne for the Wear, as
+    they were perforce driven to do during the first half of the nineteenth
+    century, for the Wearsiders had set about deepening and widening their
+    river long before the Tynesiders did the same by theirs. Considerable
+    and continuous pressure had to be brought to bear on the civic
+    authorities at Newcastle before they finally took action; but having
+    once done so, the future of the Tyne was assured. Now it ranks second
+    only to the Thames in the actual number of vessels entering and leaving,
+    and owns only the Mersey its superior in the matter of tonnage.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus06"></a>
+<img src="images/098.jpg" width="300" height="186" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br/>NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.</h2>
+
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Her dusky hair in many a tangle clings
+  About her, and her looks, though stern and cold,
+  Grow tender with the dreams of by-gone days.&rdquo;
+
+  &mdash;<i>W.W. Tomlinson</i>.
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The outward signs of &ldquo;by-gone days,&rdquo; in the Newcastle of to-day, with
+    the one notable exception of the Castle, must be diligently sought out
+    amongst the overwhelming mass of what is often called &ldquo;rampant
+    modernity,&rdquo; of which the town to-day chiefly consists. The modernity,
+    however, is not all bad, as this favourite phrase would imply; much of
+    it is doubtless regrettable and a very little of it perhaps inevitable;
+    but no one will deny either the modernity or the beauty of Grey Street,
+    one of the finest streets in any English town; or the fine appearance of
+    Grainger Street, Blackett Street, Eldon Square, or any other of the
+    stately thoroughfares with which Grainger and Dobson enriched the town
+    within the last eighty years&mdash;no one, that is, who has learned to &ldquo;lift
+    his eyes to the sky-line in passing along a thoroughfare&rdquo; instead of
+    keeping them firmly fixed at the level of shop windows.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The grim old building which, when it was new, gave its name to the town,
+    is one for which no search needs to be made; its blackened and time worn
+    walls are seen from the train windows by every traveller who enters the
+    city from the south. So near is it to the railway, that in the
+    ultra-utilitarian days of sixty or seventy years ago, it narrowly
+    escaped the ignoble fate of being used as a signal-cabin. It was
+    rescued, however, by the Society of Antiquaries, and carefully preserved
+    by them&mdash;more fortunate in this respect than the castle of Berwick, for
+    the platform of Berwick railway station actually stands on the spot once
+    occupied by the Great Hall of the Castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The site of the New Castle, on a part of the river bank which slopes
+    steeply down to the Tyne, had been occupied centuries before by a Roman
+    fort, constructed by order of the Emperor Hadrian, who visited Britain
+    A.D. 120. He also constructed a bridge over the Tyne at this spot, fort
+    and bridge receiving the name of Pons AElii, after the Emperor (Publius
+    AElius Hadrianus). This became the second station on the Great Wall
+    erected by Hadrian&rsquo;s orders along the line of forts which Agricola had
+    raised forty years before. This station shared the fate of others on the
+    abandonment of Britain by its powerful conquerors, who had now for more
+    than two hundred years been its no less powerful friends and protectors.
+    Pons AElii fell into ruins; but so advantageous a site could not long be
+    overlooked, and we read of a Saxon settlement there, apparently that of
+    a religious community, from which fact it was known as Monkchester. All
+    the records of this period seem to have perished, for we hear nothing of
+    the settlement during the Danish invasions; but a Saxon town of some
+    kind was evidently in existence at the time of the Conquest, though in
+    1073 three monks from the south who came to York, and, obtaining a guide
+    to &ldquo;Muneche-cester,&rdquo; sought for some religious house in that settlement,
+    could find none, and were prevailed upon by the first Norman Bishop of
+    Durham, Walcher, to stay at Jarrow. The years from 1069 to 1080 were
+    evil years for Northumberland, for at the first-named date the Conqueror
+    devastated the North, and left neither village nor farm unscathed; and,
+    as the desolated land was beginning to recover again, Odo of Bayeux and
+    Robert of Normandy relentlessly laid it waste once more, partly in
+    revenge for the murder of Bishop Walcher at Gateshead, and partly to
+    punish Malcolm of Scotland for his invasion of Norman territory.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was on his return from this expedition, which had penetrated as far
+    north as Falkirk, that Robert, by his father&rsquo;s orders, raised a
+    stronghold on the Tyne on the site of the old Roman fort, in the year
+    1080. His brother, William Rufus, erected a much stronger and better
+    one, the Keep of which, re-built by Henry II., stands to-day dark and
+    grim, looking out over river and town, as it has stood since the Red
+    King ruled the land, and, like his father, the Conqueror, found it
+    desirable to have a stronghold at this northern point of his turbulent
+    realm, around which a town might grow up in safety.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The roof and battlements of the Keep are modern, but the rest of it&mdash;the
+    walls, 12 to 18 feet thick; the dismal dungeon, or guard chamber, with
+    iron rings and fetters still fastened to the walls and central pillar;
+    the beautiful little chapel, with its finely-ornamented arches; the
+    little chambers in the thickness of the walls; the well, 94 feet deep,
+    sunk through the solid masonry into the rock beneath; the arrow slits in
+    the walls; the stones in the roof scored with frequent bolts from the
+    besiegers&rsquo; crossbows, one of which bolts is firmly embedded in the wall
+    opposite one of the narrow windows; the ancient weapons and armour&mdash;all
+    these breathe of the days when the Red King&rsquo;s castle took its part in
+    the doings of our hardy ancestors in those stormy times in which they
+    lived and fought.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The last time the old Keep was called upon to act as fortress and refuge
+    in time of war was in Stuart days, after the ten weeks siege of
+    Newcastle by the Scottish General Leslie, Earl of Leven, in 1644, when
+    brave &ldquo;Governor Marley&rdquo; and his friends held out in the castle for a few
+    days longer, after the town was taken. In memory of this stout defence
+    and long resistance King Charles gave to the town its motto&mdash;<i>Fortiter
+    defendit triumphans</i>, which Bates gives as having originally been
+    <i>Fortiter defendendo triumphat</i>&mdash;&ldquo;She glories in her brave defence.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    Two of the original fireplaces still remain in the Castle, and there are
+    besides many objects of great interest which have been bestowed there
+    from time to time for safe keeping; and many more are to be seen at the
+    Black Gate, formerly the chief entrance to the Castle Hall and its
+    surroundings. The Great Hall of the Castle, in which John Baliol did
+    homage to Edward I. for the crown of Scotland, stood on the spot now
+    covered by the Moot Hall. The Black Gate, the lower part of which is the
+    oldest part of the building, which has many times been altered and
+    repaired, is now used as a museum. There were nearly a dozen rooms in
+    it, and not so many years ago the Corporation of Newcastle let these out
+    in tenements, until this building also was rescued from degradation by
+    the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries, who took down most of the dividing
+    walls, and converted it into a museum. Here may be seen stored many
+    sculptured stones, altars, and statues, which have been brought from the
+    various Roman stations in the north.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Around the walls of one room are to be seen facsimiles of the famous
+    Bayeux tapestry; there is also a model of the Castle as originally
+    built, and there are many more exhibits and loans of the very greatest
+    interest.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of the walls of Newcastle only fragments remain, the most considerable
+    portion being found between Westgate Road and St. Andrew&rsquo;s Churchyard;
+    here are also remains of several of the watch-towers that stood at
+    intervals around the walls&mdash;the Heber Tower, the Mordaunt or Morden
+    Tower, and the Ever Tower. Between the two first named towers may be
+    seen a little doorway, walled up, once used by the Friars, who obtained
+    from Edward II. permission to make the doorway in order that they might
+    the more easily reach their gardens and orchards outside; but they had
+    to be ready to build it up at a moment&rsquo;s notice on the approach of an
+    enemy. One of the towers&mdash;the Carliol or Weaver&rsquo;s Tower&mdash;was pulled down
+    to make room for the Central Free Library, opened in 1881. Many little
+    fragments of the Castle wall are to be seen near the High Level Bridge,
+    incorporated in other walls, as far as the South Postern of the Castle,
+    which is said to be the only remaining Norman postern in England and is
+    the oldest remaining part of the Castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The old streets of Newcastle are fast disappearing to make room for the
+    ever-increasing needs of commerce; at the moment of writing it is being
+    proposed to pull down more of the historic street called the Side, to
+    make room for new printing offices. At the head of this curious old
+    street, which curves downward from the Cathedral to the river, stood the
+    birthplace of Cuthbert Collingwood, who was to become Admiral Lord
+    Collingwood, and second in fame only to Nelson himself. Both this house
+    and the one where Thomas Bewick had his workshop, near the Cathedral,
+    have gone to make room for new buildings.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At the foot of this street, where it curves to the river front, is the
+    Sandhill, facing the Swing Bridge. Here are several old houses
+    remaining, with many-windowed fronts, looking out on the river. One of
+    these was the house of Aubone Surtees, the banker, whose daughter
+    Bessie, in 1772, stole out of one of those little windows, and gave
+    herself into the keeping of young Jack Scott, who was waiting for her
+    below. The adventurous youth became Lord Chancellor of England, and is
+    best known as Lord Eldon; his brother William became Lord Stowell, and
+    was for many years Judge of the High Court of Admiralty.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Opposite the old houses of the Sandhill, close to the river bank, is the
+    old Guildhall, greatly altered in appearance from the time when John
+    Wesley preached from its steps to the keelmen and fishermen of the town.
+    It was here that a sturdy fishwife put her arms round him, when some
+    boisterous spirits in the crowd threatened him with ill-usage, and,
+    shaking her fist in their faces, swore to &ldquo;floor them&rdquo; if they touched
+    her &ldquo;canny man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    This spot, where the Swing Bridge unites the lower banks of the stream,
+    seems always to have been the most convenient point for crossing the
+    river, for the present bridge is the fifth that has spanned the Tyne at
+    this point: Hadrian&rsquo;s bridge, Pons Aelii; a mediaeval bridge destroyed
+    by fire in 1248; the Old Tyne Bridge, swept away in the flood of 1771;
+    the successor of this, which was found too low to allow of the passage
+    of such large vessels as were able to sail up the Tyne after the
+    deepening of the river bed; and the present Swing Bridge, which is
+    worked by hydraulic machinery, the invention of Lord Armstrong. We do
+    not know how long Hadrian&rsquo;s bridge lasted, but William the Conqueror,
+    when returning from his expedition into Scotland in 1071, was obliged to
+    camp for a time at &ldquo;Monec-cestre,&rdquo; as the Tyne was in flood, and there
+    was no bridge.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Some ancient houses are to be found in Low Friar Street, one of which,
+    with winged heads and dolphins carved on it, is said to be the oldest
+    house in Newcastle. Turning up an opening on the west side of this
+    street, all that is left of the ancient Blackfriars&rsquo; Monastery may be
+    seen; some of its rooms are used as the meeting places of various Trade
+    Guilds, and the rest form low tenement houses, in the walls of which are
+    many Gothic archways and ancient window-openings built up. Over the door
+    of the Smith&rsquo;s Hall is a carving of three hammers, and the
+    inscription:&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;By hammer and hand
+  All artes do stand.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    This Hall was formerly the Great Hall of the monastery; and here Edward
+    Baliol did homage to Edward III. for his crown of Scotland. Nun Street,
+    leading out of Grainger Street, reminds us of the days when the Nunnery
+    of St. Bartholomew stood in this part of the town, and the Nun&rsquo;s Moor
+    was part of the grounds belonging to the establishment. In High Friar
+    Street, which was not then the dilapidated lane it now appears, Richard
+    Grainger was born.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Another part of the town which has fallen from its former high estate is
+    the Close, which lies along the river front, westward from the Sandhill.
+    Here, at one time, lived many of the principal inhabitants of
+    Newcastle&mdash;Sir John Marley, Sir William Blackett, Sir Ralph Millbank,
+    and others equally important; and here, too, was the former Mansion
+    House of the city, where the Mayors resided, and where they could
+    receive distinguished visitors to the town. Amongst those who have been
+    entertained there were the Duke of Wellington and the first King of the
+    Belgians. But in 1836 the Corporation of Newcastle sold the house, with
+    the furniture, books, pictures, plate, and everything else it contained.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Eastward from the Sandhill is Sandgate, immortalised in the &ldquo;Newcastle
+    Anthem&rdquo;&mdash;The Keel Row. Its present appearance is very different from the
+    green slope and sandy shore of former days; the keelmen, too, have
+    vanished, and their place in the commercial economy of the Tyne is taken
+    by waggon-ways and coal-shoots. The old narrow alleys of the town,
+    called &ldquo;chares,&rdquo; are fast disappearing; the best known is Pudding Chare,
+    leading from Bigg Market to Westgate Road. Many and various are the
+    explanations that have been offered to account for its curious name, but
+    the true one does not seem yet to have appeared.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Pilgrim Street owes its name to the fact that it was the route of the
+    pilgrims who came in great numbers to visit the little chapel or shrine
+    of Our Lady of Jesmond, and St. Mary&rsquo;s Well. In Pilgrim Street was the
+    gateway of a stately mansion, surrounded by beautiful gardens, called
+    Anderson Place, from a Mr. Anderson who bought it from Sir Thomas
+    Blackett in 1783. It had been built by another Mr. Anderson in the reign
+    of Queen Elizabeth, on the site where once stood the monastery of the
+    Grey Friars; he, however, had named his mansion &ldquo;The Newe House.&rdquo; In
+    this house Charles I. lived when a prisoner in Newcastle. Anderson Place
+    no longer exists, but the Newcastle of to-day has a constant reminder of
+    its last owners, for Major George Anderson, son of the Mr. Anderson who
+    purchased it in 1783, gave to the Cathedral of St. Nicholas the great
+    bell&mdash;known on that account as &ldquo;The Major&rdquo;&mdash;whose deep reverberant
+    &ldquo;boom&rdquo; can be heard for a distance of ten miles. The bell was re-cast in
+    1891, and in 1892 a new peal of bells was consecrated by Canon Gough.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Westgate Road is another interesting street; the old West Gate stood
+    near the site of the present Tyne Theatre, and from this point onward
+    the street follows, almost exactly, the line of the Roman Wall.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Some noteworthy houses in Newcastle are&mdash;No. 17, Eldon Place, where
+    George and Robert Stephenson lived in the years 1824-25; No. 4, St.
+    Thomas&rsquo; Crescent, where the celebrated artist, Wm. Bell Scott lived when
+    he was headmaster of the School of Art, and to whom Swinburne wrote a
+    fine memorial poem; the Academy of Arts, in Blackett Street, built for
+    the exhibition of pictures by those well-known painters T.M. Richardson
+    and H.T. Parker, and for a short period the home of the Pen and Palette
+    Club, which, both here and in its new home at Higham Place, has
+    entertained many people distinguished in letters, art, and travel who
+    have visited the town of late years; and No. 9, Pleasant Row, the
+    birthplace of Lord Armstrong, which has only recently been destroyed to
+    make way for the N.E.R. Company&rsquo;s new ferro-concrete Goods Station in
+    New Bridge Street.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The list of important buildings in Newcastle, exclusive of the churches,
+    is a long one; one of the most prominent is the Library of the Literary
+    and Philosophical Society, familiarly known as the &ldquo;Lit. and Phil.,&rdquo;
+    which stands at the lower end of Westgate Road, a little way back from
+    the roadway. It is built on the site of the town house of the Earls of
+    Westmoreland; and its fine Lecture Theatre was a gift to the Society
+    from Lord Armstrong. It is the centre of the intellectual life of the
+    city as a whole, apart from the work of the justly famed Armstrong
+    College, a teaching institute of University rank. This was formerly
+    known as the Durham College of Science, and, with the Durham College of
+    Medicine, forms part of the University of Durham.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Other seats of learning in the town are the Rutherford College, in Bath
+    Lane, and the Royal Grammar School, which dates from the reign of Henry
+    VIII. It was reconstituted by Queen Elizabeth, and has had many changes
+    of abode. At one time it occupied the buildings of the Convent of St.
+    Mary, which covered the space where Stephenson&rsquo;s monument now stands.
+    While the Grammar School was located there, the boys Cuthbert
+    Collingwood, William Scott, and John Scott, who afterwards became so
+    famous, attended it; and other distinguished scholars were John Horsley,
+    author of <i>Britannia Romana</i>, and John Brand and Henry Bourne, the
+    historians of Newcastle. The school is now situated in Eskdale Terrace
+    and its splendid playing fields stretch across to the North Road.
+</p>
+<p>
+    One of the most interesting buildings in Newcastle is the Hancock Museum
+    of Natural History, at Barras Bridge. It contains a matchless collection
+    of birds, and some unique specimens of extinct species; also the
+    original drawings of Bewick&rsquo;s <i>British Birds</i>, and other works of his.
+    The famous Newcastle naturalist, John Hancock, presented his wonderful
+    collection, prepared by himself, to the museum. Here, too, is a complete
+    set of fossils from the coal measures, including some fine specimens of
+    Sigillaria. These are only a few of the treasures contained in the
+    museum, which was built chiefly through the generosity of the late Lord
+    and Lady Armstrong, Colonel John Joicey of Newton Hall, Stocksfield, and
+    Mr. Edward Joicey of Whinney House.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The new Victoria Infirmary, on the Leazes, is a magnificent building,
+    and was opened by King Edward VII. in 1906. It was erected by public
+    subscription, and when &#163;100,000 had been subscribed, the late Mr. John
+    Hall generously offered a like sum on condition that the building should
+    be erected either on the Leazes or the Town Moor. Arrangements were made
+    to do so, and another &#163;100,000 given by the present Lord and Lady
+    Armstrong.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But fine as all these buildings are, the pride of Newcastle is one much
+    older than any of them&mdash;the Cathedral church of St. Nicholas, with its
+    exquisitely beautiful lantern steeple. This wonderful lantern was the
+    work of Robert de Rhodes, who lived in the fifteenth century. The arms
+    of this early benefactor of the church may yet be seen on the ancient
+    font. The present church was finished in the year 1350, says Dr. Bruce;
+    but there was a former one on this site to which the crypt is supposed
+    to belong. It has undergone many alterations at different times, and has
+    sheltered within its walls many and various great personages.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus07"></a>
+<a href="images/110.jpg">
+<img src="images/110.jpg" width="600" height="366" alt="Illustration:
+Newcastle-upon-Tyne." /></a>
+<p class="caption"><b>Newcastle-upon-Tyne.</b></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+    In 1451, a treaty between England and Scotland was ratified in the
+    vestry. In the reign of Henry VII., his daughter, Princess Margaret,
+    attended mass here, with all her retinue, when she stayed in the town on
+    her way to Scotland to be married to the gallant young king James IV.
+    She was entertained at the house of the Austin Friars, which stood where
+    now stands the Holy Jesus Hospital at the Manors, near to the Sallyport
+    Tower. When James I. became king of England, he attended service here,
+    as he passed through Newcastle on his way to his southern capital. In
+    the reign of his ill-fated son, Charles I., Newcastle was occupied by
+    the Scots, under General Leslie, for a year after the battle of Newburn in
+    1640; and again in 1644 was besieged by them for ten weeks. On this
+    occasion the town nearly lost its chief ornament and pride&mdash;the lantern
+    of the church; for &ldquo;There is a traditional story,&rdquo; says Bourne, &ldquo;of this
+    building I am now treating of, which may not be improper to be here
+    taken notice of. In the time of the Civil Wars, when the Scots had
+    besieged the town for several weeks, and were still as far as at first
+    from taking it, the General sent a messenger to the Mayor of the town,
+    and demanded the keys and the delivery up of the town, or he would
+    immediately demolish the steeple of St. Nicholas.
+</p>
+<p>
+    &ldquo;The Mayor and Aldermen, upon hearing this, immediately ordered a
+    certain number of the chiefest Scottish prisoners to be carried up to
+    the top of the old tower, the place below the lantern, and there
+    confined. After this, they returned the General an answer to this
+    purpose, that they would upon no terms deliver up the town, but would to
+    the last moment defend it; that the steeple of St. Nicholas was indeed a
+    beautiful and magnificent piece of architecture, and one of the great
+    ornaments of the town, but yet should be blown to atoms before ransomed
+    at such a rate; that, however, if it was to fall it should not fall
+    alone; that at the same moment he destroyed the beautiful structure he
+    should bathe his hands in the blood of his countrymen, who were placed
+    there on purpose, either to preserve it from ruin or to die along with
+    it. This message had the desired effect. The men were kept prisoners
+    during the whole time of the siege, and not so much as one gun was fired
+    against it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1646, when Charles I. was a prisoner in Newcastle for nearly a year
+    (from May, 1646, to February 3rd, 1647), this was the church he
+    attended; and we may picture him listening perforce to the
+    &ldquo;admonishing&rdquo; of the stern Covenanters. In this connection occurs the
+    oft-told story of his ready wit, when one of the preachers wound up his
+    discourse by giving out the metrical version of the fifty-second Psalm,
+    with an obvious allusion to his royal hearer:&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Why dost thou, tyrant, boast abroad,
+  Thy wicked works to praise?&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Charles quickly stood up and asked for the fifty-sixth Psalm instead:&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Have mercy, Lord, on me, I pray,
+  For man would me devour.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The good folk of Newcastle with willing voice rendered the latter Psalm,
+    doubtless to the discomfiture of the preacher.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Gray, who published his <i>Chorographia</i>, or Survey of
+    Newcastle-upon-Tyne, just three years after this, describes St.
+    Nicholas&rsquo; as having &ldquo;a stately, high, stone steeple, with many pinakles,
+    a stately stone lantherne, standing upon foure stone arches, builded by
+    Robert de Rhodes.... It lifteth up a head of Majesty, as high above the
+    rest as the Cypresse Tree above the low Shrubs.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    The church underwent a terrible despoliation at the hands of the Scots
+    in 1644; but more terrible still were the injuries it received, a little
+    more than a century later, from those who ought to have been its
+    friends. In the years 1784-7 there were many alterations made in the
+    building, during which almost all the old memorials and monuments
+    perished, or were removed; those which were not claimed by the living
+    representatives of the persons commemorated being ruthlessly sold, or
+    destroyed; and the brasses were disposed of as old metal. The modern
+    alterations and restorations have been more happy in their effect, and
+    one of the notable additions to the church is the beautiful carved oak
+    screen in the chancel, the work of Mr. Ralph Hedley.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There are many beautiful memorial windows in the church, and many
+    memorials in other forms to the various eminent North-country folk who
+    have been connected with Newcastle and its chief place of worship. The
+    Collingwood cenotaph is the most interesting of all; the brave Admiral&rsquo;s
+    body, as is well known, lies beside that of his friend and commander,
+    Nelson, in St. Paul&rsquo;s Cathedral, but this memorial of him is fittingly
+    placed in the Cathedral of his native town, within whose walls he
+    worshipped as a boy. There are two monuments by Flaxman&mdash;one of the Rev.
+    Hugh Moises, the famous master of the Grammar School when Collingwood
+    was a boy; and the other of Sir Matthew White Ridley, who died in 1813.
+    Of the newer monuments, those of Dr. Bruce, of Roman Wall fame, and of
+    the beloved and lamented Bishop Lloyd, are particularly fine.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Near the east end of the church, which was raised to the rank of a
+    Cathedral in 1881, is hung a large painting by Tintoretto, &ldquo;Christ
+    washing the feet of the Disciples&rdquo;; this was presented to the church by
+    Sir Matthew White Ridley in 1818. There are many more things of interest
+    in the Cathedral, but mention must be made of a wonderful MS. Bible,
+    incomplete, it is true, but beautifully written and illuminated by the
+    monks of Hexham, and other manuscript treasures carefully kept in the
+    care of the authorities.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The oldest church in the town is St. Andrew&rsquo;s, supposed to have been
+    built by King David of Scotland at the time when that monarch was Lord
+    of Tynedale, in the reign of King Stephen. It suffered greatly in the
+    struggle with the Scots, whose cannon, planted on the Leazes, did it
+    great damage, and some of the fiercest fighting, at the final capture
+    of the town, took place close by, where a breach was made in the walls.
+    In such a battered condition was it left that the parish Registers tell
+    us that no baptism nor &ldquo;sarmon&rdquo; took place within its walls for a year
+    (1645). But a marriage took place, the persons wedded being Scots, who,
+    we learn from the same authority, &ldquo;would pay nothing to the Church.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the church is buried Sir Adam de Athol, Lord of Jesmond, and Mary,
+    his wife. It is supposed that this Sir Adam gave the Town Moor to the
+    people of Newcastle, though this has been disputed. A fine picture of
+    the &ldquo;Last Supper,&rdquo; by Giordano, presented by Major Anderson in 1804,
+    hangs in the church.
+</p>
+<p>
+    St. John&rsquo;s Church ranks next to St. Andrew&rsquo;s in point of age; there are
+    fragments of Norman work in the building, and it is known to have been
+    standing in 1297. To-day the venerable pile, with its age worn stones,
+    stands out in sharper contrast to its environment than does any other
+    building in the town, surrounded as it is by modern shops and offices.
+    The memories it evokes, and the past for which it stands, are such as
+    the citizens of Newcastle will not willingly let die; and when, a few
+    years ago, a proposal was made for its removal, the proposition aroused
+    such a storm of popular feeling against it that it was incontinently
+    abandoned.
+</p>
+<p>
+    All Saints&rsquo; Church was built in 1789, on the site of an older building
+    which was in existence in 1296, and which became very unsafe. Here is
+    kept one of the most interesting monuments in the city&mdash;the monumental
+    brass which once covered the tomb of Roger Thornton, a wealthy merchant
+    of Newcastle, and a great benefactor to all the churches. He died in
+    1429. He gave to St. Nicholas&rsquo; Church its great east window; but, on its
+    needing repair in 1860, it was removed entirely, and the present one,
+    in memory of Dr. Ions, inserted; and the only fragment left of
+    Thornton&rsquo;s window is a small circular piece inset in a plain glass
+    window in the Cathedral. He gave much money to Hexham Abbey also.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Besides the famous men already mentioned in connection with the town,
+    Newcastle possesses other well-known names not a few. In the Middle
+    Ages, Duns Scotus, the man whose skill in argument earned for him the
+    title of &ldquo;Doctor Subtilis,&rdquo; owned Northumberland as his home, and
+    received his education in the monastery of the Grey Friars, which stood
+    near the head of the present Grey Street. He returned to this monastery
+    after some years of study at Oxford; in 1304 he was teaching divinity in
+    Paris.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London in the reign of Edward VI., whose
+    Northumbrian birthplace at Willimoteswick has already been noted,
+    received his early education at the Grammar School in Newcastle, and on
+    going to Cambridge was a student at Pembroke. We are told he was the
+    ablest man among the Reformers for piety, learning and judgment. As is
+    well known, he died at the stake in 1555.
+</p>
+<p>
+    William and Elizabeth Elstob, who lived in Newcastle at the end of the
+    seventeenth century, were learned Saxon scholars, but were so greatly in
+    advance of the education of their times that they met with little
+    encouragement or sympathy in their labours.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Charles Avison, the musician and composer, was organist of St. John&rsquo;s in
+    1736, and afterwards of St. Nicholas&rsquo;.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was he to whom Browning referred in the lines&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+                               &ldquo;On the list
+  Of worthies, who by help of pipe or wire,
+  Expressed in sound rough rage or soft desire,
+  Thou, whilom of Newcastle, organist.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    These lines have been carved on his tombstone in St. Andrew&rsquo;s
+    churchyard. He is best known as the composer of the anthem &ldquo;Sound the
+    loud timbrel.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    Mark Akenside, the poet, was born in Butcher Bank, now called after him
+    Akenside Hill. His chief work &ldquo;The Pleasures of Imagination,&rdquo; is not
+    often read now, but it enjoyed a considerable reputation in an age when
+    a stilted and formal style was looked upon as a true excellence in
+    poetry.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Charles Hutton, the mathematician, was born in Newcastle in 1737. He
+    began life as a pitman; but, receiving an injury to his arm, he turned
+    his attention to books, and taught in his native town for some years,
+    becoming later Professor of Mathematics in the Royal Military Academy at
+    Woolwich.
+</p>
+<p>
+    John Brand, the antiquary and historian of Newcastle, was born at
+    Washington, County Durham, but came to Newcastle as a child. After
+    attending the Grammar School, he went to Oxford, by the aid of his
+    master, the Rev. Hugh Moises. He was afterwards curate at the church of
+    St. Andrew.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Robert Morrison, the celebrated Chinese scholar, was born near Morpeth,
+    but his parents came to Newcastle when the boy was three years of age.
+    He died in China in 1834.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thomas Miles Richardson, the well-known artist, was born in Newcastle in
+    1784, and was at first a cabinetmaker, then master of St. Andrew&rsquo;s Free
+    School, but finally gave up all other work to devote himself to his art.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Robert Stephenson went to school at Percy Street Academy, which for long
+    has ceased to exist. There he was taught by Mr. Bruce, and had for one
+    of his fellow-pupils the master&rsquo;s son, John Collingwood Bruce, who
+    afterwards became so famous a teacher and antiquary.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Newcastle is not, as most southerners imagine, a dark and gloomy town of
+    unrelieved bricks and mortar, for, besides possessing many wide and
+    handsome streets, it has also several pretty parks, the most noteworthy
+    being the beautiful Jesmond Dene, one of the late Lord Armstrong&rsquo;s
+    magnificent gifts to his native town. The Dene, together with the
+    Armstrong Park near it, lies on the course of the Ouseburn, which is
+    here a bright and sparkling stream, very different from the appearance
+    it presents by the time it empties its murky waters into the Tyne.
+    Besides these there are Heaton Park, the Leazes Park, with its lakes and
+    boats, Brandling Park, and others smaller than these; and last, but most
+    important of all, the Town Moor, a fine breezy space to the north of the
+    town, of more than 900 acres in extent.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of statues and monuments Newcastle possesses some half-dozen, the finest
+    being &ldquo;Grey&rsquo;s Monument&rdquo;&mdash;a household word in the town and familiarly
+    known as &ldquo;The Monument.&rdquo; It was erected at the junction of Grey Street
+    and Grainger Street in memory of Earl Grey of Howick, who was Prime
+    Minister at the passing of the Reform Bill. The figure of the Earl, by
+    Bailey, stands at the top of a lofty column, the height being 135 feet
+    to the top of the figure. There is a stairway within the column, by
+    which it can be ascended, and a magnificent view enjoyed from the top.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In an open space near the Central Station, between the <i>Chronicle</i>
+    Office and the Lit. and Phil., there is a fine statue of George
+    Stephenson, by the Northumbrian sculptor, Lough. It is a full length
+    representation of the great engineer, in bronze, with the figures of
+    four workmen, representing the chief industries of Tyneside, around the
+    pedestal&mdash;a miner, a smith, a navvy, and an engineer. At the head of
+    Northumberland Street, on the open space of the Haymarket, stands a
+    beautiful winged Victory on a tall column, crowning &ldquo;Northumbria&rdquo;
+    typified as a female figure at the foot of the column. This graceful and
+    striking memorial is the work of T. Eyre Macklin, and is in memory of
+    the officers and men of the North who fell in the Boer War of 1899-1902.
+    Two other noteworthy statues in the town are those of Lord Armstrong,
+    near the entrance to the Natural History Museum at Barras Bridge, and of
+    Joseph Cowen, in Westgate Road.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+THE KEEL ROW
+</p>
+
+<pre>
+  As I came thro&rsquo; Sandgate,
+  Thro&rsquo; Sandgate, thro&rsquo; Sandgate,
+  As I came thro&rsquo; Sandgate,
+  I heard a lassie sing
+      &ldquo;O weel may the keel row,
+      The keel row, the keel row,
+      Weel may the keel row
+      That my laddie&rsquo;s in
+
+  &ldquo;O who is like my Johnnie,
+  Sae leish,<a href="#fn-5" name="fnref-5" id="fnref-5"><sup>[5]</sup></a> sae blithe, sae bonnie;
+  He&rsquo;s foremost &rsquo;mang the mony
+  Keel lads o&rsquo; coaly Tyne
+      He&rsquo;ll set and row sae tightly,
+      And in the dance sae sprightly
+      He&rsquo;ll cut and shuffle lightly,
+      &rsquo;Tis true, were he not mine!
+
+  &ldquo;He has nae mair o&rsquo; learnin&rsquo;
+  Than tells his weekly earnin&rsquo;,
+  Yet, right frae wrang discernin&rsquo;,
+  Tho&rsquo; brave, nae bruiser he!
+      Tho&rsquo; he no worth a plack<a href="#fn-6" name="fnref-6" id="fnref-6"><sup>[6]</sup></a> is,
+      His ain coat on his back is;
+      And nane can say that black is
+      The white o&rsquo; Johnnie&rsquo;s e&rsquo;e
+
+  He wears a blue bonnet,
+  Blue bonnet, blue bonnet,
+  He wears a blue bonnet,
+  And a dimple in his chin
+         O weel may the keel row,
+         The keel row, the keel row,
+         Weel may the keel row
+         That my laddie&rsquo;s in.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-5" id="fn-5"></a> <a href="#fnref-5">[5]</a>
+Leish = lithe, nimble.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-6" id="fn-6"></a> <a href="#fnref-6">[6]</a>
+Plack = a small copper coin, worth about one-third of a penny.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus08"></a>
+<img src="images/120.jpg" width="300" height="207" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.<br/>ELSWICK AND ITS FOUNDER.</h2>
+
+<pre>
+  Sailed from the North of old
+  The strong sons of Odin;
+  Sailed in the Serpent ships,
+  &ldquo;By hammer and hand&rdquo;
+              Skilfully builded.
+
+</pre>
+
+<hr />
+
+<pre>
+  Still in the North-country
+  Men keep their sea-cunning;
+  Still true the legend,
+  &ldquo;By hammer and hand&rdquo;
+              Elswick builds war-ships.
+
+  &mdash;(<i>Northumbriensis</i>).
+</pre>
+<p>
+    For a mile and a quarter, along the north bank of the Tyne, stretch the
+    world-famed Elswick Works, which have grown to their present gigantic
+    proportions from the small beginnings of five and a half acres in 1847.
+    In that year two fields were purchased as a site for the new works about
+    to be started to make the hydraulic machinery which had been invented by
+    Mr. Armstrong.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this undertaking he was backed by the wealth of several prominent
+    Newcastle citizens, who believed in the future of the new
+    inventions&mdash;Messrs. Addison Potter, George Cruddas, Armourer Donkin, and
+    Richard Lambert. At that time Elswick was a pretty country village some
+    distance outside of Newcastle, and the walk along the riverside between
+    the two places was a favourite one with the people of the town. In
+    midstream there was an island, where stood a little inn called the
+    &ldquo;Countess of Coventry&rdquo;; and on the island various sports were often
+    held, including horse-racing.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The price of the land for the new shops, which were soon built on the
+    green slopes above the Tyne, was paid to Mr. Hodgson Hind and Mr.
+    Richard Grainger; the latter of whom had intended, could he have carried
+    out his plans for the rebuilding of Newcastle, not to stop until he made
+    Elswick Hall the centre of the town.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Until the new shops were ready to begin work, some of Mr. Armstrong&rsquo;s
+    hydraulic cranes were made by Mr. Watson at his works in the High
+    Bridge.
+</p>
+<p>
+    All the summer of 1847, the building went briskly on; and in the autumn
+    work was started. At first Mr. Armstrong had an office in Hood Street,
+    as he was superintending his machinery construction in High Bridge, as
+    well as the building operations at Elswick. On some of the early
+    notepaper of the firm there is, as the heading, a picture of Elswick as
+    it was then, showing the first shops, the little square building in
+    which were the offices, the green banks sloping down to the waterside,
+    and the island in the middle of the shallow stream, while the chimneys
+    and smoke of Newcastle are indicated in the remote background. Along the
+    riverside was the public footpath.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The first work done in the new shops was the making of Crane No. 6; and
+    amongst other early orders was one from the <i>Newcastle Chronicle</i>, for
+    hydraulic machinery to drive the printing press. The new machinery
+    rapidly grew in favour; and orders from mines, docks and railways poured
+    in to the Elswick firm, which soon extended its works.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1854, when the Crimean War broke out, Mr. Armstrong was requested to
+    devise some submarine mines which would clear the harbour of Sebastopol
+    of the Russian war-ships which had been sent there. He did so, but the
+    machinery was never used.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At the same time, in his leisure moments, he turned his attention to the
+    question of artillery. The guns in use at that time were very little
+    better than those which had been used during the Napoleonic wars; and
+    Mr. Armstrong devised a new one, which was made at his workshops. It was
+    a 3-pounder, complete with gun-carriage and mountings, and is still to
+    be seen at Elswick.
+</p>
+<p>
+    With the usual reluctance of Government departments to consider anything
+    new, the War Office of the day was slow to believe in the superiority of
+    the new field-piece; but when every fresh trial proved that superiority
+    to be beyond doubt, the gun was adopted. And then Mr. Armstrong showed
+    the large-minded generosity which was so marked a feature of his
+    character. Holding in his hand&mdash;as every man must, who possesses the
+    secret of a new and superior engine of destruction&mdash;the fate of nations,
+    to be decided at his will, and with the knowledge that other powers were
+    willing and eager to buy with any sum the skill of such an inventor, Mr.
+    Armstrong presented to the British Government, as a free gift, the
+    patents of his artillery; and he entered the Government service for a
+    time, as Engineer to the War Department, in order to give them the
+    benefit of his skill and special knowledge.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A knighthood was bestowed upon him, and he took up his new duties as Sir
+    William Armstrong. An Ordnance department was opened at Elswick, and the
+    Government promised a continuance of orders above those that the Arsenal
+    at Woolwich was able to fulfil. All went well for a time, but after some
+    years the connection between the Government and Elswick ceased; the
+    Ordnance and Engineering works were then amalgamated into one concern,
+    and Mr. George Rendel and Captain Noble&mdash;now Sir Andrew Noble, and one
+    of the greatest living authorities on explosives&mdash;were placed in charge
+    of the former.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Released from the agreement to make no guns except for the British
+    Government, Elswick was open to receive other orders, which now began to
+    roll in from all the world. Elswick prospered greatly, until suddenly
+    there came a check, in the shape of a strike for a nine hours day, in
+    1871. After the strike had lasted for four and a half months, work was
+    resumed; but the old genial relationship between masters and men had
+    received a rude strain, and was never the same as before.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Shipbuilding had been taken up a year or two before this, but the
+    earliest vessels were built to their order in Mr. Mitchell&rsquo;s yard at
+    Walker. The first one was a small gunboat, the &ldquo;Staunch,&rdquo; built for the
+    Admiralty. In later years the Walker ship-yard was united to the Elswick
+    enterprises, and a ship-yard at the latter place was also opened.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Meantime, Captain Noble had been experimenting further in artillery, and
+    in 1877 another and better type of gun was produced. It was adopted by
+    the Government, and all guns since then have been modifications, more or
+    less, of this type. In 1876 the famous hundred-ton gun for Italy was
+    made, and was taken on board the &ldquo;Europa&rdquo; to be carried to her
+    destination; this vessel being the first to pass the newly-finished
+    Swing Bridge, another outcome of the inventive genius of the head of the
+    Elswick firm. The gun, which was the largest in the world at that time,
+    was lowered into the &ldquo;Europa&rdquo; by the largest pair of &ldquo;sheer-legs&rdquo; in
+    existence, and was lifted out again at Spezzia by the largest hydraulic
+    crane of that day, and all these were the work of the Elswick firm.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Soon after this the firm became Sir W.G. Armstrong, Mitchell, and Co.;
+    and in consequence of the continued increase of business, it became
+    necessary to open Steel Works also. This is one of the most notable
+    features of the Elswick works; the wonders of ancient magicians pale
+    into insignificance before the marvels of this department, and no
+    Eastern Genius could accomplish such seemingly impossible feats with
+    greater ease than do the workmen of Elswick.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The works continued to grow still further, and soon Elswick was building
+    cruisers for China, for Italy (where works at Pozzuoli&mdash;the ancient
+    Puteoli&mdash;were opened), for Russia, Chili, and Japan. Tynesiders took a
+    special interest in the progress of the Japanese wars, for so many of
+    that country&rsquo;s battleships had their birth on the banks of the river at
+    Elswick, and Japanese sailors became a familiar sight in Newcastle
+    streets. Groups of strange faces from alien lands are periodically seen
+    in our midst, and met with again and again for some time; then one day
+    there is a launch at Elswick, and shortly afterwards all the strange
+    faces disappear. They have gathered together from their various quarters
+    in the town, and manning their new cruiser, have sailed away to their
+    own land, and Newcastle streets know them no more; but, later,
+    Tynesiders read in their newspapers of the deeds done on the vessels
+    which they have sent forth to the world.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The ice-breaker &ldquo;Ermack&rdquo; is one of the firm&rsquo;s most notable achievements,
+    the vessel having been built and designed in their Walker yard, to the
+    order of the Czar of Russia, in 1898, for the purpose of breaking up
+    ice-floes in the northern seas, and more especially for keeping open a
+    route across the great lakes of Siberia.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Elswick firm became Armstrong, Whitworth and Co., Ltd., in 1897,
+    which was also the year of another great strike; and two years later, a
+    disastrous fire burned down three of their shops, throwing two thousand
+    men temporarily out of employment. Still the works continued to grow,
+    and business to increase, until, instead of the five and a half acres
+    originally purchased, the Company&rsquo;s works, in 1900, covered two hundred
+    and thirty acres, and the number of men on the pay-roll was over
+    25,000&mdash;that is, sufficient with their families to people a town three
+    times the size of Hexham. And the scope and extent of these works are
+    extending, and yet extending; and now Elswick and Scotswood form an
+    uninterrupted line of closely-packed dwellings, which stretch without a
+    break from Newcastle, and make a background for the immense works on the
+    river shore; and one would look in vain for any signs of the pretty
+    country lanes and village of sixty years ago.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The founder of this great enterprise, in the early days of the Company,
+    built for his workpeople schools, library, and reading rooms, as well as
+    dwellings, and met them personally at their social gatherings and
+    entertainments&mdash;generally provided by himself; but the increasing size
+    of the concern, the excellence and capability, amounting to genius, of
+    the various heads of departments chosen by him, and his own increasing
+    years and failing health, led to his gradual withdrawal from personal
+    attendance at Elswick. The last time he appeared there officially was
+    when the King of Siam visited the works in 1897.
+</p>
+<p>
+    One who knew him well has written of him, &ldquo;His mind was at the same time
+    original and strictly practical; he noticed with a penetrating
+    observation, and drew conclusions with intuitive genius. Abstract
+    speculation had no charm for him; he never cherished wild dreams or
+    extravagant ideas. But if his conception was thus wisely restricted, his
+    execution of an idea was unrivalled in its thoroughness. Whether he was
+    founding an industrial establishment, or building a house, or making a
+    road, the hand of the man is quite unmistakable. There is the same solid
+    basis, the same enduring superstructure. Every stone that is laid at
+    Cragside or Bamburgh seems to be stamped as it were with the impression
+    of his great personality, and the thoroughness of his work.&rdquo; All his
+    life long, the thoroughness with which he was able to concentrate his
+    mind on the one subject which occupied it at the time, was a marked
+    feature of Lord Armstrong&rsquo;s character.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the early period of his career, while he was still in a solicitor&rsquo;s
+    office, and when the study of hydraulics was absorbing all his leisure
+    hours, he was quizzically said to have &ldquo;water on the brain.&rdquo; Electrical
+    problems also engaged his attention, and in 1844 he lectured at the Lit.
+    and Phil. rooms on his hydro-electric machine, on which occasion the
+    lecture room was so tightly packed that he had to get in through the
+    window. In the following year he explained to the same society his
+    hydraulic experiments and achievements; in 1846 he was elected a Fellow
+    of the Royal Society; and the next summer, 1847, saw the Elswick Works
+    begun.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is difficult to realize the fact, brought home to us on looking at
+    dates like these, that Lord Armstrong and Robert Stephenson were
+    contemporaries, and that both great engineers were engaged at the same
+    time on the works which were to bring them lasting fame. The life and
+    work of Robert Stephenson seem so remote, so much a part of bygone
+    history, that it strikes the mind with an unexpected shock to realise
+    that here is a life which began about the same time, yet has lasted
+    until quite recent years; for Lord Armstrong&rsquo;s long and successful
+    career only closed with the closing days of the nineteenth century.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the later years of his life he was greatly interested in repairing
+    and partly re-building the historic castle of Bamburgh, which Mr.
+    Freeman calls &ldquo;the cradle of our race,&rdquo; and which Lord Armstrong
+    purchased from Lord Crewe&rsquo;s Trustees. Of his personal character, the
+    writer above quoted says, &ldquo;Apart from his intellectual gifts, Lord
+    Armstrong&rsquo;s character was that of a great man. His unaffected modesty
+    was as attractive as his broad-minded charity. In business transactions,
+    he was the soul of integrity and honour, while in private life his mind
+    was far too large to regard accumulated wealth with any excessive
+    affection. He both spent his money freely and gave it away freely. His
+    benefactions to Newcastle were princely, and his public munificence was
+    fit to rank with that of any philanthropist of his time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    Princely, indeed, were his gifts to his native town, as the list of them
+    will show; they embraced either large contributions to, or the entire
+    gift of, Jesmond Dene, the Armstrong Park, the Lecture Theatre of the
+    Literary and Philosophical Society, St. Cuthbert&rsquo;s Church, the
+    Cathedral, St. Stephen&rsquo;s Church, the Infirmary, the Deaf and Dumb
+    Institution, the Children&rsquo;s Hospital, the Elswick Schools, Elswick
+    Mechanics&rsquo; Institute, the Convalescent Home at Whitley Bay, the Hancock
+    Museum&mdash;to which he and Lady Armstrong contributed a valuable collection
+    of shells, and &#163;11,500 in money&mdash;the Armstrong Bridge, the Armstrong
+    College, and the Bishopric Endowment Fund.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br/>THE CHEVIOTS.</h2>
+
+<p>
+    From the crowded, bustling scenes of Tyneside to the solitude of the
+    Cheviot Hills is a &ldquo;far cry,&rdquo; even farther mentally than in actual tale
+    of miles. Yet the two are linked by the same stream, which begins life
+    as a brawling Cheviot burn, having for its fellows the head waters of
+    the Rede, the Coquet, and the Till, with the scores of little dancing
+    rills that feed them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Nowhere in this land of swelling hills and grassy fields can one get out
+    of either sight or sound of running water. Every little dip in the hills
+    has its watercourse, every vale its broader stream, and the pleasant
+    sound of their murmurings and sweet babbling fills in the background of
+    every remembrance of days spent upon the green slopes of the Cheviots.
+    You may hear in their tones, if you listen, the shrill chatter and
+    laughter of children, soft cooing voices, and the deeper notes of
+    manhood, and might fancy, did not your sight contradict the fact, that
+    you were close to a goodly company, whose words met your ear, but whose
+    magic language you could not understand.
+</p>
+<p>
+    One little burn of my acquaintance, which runs through field and dell to
+    join the Till, I have hearkened to again and again for hours, unable to
+    break away from the spell of its ever-varying, yet constant music&mdash;a
+    sort of wilder, sweeter version of Mendelssohn&rsquo;s Duetto, with the voices
+    of Knight and Lady alternating and intermingling amidst a rippling
+    current of clear bell-like undertones.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Down from Cheviot itself, the lovely little Colledge Water splashes its
+    way, issuing from the wild ravine called the Henhole, where the cliffs
+    on each side of the rocky gorge rise in some places to a height of more
+    than two hundred feet. Concerning this ravine, there is a legend that a
+    party of hunters, long ages ago, were deer-stalking in Cheviot Forest,
+    when on reaching the Henhole their ears were greeted by the most
+    ravishing music they had ever heard. Allured by the enchanting sounds,
+    they followed the music into the ravine, where they disappeared, and
+    were never again seen.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The range of the Cheviot Hills stretches for about twenty-two miles
+    along the north-west border of Northumberland; and as the width of the
+    range is, roughly speaking, twenty-one miles, we have a tract of over
+    three hundred square miles of rolling, grassy, and heath-clad hills, of
+    which about one-third is over the Scottish border in Roxburghshire. The
+    giants of the range, The Cheviot (2,676 feet high), Cairn Hill (2,545
+    feet), and the striking cone of Hedgehope (2,348 feet), are all near to
+    each other on Northumbrian soil, a few miles south-west of Wooler, which
+    is a most convenient starting place for a visit to any part of the
+    Cheviots, as the Alnwick and Cornhill Railway brings within easy reach
+    the heights which lie still farther north.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The quiet little market town lies pleasantly among green meadows almost
+    at the foot of the Cheviots; its low substantial stone houses, with few
+    gardens in front, give the place a somewhat monotonous appearance, but
+    the newer streets try to make amends by blossoming out into brilliant
+    flower-plots in summer-time. Still, one would not quarrel with the older
+    buildings; solid and unpretentious, they must look much the same as in
+    the days of Border turmoil, when the first requisite in house or town
+    was strength, not beauty.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Near to Wooler are many interesting places; within the limits of quite a
+    short stroll one may visit the Pin Well, a wishing well of which there
+    are so many examples to be found wherever one may travel; the King&rsquo;s
+    Chair, a porphyry crag on the hill above the Pin Well; Maiden Castle,
+    or, less euphoniously, Kettles Camp, an ancient British encampment on
+    the same hill, the Kettles being pot-like cavities in the ravines
+    surrounding it; and the Cup and Saucer Camp, just half a mile distant
+    from Wooler. The Golf Course is now laid out on these same heights.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To reach the Cheviots from Wooler, the most usual way is by the
+    beautiful glen in which lies Langleeford. The bright streamlet known as
+    the Wooler Water runs through it from Cheviot on its way to the town
+    from which it has taken its present name; formerly it was known as
+    Caldgate Burn. It was at Langleeford that Sir Walter Scott stayed, as a
+    youth, in 1791, with his uncle, after they had vainly attempted to find
+    accommodation in Wooler. Here they rode, fished, shot, walked, and drank
+    the goat&rsquo;s whey for which the district was famous in those days and for
+    long afterwards.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Cheviot itself, or &ldquo;The Muckle Cheviot,&rdquo; is a huge cumbrous-looking
+    mass, with rounded sides and flat top, boggy and treacherous, where,
+    nevertheless, many wild berries brighten the marshy flats in their
+    season. The name &ldquo;Cheviot&rdquo; is said to mean &ldquo;Snowy Ridge&rdquo; and well does
+    this highest summit of the range merit the name, for on its marshy top
+    and in the rocky chasms of Henhole and Bazzle, the winter&rsquo;s snow often
+    lies until far into the summer. Down through the weird and fairy-haunted
+    cleft of Henhole, as we have seen, the little brown stream of Colledge
+    Water splashes its way, breaking into golden foam between mossy banks as
+    it reaches the outlet, and turns northward to join the Till.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This little burn is one of the prettiest of mountain streams; and in the
+    district surrounding it are perhaps more points of interest than any
+    other stream of such inconsiderable dimensions can show, saving only its
+    neighbour, the Till. The whole of the surrounding country, wild, lonely,
+    and romantic, teems with memories and reminders of the past. Sir Walter
+    Scott, while on the visit already referred to, found an additional
+    pleasure in the presence of so many relics of ancient days in the
+    neighbourhood. &ldquo;Each hill,&rdquo; he wrote to a friend, &ldquo;is crowned with a
+    tower, or camp, or cairn, and in no situation can you be near more
+    fields of battle.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    Indeed, the whole district of the Cheviots, and the lower lines of
+    swelling hills into which the land subsides as it nears the sea, is
+    crowded with the memorials of an earlier race; from every hill-top and
+    rocky height they speak with tantalising half-revelations of that race
+    which the Romans found here when their galleys brought them to the land
+    which was to them Ultima Thule. No convincing explanation has yet been
+    found of the concentric circular markings, with radiating grooves from
+    the cup-shaped hollow in the middle, which are scored on the rocks
+    wherever traces of an ancient camp are found; and the numbers of these
+    traces are proof that this district was once a very thickly populated
+    part of Britain.
+</p>
+<p>
+    And when Angle and Saxon were driving the early inhabitants before them,
+    westward and southward, these hills and valleys still sheltered a
+    considerable population; and Bede tells us of a royal residence not far
+    away, at the foot of the well known Yeavering Bell, one of the more
+    important hills of the range. It rises to a height of more than 1,100
+    feet, and then abruptly ends in a wide, almost level top, grass-grown
+    and boulder-strewn, and crowned near the centre with a roughly-piled
+    cairn. The ancient name of Yeavering Bell, as given by Bede in his
+    account of the labours of St. Paulinus, was Ad-gefrin.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To recall the days when King Edwin and his queen, Ethelburga, came here
+    from the royal city of Bamburgh, we must go back to a time nearly forty
+    years after the Bernician chieftain, Ida, established himself in that
+    rocky fortress, from whence he ruled a district roughly corresponding to
+    the present counties of Durham and Northumberland, and known as
+    Bernicia. One of Ida&rsquo;s successors, Ethelric, overcame the tribe of
+    Angles then established in the neighbouring district of Deira&mdash;the
+    Yorkshire of to-day. His successor, Ethelfrith, ruled over the united
+    district, and married the daughter of Ella, the vanquished chieftain.
+    Her brother, Edwin, he drove into exile, and the young prince found
+    refuge at the court of Redwald of East Anglia, where he remained for
+    some years.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Redwald&rsquo;s friendship, however, does not seem to have been above
+    suspicion, for we find that Ethelfrith&rsquo;s bribe had on one occasion
+    nearly induced him to give up his guest, whose life, however, was saved
+    by Redwald&rsquo;s wife who turned her husband from his purpose. In his exile
+    the thoughts of the young prince often turned towards his own land; and,
+    once, as he sat brooding over his misfortunes, he saw in a vision one
+    who came and spoke comforting words to him, saying that he should yet be
+    king and that his reign should be long and glorious. &ldquo;And if one should
+    come to thee and repeat this sign,&rdquo; said the stranger, laying his right
+    hand on Edwin&rsquo;s head &ldquo;wouldst thou hearken to his rede?&rdquo; Edwin gave his
+    word, and the vision fled. Some little time after this, Ethelfrith of
+    Northumbria, as the united districts were now called, fell in battle
+    against Redwald, and Edwin, returning northward, became ruler of
+    Northumbria, the sons of Ethelfrith fleeing in their turn before the new
+    king. Edwin wedded, as his second wife, Ethelburga, daughter of that
+    king of Kent in whose days Augustine came to England; and being a
+    Christian princess, she brought with her a priest to her new home in the
+    north. The priest&rsquo;s name was Paulinus; and one day he went to the King
+    and, placing his right hand on Edwin&rsquo;s head, asked if he knew that sign.
+    Edwin remembered, and redeemed his promise. He hearkened to the teaching
+    of the earnest monk, with the result that before long he and his court
+    were baptised by Paulinus, Edwin&rsquo;s little daughter, it is said, being
+    the first to receive the sacred rite.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This was at York; and when the king and queen went to the royal city of
+    Bamburgh, or to their country dwelling at the foot of the Cheviots,
+    Paulinus accompanied them; and wherever he went, he laboured to teach
+    the North-country Angles and Saxons the gospel of Christ. This country
+    dwelling, to which came Paulinus and his royal friends, was Ad-gefrin,
+    or Yeavering; and though it is extremely unlikely that any traces of it
+    could remain until our day, yet tradition points out a fragment of an
+    old building still standing there, as a remnant of the royal residence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the region of Kirknewton, a pretty little village to the north-west
+    of Yeavering, where Colledge Water joins the Glen, which gives its name
+    to the romantic district of Glendale, Paulinus baptised many hundreds of
+    Edwin&rsquo;s people; and the name of Pallinsburn&mdash;which is now confined to a
+    house at some little distance from the burn&mdash;enshrines the memory of
+    yet another scene of the labours of the indefatigable monk.
+</p>
+<p>
+    If we stand on the wind-swept top of Yeavering Bell, we are surrounded
+    by the evidences of still more remote days, for the whole of the summit
+    was once a fortified camp of the ancient Britons. A roughly-piled, but
+    massive wall, now almost all broken down, surrounded it, and within its
+    grass-grown oval are two additional walls, at the east and the west ends
+    of the enclosure, and many hut-circles, evidences of the rude dwellings
+    of our remote ancestors. Excavations here many years ago brought to
+    light a jasper ball, some fragments of a coarse kind of pottery, and
+    some oaken armlets. Evidently the enclosure on the summit was intended
+    to be a last resort in time of danger, for traces of many huts are to be
+    found outside its encircling wall, which is surrounded by a ditch and a
+    low rampart of earth. At the east end, where the porphyry crag juts out
+    from the hilltop to a height of about twenty feet, full advantage has
+    been taken of this naturally strong position.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Now, instead of advancing foes, the spreading heather climbs steadily up
+    the sloping sides of this ancient stronghold, and invades the central
+    enclosure at its will; a few hardy sheep that have wandered up here from
+    the richer pastures below, and now and again a stray tourist, anxious to
+    make acquaintance at first hand with one of the more famous of the
+    Cheviot heights, and more than satisfied with the glorious view spread
+    out before him, are all that disturb the brooding peace of its grassy
+    solitudes. Up here the wind blows keenly around us with an exhilarating
+    freshness in its breath, and we think regretfully of coats left behind
+    at the shepherd&rsquo;s hospitable dwelling, which, with the rest of the
+    cottages clustering round the old farm house, lies sunning itself in the
+    warm glow of the September afternoon, in the green fields at the foot
+    of the sheltering hills.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Looking southward now, up the stream, there is stretching away to the
+    left the long ridge of Newton Tor, and away behind it Great Hetha and
+    Little Hetha; while half-way down the vale the Colledge Water tumbles
+    over the rocks at Hethpoole Linn (or Heathpool, as the modern rendering
+    has it), breaking into amber spray deep down beneath overhanging trees
+    and boulders and golden bracken.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This brings our thoughts to days comparatively modern, for when Admiral
+    Collingwood was raised to the peerage of Great Britain, it was by the
+    title of &ldquo;Baron Collingwood of Caldburn and Hethpoole, in the county of
+    Northumberland.&rdquo; The brave Admiral was fond of planting an oak tree
+    whenever he found an opportunity, to secure the continuance of those
+    wooden walls which in his hands, and in those of his life-long friend,
+    Nelson, had proved such a sure defence to his country. In a letter dated
+    March, 1806, he wrote to his wife, &ldquo;I wish some parts of Hethpoole could
+    be selected for plantations of larch, oak, and beech, where the ground
+    could best be spared. Even the sides of a bleak hill would grow larch
+    and fir.&rdquo; In another letter some months later he told her what
+    &ldquo;agreeable news&rdquo; it was to hear that she was taking care of his oaks,
+    and planting some at Hethpoole; and saying that if he ever returned he
+    would plant a good deal there; adding, however, that he feared before
+    that could take place both he and Lady Collingwood might themselves be
+    planted in the churchyard beneath some old yew tree.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Hethpoole presents us with a link not only with history, but with
+    romance as well. An ivied ruin near at hand, with walls of enormous
+    strength, is said to be the remains of the castle where the final
+    tragedy in &ldquo;The Hermit of Warkworth&rdquo; took place. Here, it is said, the
+    distracted lover came upon his lady and his brother, who had at that
+    moment effected her escape, and not recognising the youth, rushed upon
+    the pair with drawn sword, only to discover too late his terrible
+    mistake, and lose both brother and bride&mdash;for the lady received a mortal
+    wound in trying to save her rescuer.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Turning our eyes now northward across the Glen from Yeavering Bell, we
+    are looking towards Coupland Castle, and the fact that it was built so
+    late as the reign of James I. bears eloquent testimony to the insecurity
+    of life and property on the Borders even at that period. The barony
+    either gave its name to, or took its name from, a well-known
+    Northumbrian family, of which one of the most prominent members was that
+    Sir John de Coupland who succeeded in capturing David of Scotland at the
+    battle of Neville&rsquo;s Cross&mdash;not, however, before he had lost some of his
+    teeth by a blow from the mailed fist of that doughty monarch!
+</p>
+<p>
+    Beyond Coupland Castle we look across Milfield Plain lying in the angle
+    formed by the meeting of the Glen with the deep and sullen Till, whose
+    slow windings can be traced as it gleams at intervals between the
+    undulations of the lower hills through which it flows northwestward to
+    the Tweed. Though a brisk and sparkling stream in certain parts of its
+    course, the general characteristics of the Till are well borne out by
+    the lines&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  Tweed says to Till
+  &ldquo;What gars ye rin sae still?&rdquo;
+  Till says to Tweed
+  &ldquo;Though ye rin wi&rsquo; speed
+  And I rin slaw;
+  Where ye droon ae man
+  I droon twa.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    There is yet more of historical and traditional interest to note in this
+    view from the top of Yeavering Bell, which, as I saw it last, lay warm
+    in the glow of a September afternoon. Nennius is our authority for
+    stating that on Milfield Plain took place one of the great conflicts in
+    which King Arthur
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Fought, and in twelve great battles overcame
+  The heathen hordes, and made a realm, and reigned&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    And, as we gazed, the level spaces seemed peopled once more with
+    charging knights, flashing sword and swinging battle-axe, and the
+    intervening centuries dropped away, and Arthur&rsquo;s call to battle for &ldquo;our
+    fair father Christ,&rdquo; seemed curiously befitting that romantic scene.
+    But, as the shadows lengthened, and the streams took on a golden glow in
+    the rays of the September sun, then slowly setting, &ldquo;the tumult and the
+    shouting of the captains&rdquo; died away, and the figure of an earnest monk
+    seemed to stand by the riverside, with prince and serf, peasant and
+    warrior for his audience, and the cold bright waters of the Glen
+    dripping from his hand, as he enrolled one after another into the ranks
+    of an army mightier than the hosts of Arthur or Edwin.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Milfield again emerges into notice out of the obscurity of those dark
+    ages, in the days of the Bernician kings who succeeded Edwin; for Bede
+    tells us that &ldquo;This town (Ad-gefrin) under the following kings, was
+    abandoned, and another was built instead of it at a place called
+    Melmin,&rdquo; now Milfield. Nothing, however, remains here of the buildings
+    which once sheltered the royal Saxons and their court. In later days,
+    Milfield has a melancholy interest attaching to it from its connection
+    with the battle of Flodden; for, on the heights above, King James fixed
+    his camp, in the hope that Surrey would lead his troops across the plain
+    below. Of the other considerable heights of the Cheviot range, Carter
+    Fell and Peel Fell are the best known; they both lie right on the border
+    line of England and Scotland, between the North Tyne and the Rede Water.
+    As we have already seen, the men of Tynedale and Redesdale bore a
+    reputation for lawlessness in the time of the Border &ldquo;Moss-trooping&rdquo;
+    days, and until nearly the end of the eighteenth century the tradesmen
+    and guilds of Newcastle would take no apprentice who hailed from either
+    of these dales. The tracks and passes between the hills, once alive with
+    frequent foray and wild pursuit, are now silent and solitary but for the
+    occasional passing of a shepherd or farmer, and the flocks of sheep
+    grazing as they move slowly up the hillsides. A quaint survival of the
+    remembrances of those days was unexpectedly brought before me one day. A
+    child presented me with a bunch of cotton-grass, gathered on the moors
+    not far from the Roman-Wall. I asked if she knew what they were that she
+    had brought. &ldquo;Moss-troopers,&rdquo; she replied.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Many of the Cheviot heights bear most suggestive and interesting
+    names, such as Cushat<a href="#fn-7" name="fnref-7"
+    id="fnref-7"><sup>[7]</sup></a> Law, Kelpie<a href="#fn-8"
+    name="fnref-8" id="fnref-8"><sup>[8]</sup></a> Strand, Earl&rsquo;s Seat,
+    Stot<a href="#fn-9" name="fnref-9" id="fnref-9"><sup>[9]</sup></a>
+    Crags, Deer Play, Wether Lair, Bloodybushedge, Monkside, etc., etc.
+</p>
+
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-7" id="fn-7"></a> <a href="#fnref-7">[7]</a>
+Cushat = a wood-pigeon.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-8" id="fn-8"></a> <a href="#fnref-8">[8]</a>
+Kelpie = a water-witch.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-9" id="fn-9"></a> <a href="#fnref-9">[9]</a>
+Stot = a bullock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+    In these lonely wilds, which occupy all the northwest of the county, one
+    may travel all day and meet with no living thing save the birds of the
+    air, and a few shy, wild creatures of the moorlands; curve after curve,
+    the rounded hills stretch away into the distance, grass-grown or
+    heatherclad, with occasional peat-mosses; above is the &ldquo;grey gleaming
+    sky,&rdquo; and, all around, a stillness as of vast untrodden wastes, and a
+    sense of solitude out of all proportion to the actual extent of this
+    lonely region. The fascination of it, however, admits of no denial, even
+    on the part of those newly making its acquaintance; while those who in
+    childhood or youth roam over its wild fells, and feel the spell of its
+    brooding mystery, retain in their hearts for all time an unfading
+    remembrance of its magic charm.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  COLLEDGE WATER.
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  My sire is the stooping Cheviot mist,
+  My mother the heath in her purple train;
+  And every flower on her gown I&rsquo;ve kissed
+  Over and over and over again.
+
+  The secret ways of the hills are mine,
+  I know where the wandering moor-fowl nest;
+  And up where the wet grey glidders<a href="#fn-10" name="fnref-10" id="fnref-10"><sup>[10]</sup></a> shine
+  I know where the roving foxes rest.
+
+  I know what the wind is wailing for
+  As it searches hollow and hag and peak;
+  And, riding restless on Newton Tor,
+  I know what the questing shadows seek.
+
+  I know the tale that the brown bees tell,
+  And they tell it to me with a raider&rsquo;s pride,
+  As, drunk with the cups of Yeavering Bell,
+  They stagger home from the English side.
+
+  I know the secrets of haugh and hill;
+  But sacred and safe they rest with me,
+  Till I hide them deep in the heart of Till,
+  To be taken to Tweed and the open sea.
+
+    &mdash;<i>Will. H. Ogilvie</i>.
+
+  BY PERMISSION OF MESSRS. W. AND R. CHAMBERS
+</pre>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-10" id="fn-10"></a> <a href="#fnref-10">[10]</a>
+Glidders = Patches of loose stones on the hillside.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br/>THE ROMAN WALL.</h2>
+
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Take these flowers, which, purple waving,
+  On the ruined rampart grew,
+  Where, the sons of Freedom braving,
+  Rome&rsquo;s imperial standard flew.
+  Warriors from the breach of danger
+  Pluck no longer laurels there;
+  They but yield the passing stranger
+  Wild-flower wreaths for Beauty&rsquo;s hair.&rdquo;
+    &mdash;<i>Sir Walter Scott.</i>
+                (Lines written for a young lady&rsquo;s album.)
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Of all the abundance of treasure which Northumberland possesses, from a
+    historical point of view&mdash;of all its wealth of interesting relics of
+    bygone days&mdash;ancient abbey, grim fortress, menhir and monolith, camp and
+    tumulus&mdash;none grips the imagination as does the sight of that unswerving
+    line which pursues its way over hill and hollow, from the eastern to the
+    western shores of the north-land, visible emblem, after more than a
+    thousand years, of the far-flung arm of Imperial Rome.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From Wallsend on the Tyne to Bowness on the Solway Firth it strode
+    triumphantly across the land; even now in its decay it remains a
+    splendid monument to that mighty nation&rsquo;s genius for having and holding
+    the uttermost parts of the earth that came within their ken. As was
+    inevitable, after the lapse of nearly eighteen centuries the great work
+    is everywhere in a ruinous condition, and in many places, especially at
+    its eastern end, has disappeared altogether; but not only can its course
+    be traced by various evidences, but it was actually standing within
+    comparatively recent years. As lately as the year 1800&mdash;lately, that is,
+    compared with the date of its building&mdash;its existence at Byker was
+    referred to in a magazine of the period. Now nothing is to be seen of it
+    excepting a few stones here and there, for many miles from Wallsend; but
+    the highroad westward from Newcastle, by Westgate Road, as is well
+    known, follows the course of the Wall for nearly twenty miles. But
+    farther west we may walk along the uneven, broken surface of the mighty
+    rampart, or climb down into the broad and deep fosse which lies closely
+    against it along its northern side, without troubling ourselves with the
+    arguments and uncertainties of antiquaries, who have by no means decided
+    on what was the original function of the Wall, who was its real builder,
+    why and when the earthen walls and fosse which accompany it on the south
+    were wrought, and many other smaller controversial points, which afford
+    endless matter for speculation and discussion.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Early references to the Wall show that our forefathers knew it as the
+    Picts&rsquo; Wall; it is now generally referred to as the Wall of Hadrian, the
+    general concensus of opinion yielding to that indefatigable ruler the
+    credit of having wrought the mighty work. Whether built originally as a
+    frontier line of defence or not, opinions are not agreed; but it is very
+    certain that the Wall afforded the only secure foothold in the North to
+    the Romans for well-nigh two centuries of hostility from the restless
+    Brigantes to the southward, and the Picts and Scots to the north; and
+    for another century or so after their southern neighbours had become
+    friendly and peaceful, it still remained a substantial bulwark against
+    the northern barbarians.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Throughout the whole of its length it steadily holds the line of the
+    highest ridges in its course, climbing up slopes and dipping down into
+    the intervening hollows with the least possible deviation from its
+    onward course. The most interesting, because most complete, portion of
+    the Wall, is that in the neighbourhood of the three loughs&mdash;Broomlee,
+    Greenlee, and Crag Loughs, which, with Grindon Lough to the south of the
+    Wall, boast the name of the Northumberland Lakes. On this portion of the
+    wall is situated the large Roman station of Borcovicus, from which we
+    have gained a great deal of our information as to what the life of the
+    garrisons on this lonely outpost of Empire was like.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The station is situated on hilly ground, which slopes gently to the
+    south, and is nearly five acres in extent. On entering the eastern
+    gateway one cannot but experience a sudden thrill on seeing the deep
+    grooves worn in the stone by the passing and repassing of Roman cart and
+    chariot wheels. That mute witness of the daily traffic of the soldiery
+    in those long-past centuries speaks with a most intimate note to us who
+    eighteen hundred years afterwards come to look upon the place of their
+    habitation. The station itself is of the usual shape of the Roman towns
+    on the course of the Wall&mdash;oblong, with rounded corners. The greatest
+    length lies east and west, in a line with the Wall; and two broad
+    streets crossing each other at right angles lead from the north to the
+    south, and from the east to the western gateways. Each of the four was
+    originally a double gateway; but in every case one half of it has been
+    closed up, no doubt when the garrison was declining in numbers, and the
+    attacks of the enemy were increasing in severity.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus09"></a>
+<a href="images/144.jpg">
+<img src="images/144.jpg" width="600" height="384" alt="Illustration:
+North Gateway, Housesteads and Roman Wall." /></a>
+<p class="caption"><b>North Gateway, Housesteads and Roman Wall.</b></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+    Considerable portions of the guard-chambers, one at each side of each
+    gateway, still remain; and near one of them was found a huge stone
+    trough, its edges deeply worn by, apparently, the frequent
+    sharpening of knives upon it. Its use has not been determined; Dr. Bruce
+    tells us that one of the men engaged in the work of excavation gave it
+    as his firm opinion that the Romans used it to wash their Scotch
+    prisoners in! The buildings of the little town&mdash;a row of houses against
+    the western wall, two large buildings near the centre of the camp, with
+    smaller chambers to the east of them&mdash;in which the garrison lived,
+    worked, and stored their supplies, are still quite plainly to be traced,
+    although the walls are only three or four courses high in most places,
+    and of the pillars the broken bases are almost all that remain.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A considerable number of people dwelt outside the walls of this, as of
+    all the stations, sheltering under its walls, and relying on the
+    protection of its garrison; the slope to the southward of Borcovicus
+    shows many traces of buildings scattered all over it. On the northern
+    side, the steep hill, massive masonry, and deep fosse would seem to have
+    offered well-nigh insuperable difficulties to an attacking force such as
+    then could be brought against the camp; yet not only here, but in all
+    the stations whose remains yet survive, there is unmistakable evidence
+    that more than once has the garrison been driven out by a victorious
+    foe, to re-enter and occupy it again at a later period. And when we
+    consider that the Wall and its forts were garrisoned by the Romans for a
+    period extending over nearly three centuries, a period corresponding to
+    the time from the reign of James I. to the present day, it becomes a
+    matter of wonder, not that such was the case, but that such occurrences
+    were not more frequent than the evidences seem to declare.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In spite of all the hard fighting, however, the recreations of lighter
+    hours would seem not to have been forgotten; on the north of the wall is
+    a circular hollow in the ground, evidently a little amphitheatre, in
+    which doubtless many a captive Briton and Pict played his part. On a
+    little rise to the southward, called Chapel Hill, stood the temple where
+    the garrison paid its vows to the various deities of its worship. Many
+    remarkably fine altars found on this and other sites have been
+    preserved, either at the fine museum at The Chesters, or at the Black
+    Gate in Newcastle. One of the most striking is the altar to Mithras, the
+    Persian sun-god, found in a cave near the camp, evidently constructed
+    for the celebration of the rites connected with the worship of Mithras.
+    The altar shows the god coming out of an egg, and surrounded by an oval
+    on which are carved the signs of the Zodiac.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Teutonic element in the garrison is represented by the altars to
+    Mars Thingsus, the discovery of which caused great interest in Germany,
+    and by the altars to the Deae Matres&mdash;the mother-goddesses, whose carved
+    figures are shown seated, fully draped, and holding baskets of fruits on
+    their knees. They are generally found in sets of three; but
+    unfortunately they have been much mutilated, and all the examples
+    remaining are headless. The Deae Matres would seem to correspond in some
+    degree to the Roman Ceres and the Greek Demeter, the bountiful givers of
+    the fruits of the earth. The majority of the altars found are, as was to
+    be expected, dedicated to the deities of Rome; chiefly, as shown by the
+    constantly recurring I.O.M.&mdash;<i>Jovi optimo maximo</i>&mdash;to &ldquo;Jupiter, the best
+    and greatest.&rdquo; The varying inscriptions which follow as reasons for
+    their erection as votive offerings give us glimpses of the life in these
+    communities clearer than those afforded by anything else. And as most,
+    if not all, of our knowledge concerning the details of the Roman
+    occupation of the north-country has to be obtained from the inscriptions
+    which the garrisons left behind them, the inscribed stones as well as
+    the altars are of the greatest possible interest and value. One such
+    stone, found at the Borcovicus mile-castle, states that &ldquo;the Second
+    Legion, the August (erected this at the command of) Aulus Platorius
+    Nepos, Legate and Propraetor, in honour of the Emperor Caesar Trajanus
+    Hadrianus Augustus.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    At &ldquo;Cuddy&rsquo;s&rdquo; (Cuthbert&rsquo;s) Crag near Borcovicus is one of the most
+    picturesque bits of scenery to be found on the whole course of the Wall.
+    My first acquaintance with it was made on a day of grey mist and
+    drizzling rain, which completely hid any view of the surrounding
+    country, and of necessity confined our attention to the stones (and wet
+    grass!) immediately beneath our feet. But another visit was on a day of
+    wind and sunshine, and in the company of a group of light-hearted
+    students. We explored the ruins of Borcovicus, walked along the broad
+    and broken top of the Wall, and climbed up hill and down dale with it
+    under the pleasantest conditions, if a trifle breezy on the heights.
+    June was at her traditional best, which she does not often vouchsafe to
+    show us; flowers waved all around, amongst the grass and in the crannies
+    between the stones, and more than once the lines at the head of this
+    chapter were quoted by one to another. Again and again our progress was
+    stayed while we admired the glorious view spread out all around, but
+    especially was this the case at Cuddy&rsquo;s Crag. We looked westward over
+    Crag Lough, its usually dark waters flashing in the afternoon sun; the
+    three Loughs were all within view; away to the southward, beyond
+    Barcombe Hill, and the site of Vindolana, Langley Castle could be seen,
+    &ldquo;standing four-square to all the winds that blew&rdquo;; and further away
+    again, beyond the valley of the South Tyne, to the southwest the faint
+    outlines of Crossfell and Skiddaw. Northward it was quite easy to
+    imagine oneself looking out over the Picts&rsquo; country still, so far do
+    the moorlands stretch, and so few are the signs of habitation. Rolling
+    ridges stretch northward, wave upon wave, clothed with grass and
+    heather, amongst which Parnesius and Pertinax went hunting with little
+    Allo the Pict; to the northeast the heights of Simonside showed; and far
+    beyond them, though more to the westward, the rounded summits of the
+    Cheviots lay on the horizon.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A short distance westward from the Crag is Hot Bank farmhouse, a place
+    which most visitors to the Wall remember with grateful feelings; for
+    what is more refreshing, after a long tramp, than a farmhouse cup of tea
+    accompanied by that most appetising of Northumbrian dainties, hot girdle
+    cakes! The Visitors&rsquo; Book at Hot Bank is a &ldquo;civil list&rdquo; of all the most
+    learned and noted names in Great Britain, and many outside its shores,
+    together with legions of humbler folk. In this it resembles the one at
+    Cilurnum, which is the only other considerable station along the line of
+    the Wall in Northumberland.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This station of Cilurnum, or Chesters, is a little over five acres in
+    extent, and is quite near to Chollerford station on the North British
+    Railway. To describe Cilurnum in detail, and the interesting museum
+    connected with it, filled with a wonderful collection of objects found
+    on the line of the Wall, would require a book to deal with that alone.
+    The general plan is the same as that which we have already seen at
+    Borcovicus, with the same rounded corners, and double gateway with
+    guard-chambers at each side; the western and eastern walls at Chesters,
+    however, have each an additional single gateway to the south of the
+    larger portals. We must content ourselves with a short survey of the
+    camp, with its two wide streets at right angles to each other as at
+    Borcovicus, and the rest of them very narrow&mdash;indeed, little more than
+    two feet in width; the remains of its Forum and market, its barracks
+    and houses, its open shops and colonnades, the bases of the pillars yet
+    in position; its baths, with pipes, cistern, and flues; and a vaulted
+    chamber which was thought, on its being first excavated, to lead to
+    underground stables, for a local tradition held that such were in
+    existence, and would be found, with a troop of five hundred horses. The
+    vault, however, did not lead further, so that the tradition remained
+    unproven. Notwithstanding this, there was a grain of fact in it; for
+    Chesters was a cavalry station, and five hundred was the full complement
+    of the <i>ala</i>, or troop (<i>ala</i> being a &ldquo;wing,&rdquo; and cavalry forming the
+    &ldquo;wing&rdquo; of an army in position).
+</p>
+<p>
+    Outside the walls of Cilurnum are traces of the usual suburban
+    dwellings; and here, near the river, stood the villa of the officer in
+    command of the station. The excavation of all these buildings and many
+    others took place in the forties and fifties of last century, and were
+    due to the energy of Mr. John Clayton, the learned and zealous
+    antiquary, in the possession of whose family the estate still remains.
+    To Mr. N.G. Clayton we owe the Museum at the Lodge gate, which he built
+    for the reception of the notable collection it contains of antiquities
+    gathered from all the various stations in Northumberland. A very fine
+    altar brought from Vindolana at once strikes the eye, and may be taken
+    as a type of many others, though not many are so perfect. The gravestone
+    of a standard-bearer, from the neighbouring station of Procolitia, shows
+    a full-length carving of the dead warrior. Other inscribed stones are of
+    great interest, though unfortunately most of them are but fragments;
+    still these fragments not infrequently contain a few words which enable
+    students of them to confirm a date or a fact concerning the garrisons,
+    which must otherwise have been a matter of pure conjecture. For
+    instance, it might seem very improbable that the same regiments should
+    have been quartered in certain stations for over two hundred years; yet
+    one of the inscribed stones proves that such was the case at Cilurnum.
+    The inscription states that the second <i>ala</i> of the Asturians repaired
+    the temple during the consulate of certain persons, which is found to be
+    about the year 221. In the <i>Notitia</i>, which was not compiled until the
+    beginning of the fifth century, the second <i>ala</i> of the Asturians is
+    given as the garrison of Cilurnum.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Another thing which strikes the imagination is the sight, after the
+    lapse of so many centuries, of the erasures on various inscribed
+    stones&mdash;erasures of some emperor&rsquo;s or Caesar&rsquo;s name after his death by
+    the chisel of a soldier in one of his legions on this far-away post of
+    his empire. It is one thing to read one&rsquo;s Gibbon, and learn of the
+    murder of Geta, son of Severus, by order of his brother Caracalla, and
+    another to see the youth&rsquo;s name roughly scratched out on a stone in
+    Hexham Abbey crypt; and to read of the assassination of Elagabalus does
+    not move us one whit, but to see his name erased from a stone in
+    Chesters museum brings the tumultuous happenings in ancient Rome very
+    closely home to us.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Here are also several Roman milestones, with their lengthy and sonorous
+    inscriptions, from various points on the Wall; and a miscellaneous and
+    deeply interesting collection of smaller articles, such as ornaments of
+    bronze, jet, or gold, fibulae (brooches or clasps), coins of many
+    reigns, Samian-ware, terra-cotta and glass, parts of harness, etc., etc.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of carven figures there are several besides the standard bearer already
+    mentioned. The best is a figure of Cybele, with elaborate draperies,
+    but unfortunately headless; another, of Victory, holds a palm branch in
+    the left hand, but the right arm is missing. A soldier is shown with
+    spear, shield, and ornate head-piece; and a representation of a
+    river-god, the genius of the Tyne, is worthy of notice. He is a bearded
+    figure, after the style of the figures of Nilus, or the representations
+    in old prints of Father Thames. From Procolitia comes an altar to the
+    goddess Coventina, a name not met with elsewhere, the presiding genius
+    of the well in that station. She is shown reclining on a water-lily
+    leaf, holding in one hand a water-plant, and in the other a goblet from
+    which a stream of water runs. An elaborate carving of three water
+    nymphs, most probably meant to be in attendance on the goddess, is one
+    of the few pieces of sculpture that are not greatly mutilated.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Centurial stones are numerous, having been put up at all parts of the
+    Wall to record the building of such and such parts by various centurions
+    and their companies. The mark >, which Dr. Hodgkin supposes to be a
+    representation of the vine rod, a centurion&rsquo;s symbol of authority, and
+    the sign C or Q, are used to signify a century. Thus a stone inscribed Q
+    VAL. MAXI. states that the century of Valerius Maximus built that part
+    of the Wall. Two or three small altars are inscribed DIBVS
+    VETERIBVS&mdash;&ldquo;To the Old Gods&rdquo;; and Mars Thingsus is well represented.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A very important relic of Roman times found at Cilurnum was a bronze
+    tablet of citizenship, giving this coveted privilege to a number of
+    soldiers who had served in twenty-five campaigns and received honourable
+    discharge. There have been only three specimens of this diploma found in
+    Britain, and all are preserved in the British Museum. There are many
+    memorial tablets erected by wives to their husbands, and husbands to
+    their wives, which leads to much speculation as to how these ladies,
+    high-born Roman, native Briton, or freed-woman, liked their sojourn in a
+    small garrison town on the breezy heights of a Northumbrian moorland.
+    Those ladies who dwelt at Cilurnum, however, had not so much cause to
+    complain, for such natural advantages as were to be had were certainly
+    theirs, in that sheltered spot. The scenery round about Cilurnum is
+    quiet, peaceful and pastoral, altogether different from the wild beauty
+    of Cuddy&rsquo;s Crag, Limestone Corner, or Whinshields.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Having now noticed the two chief stations on the line of the Wall, it
+    will be interesting to follow the course of the rampart itself
+    throughout its journey across Northumberland, though to do so in detail
+    is impossible within the limits of so small a volume as the present one.
+    Neither would it be necessary, or desirable, for the last word in
+    detailed description has been said long ago in the two wonderfully
+    exhaustive treatises on the subject by Dr. Bruce.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A list of Roman officials, civil and military, throughout the empire has
+    come down to us; in this list&mdash;<i>Notitia Dignitatem et Administratem, tam
+    civilium quam militarium in partibus orientis et occidentis</i>&mdash;the
+    portion which relates to the Wall is headed, <i>Item per lineam
+    Valli</i>&mdash;&ldquo;Also along the line of the Wall.&rdquo; The following is a copy of
+    this portion, as given by Dr. Bruce in his <i>Handbook to the Roman Wall</i>.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  The Tribune of the fourth cohort of the Lingones at Segedunum.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of Cornovii at Pons AElii.
+
+  The Prefect of the first <i>ala</i> of the Asturians at Condercum. The
+  Tribune of the first cohort of the Frixagi (Frisii) at Vindobala.
+
+  The Prefect of the Savinian <i>ala</i> at Hunnum.
+
+  The Prefect of the second <i>ala</i> of the Asturians at Cilurnum.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of the Batavians at Procolitia.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of the Tungrians at Borcovicus.
+
+  The Tribune of the fourth cohort of the Gauls at Vindolana.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of Asturians at Aesica.
+
+  The Tribune of the second cohort of Dalmatians at Magna.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of Dacians, styled Aelia, at Amboglanna.
+
+  The Prefect of the <i>ala</i> called &ldquo;Petriana,&rdquo; at Petriana.
+
+  The Prefect of a detachment of Moors, styled Aureliani, at Aballaba.
+
+  The Tribune of the second cohort of the Lingones at Congavata.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of Spaniards at Axelodunum.
+
+  The Tribune of the second cohort of the Thracians at Gabrosentum.
+
+  The Tribune of the first marine cohort, styled Aelia, at Tunnocelum.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of the Morini at Glannibanta.
+
+  The Tribune of the third cohort of the Nervians at Alionis.
+
+  The Cuneus of men in armour at Bremetenracum.
+
+  The Prefect of the first <i>ala</i>, styled Herculean, at Olenacum.
+
+  The Tribune of the sixth cohort of the Nervians at Virosidum.
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Of these stations, with their officers and troops, only those as far as
+    Magna are in Northumberland; the rest continue the chain of defences
+    across Cumberland to the Solway Firth. Besides these stations, there
+    were <i>castella</i> at the distance of every Roman mile (seven furlongs)
+    along the Wall, from which circumstance they are known as
+    &ldquo;mile-castles.&rdquo; They provided accommodation for the troops necessary
+    between the stations, which were at some distance from each other; and
+    between each two <i>castella</i> there were also erected two turrets, so that
+    communication from one end of the Wall to the other was speedy and
+    certain.
+</p>
+<p>
+    All traces of the station of Segedunum (Wallsend) have long since
+    disappeared; the Wall from there, beginning actually in the bed of the
+    river, ran almost parallel with the N.E.R. Tynemouth Branch, a little to
+    the south of it, and climbing the hill to Byker, went down the slope to
+    the Ouseburn parallel with Shields Road, crossing the burn just a little
+    to the south of Byker Bridge. From there its course has been traced to
+    Red Barns, where St. Dominic&rsquo;s now stands, to the Sallyport Gate, and
+    over the Wall Knoll to Pilgrim Street; thence to the west door of the
+    Cathedral, and on past St. John&rsquo;s Church, up Westgate Road.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The station at Pons AElii, it is generally agreed, occupied the ground
+    between the Cathedral church of St. Nicholas and the premises of the
+    Lit. and Phil. Society. Following the Wall up Westgate Road, we are now
+    out upon the highway from Newcastle to Carlisle, which, as we have seen,
+    is upon the very line of the Wall for nearly a score of miles. At
+    Condercum (Benwell) the next station, garrisoned by a cavalry corps of
+    Asturians from Spain, a small temple was uncovered in the course of
+    excavating, and two altars found still standing in their original
+    position. Both of these were to a deity unknown elsewhere, given as
+    Antenociticus on one, and as Anociticus on the other. The former was
+    erected by a centurion of the Twentieth Legion, the Valerian and
+    Victorious, whose crest, the running boar, we shall meet with more than
+    once in our journey.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Westward from here, near West Denton Lodge, faint indications of the
+    turf wall (generally called the Vallum, to distinguish it from the
+    Murus, or stone wall), come into sight, and traces of a mile-castle to
+    the left of the road. After this the Vallum and Murus accompany each
+    other for the rest of their journey, with but little intermission. The
+    next mile-castle was at Walbottle, from which point a delightful view of
+    the Tyne valley and the surrounding country can be obtained. Passing
+    Throckley and Heddon-on-the-Wall, where the fosse on the northern side
+    of the Wall is well seen, and also the Vallum and its fosse, Vindolana
+    (Rutchester) is reached; but there is little evidence here that it is
+    the site of a once busy and bustling garrison station. Indeed, up to
+    this point and for a considerable distance further, a few courses of
+    stones here and there are all that is to be seen of the Roman Wall, its
+    material having for the most part been swallowed up in the construction
+    of the turnpike road on which we are travelling. This road was made in
+    1745 because there was no road by which General Wade could convey his
+    troops from Newcastle to Carlisle, when &ldquo;Bonnie Prince Charlie&rdquo; marched
+    so gaily to that city on his way southward, and so sadly, in a month,
+    returned again.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Wall now makes for the ridge of Harlow Hill, while the Vallum goes
+    on in a perfectly straight line past the picturesque Whittle Dene and
+    the waterworks, until the Wall joins it again near Welton, where the
+    old pele-tower is entirely built of Roman stones. After Matfen Piers,
+    where a road to the northward leads to the beautiful little village of
+    Matfen, and one to the southward to Corbridge, the Wall passes Wall
+    Houses and Halton Shields, where the various lines of the Wall, road,
+    and earthworks, as well as the fosse of each, can be distinctly seen.
+    Passing Carr Hill, the Wall leads up to the station of Hunnum (Halton
+    Chesters), where Parnesius was stationed when Maximus gave him his
+    commission on the Wall. It is not easy to recognise the site now, but as
+    we follow the road we may comfort ourselves with the reflection that at
+    least we have walked right across it from the eastern gate to the
+    western.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A short distance further on is Stagshawbank, famed for its fairs, the
+    glory of which, however, has greatly departed since the days when Dandie
+    Dinmont had such adventures on returning from &ldquo;Staneshiebank.&rdquo; It stands
+    just where the Wall crosses the Watling Street, which enters
+    Northumberland at Ebchester, and crossing the moors to Whittonstall,
+    leads down the long descent to Riding Mill; there turning westward to
+    Corbridge, it comes straight on to Stagshawbank, leading thence
+    northwestward past the Wall through Redesdale to the Borders, which it
+    reaches at Ad Fines Camp, or Chew Green, where the solitudes of the
+    Cheviots and the silence of the deserted camp are soon to be startled by
+    the rifle-shots of Territorials at practice. West of Stagshawbank the
+    earthen ramparts are to be seen in great perfection.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As the Wall nears Chollerford, one may see, a little to the northward,
+    the little chapel of St. Oswald, which, as we have seen in a former
+    chapter, marks the site of the battle of Heavenfield. Just before
+    reaching this point, there is a quarry to the south of the Wall from
+    which the Romans obtained much building-stone, and one of them has left
+    his name carved on one of the stones left lying there, thus&mdash;(P)ETRA
+    FLAVI(I) CARANTINI&mdash;<i>The stone of Flavius Carantinus</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At Plane Trees Field and at Brunton there are larger pieces of the Wall
+    standing than we have yet seen. The Wall now parts company with the
+    highroad, which swerves a little to the north in order to cross the Tyne
+    by Chollerford Bridge, while the course of the Wall is straight ahead,
+    for the present bridge is not the one built and used by the Romans. That
+    is in a line with the Wall, and therefore south of the present one; and
+    as we have already noticed, its piers can be seen near the river banks
+    when the river is low. A diagram of its position is given in Dr. Bruce&rsquo;s
+    <i>Handbook</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Wall now leads up to the gateway of Cilurnum, which we have already
+    visited; and after leaving the park, it goes on up the hill to Walwick.
+    Here it is rejoined by the road, which now for some little distance
+    proceeds actually on the line of the Wall, the stones of which can
+    sometimes be seen in the roadway. The tower a little further on, on the
+    hill called Tower Tye, or Taye, was not built by the Romans, although
+    Roman stones were used in its erection; it is only about two hundred
+    years old.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At Black Carts farm, which the Wall now passes, the first turret
+    discovered on the line of the Wall after the excavations had begun, and
+    interest in the subject was revived, was here laid bare by Mr. Clayton
+    in 1873. At Limestone Bank, not much further on, the fosse north of the
+    Wall, and also that of the Vallum, show a skill in engineering such as
+    we are apt to fancy belongs only to these days of powerful machinery,
+    and explosives for rending a way through the hardest rock. The ditches
+    have both been cut through the solid basalt, and great boulders of it
+    are strewn around; one huge mass, weighing many tons, has been hoisted
+    out&mdash;by what means, we are left to wonder; and another, still in the
+    ditch, has the holes, intended for the wedges still discernible.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A mile or so further on is Procolitia (Carrawburgh), where is the famous
+    well presided over by the goddess Coventina, whose acquaintance we have
+    already made at Cilurnum. The remains of the station at Procolitia are
+    by no means to be compared with those at Borcovicus or Cilurnum; very
+    few of its stones are yet remaining. The well was the most interesting
+    find at Procolitia. It was known to be there, for Horsley had mentioned
+    it; but the waters which supplied it were diverted in consequence of
+    some lead-mining operations. Then the stream formed by its overflow
+    dried up, grass grew over its course and over the well, and it was lost
+    sight of entirely. But the same thing which had led to its disappearance
+    was the means of finding it again. Some lead miners, prospecting for
+    another vein of ore in the neighbourhood, happened to dig in this very
+    spot, and soon struck the stones round the mouth of the well. Mr.
+    Clayton had it properly excavated, and was rewarded by coming not only
+    upon the well, but a rich find of Roman relics of all kinds, which had
+    either been thrown pell-mell into it for concealment in a moment of
+    danger, or, what is more likely, been thrown in during the course of
+    ages as votive offerings to the presiding goddess of the well. There
+    were thousands of coins, mostly silver and copper, with four gold pieces
+    among them; and a large collection of miscellaneous objects, including
+    vases, shoes, pearls, ornaments, altars and inscribed stones, all of
+    which were taken to Chesters. The next point of interest on the Wall is
+    the farmhouse of Carraw, which the Priors of Hexham Abbey once used as a
+    summer retreat. A little further on, at Shield-on-the-Wall, Wade&rsquo;s road
+    crosses to the south of the earthen lines, and parts company with the
+    Wall for a little while, for the latter bends northward to take the high
+    ridge, as usual, while the road and Vallum continue in a straight line.
+    The fragments of a mile-castle are standing just at the point where the
+    Wall swerves northward; indeed, we have been passing the sites of these
+    <i>castella</i>, with fragments more or less in evidence all along the route,
+    but those which we shall now encounter are much more distinctly to be
+    seen than their fellows on the eastern part of the journey, many of
+    which have disappeared altogether.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The high crags which here shoulder the Wall are part of the Great Whin
+    Sill, an intrusive dyke of dolerite which stretches from Greenhead
+    northeastward across the county nearly to Berwick. The military road
+    here leaves the Wall, with which it does not again come into close
+    contact until both are near Carlisle, though in several places the Roman
+    road will be encountered near the Wall in a well-preserved condition.
+    The Wall now climbs another ascent to the farmhouse of Sewingshields,
+    which name is variously explained as &ldquo;Seven Shields,&rdquo; and as &ldquo;The shiels
+    (shielings, or little huts) by the seugh&rdquo; or hollow&mdash;the hollow being
+    the fosse. Sewingshields Castle, long since disappeared, is the scene of
+    the knight&rsquo;s adventures in Sir Walter Scott&rsquo;s &ldquo;Harold the Dauntless.&rdquo;
+    And tradition asserts that King Arthur, with Queen Guinevere and all the
+    court, lies in an enchanted sleep beneath the castle, or at least its
+    site. Not only is there no castle, but the Wall also has been despoiled
+    to supply the material for building the farmhouse and other buildings in
+    the neighbourhood. The Wall climbs unfalteringly over the crags, one
+    after the other, until the wide opening of Busy Gap is reached. This
+    being such a convenient pass from north to south, it was naturally used
+    constantly by raiders and thieves; and such an unenviable notoriety did
+    it possess, that to call a person a &ldquo;Busy Gap rogue&rdquo; was sufficient to
+    lay oneself open to an action for libel. Climbing the next slope we look
+    down on Broomlee Lough and reach the portion of the Wall we have already
+    noted&mdash;Borcovicus (Housesteads), Cuddy&rsquo;s Crag, Hot Bank farmhouse, and
+    Crag; Lough.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The course of the Wall continues, past Milking Gap, along the rugged
+    heights of Steel Rig, Cat&rsquo;s Stairs, and Peel Crag, till on reaching
+    Winshields we are at the highest point on the line, 1,230 feet above the
+    sea-level. Dipping down to Green Slack, the Wall crosses the valley
+    called Lodham Slack, and begins to ascend once more. The local names of
+    gaps and heights in this neighbourhood are highly descriptive, and
+    sometimes weirdly suggestive; we have had Cat&rsquo;s Stairs, and now we come
+    to Bogle Hole, Bloody Gap, and Thorny Doors. A little further west from
+    here the very considerable remains of a mile-castle may be seen, in
+    which a tombstone was found doing duty as a hearth-stone. The
+    inscription recorded that it had been erected by Pusinna to the memory
+    of her husband Dagvaldus, a soldier of Pannonia.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Westward from this mile-castle the Wall climbs Burnhead Crag, on which
+    the foundations of a building, similar to the turrets, were exposed a
+    few years ago; then it dips down again to Haltwhistle Burn, which comes
+    from Greenlee Lough, and is called, until it reaches the Wall, the Caw
+    Burn. From the burn a winding watercourse supplied the Roman station of
+    AEsica (Great Chesters) with water. Just here the Wall is in a very
+    ruinous condition; and of the station of AEsica but little masonry
+    remains, though the outlines of it can he clearly traced. Beyond AEsica,
+    however, is a splendid portion of the Wall, standing some seven or eight
+    courses high. Here it climbs again to the top of the crags which once
+    more appear, bold and rugged, to culminate in the &ldquo;Nine Nicks of
+    Thirlwall,&rdquo; so called from the number of separate heights into which the
+    crags divide, and over which the Wall takes its way.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At Walltown, on this part of its course, is to be seen an old well, in
+    which Paulinus is said to have baptised King Edwin; but the local name
+    for it is King Arthur&rsquo;s Well. Now the Wall descends to a level and
+    pastoral country, leaving behind it the wild moorland and craggy heights
+    across which it has travelled so long; but unfortunately much of it has
+    been destroyed by the quarrying operations at Greenhead. Of the station
+    of Magna (Caervoran) little can be seen at the present day. This station
+    and Aesica are nearer to each other than are any other two stations on
+    the Wall, and a line of camps, five in number, stand south of the Wall
+    and Vallum, from Magna to Amboglanna, showing that a third line of
+    defence was deemed necessary where the natural defences of moorland
+    ridge, lough or crag were absent.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Roman way called the Stanegate comes from the eastward almost up to
+    the station of Magna, which stands a little to the south of both Wall
+    and Vallum, between them and Wade&rsquo;s road, which here approaches nearer
+    to the Wall than it has done for many miles.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Another Roman road, the Maiden Way, comes from the South closely up to
+    the Vallum, quite near to Thirlwall castle. The name &ldquo;Thirlwals&rdquo; was
+    supposed to commemorate the &ldquo;thirling&rdquo; (drilling or piercing) of the
+    Wall at this point by the barbarians, but this is extremely doubtful;
+    though the difficulty of defending the wall on this level tract lends an
+    air of likelihood to this supposition. Near here the little river Tipalt
+    flows across the line of the Wall on its way southward to join the North
+    Tyne.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Passing Wallend, Gap, and Rose Hill, where Gilsland railway station now
+    stands, we follow the Wall to the deep dene of the Poltross Burn, which
+    forms the boundary between Northumberland and Cumberland. The railway
+    just beyond the burn crosses the line of the Wall; and, further on, an
+    interesting portion, several courses high, takes its way through the
+    Vicarage garden. Here we will leave it to continue its way through
+    Cumberland, and turn our attention to the chief Roman ways which cross
+    Northumberland, with other stations standing upon them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Watling Street or Dere Street, we have already noticed; and the
+    chief station on it, which has also proved to be the largest in
+    Northumberland, is Corstopitum, near Corbridge. The recent excavations
+    since 1906 have resulted in the finding of many interesting relics,
+    including some hundreds of coins, amongst which were forty-eight gold
+    pieces, of later Roman date, ranging from those of Valentinian I. to
+    those of Magnus Maximus. Pottery in large quantities has also been
+    found, most of it, of course, in a fragmentary condition, but some
+    pieces, notably bowls of Samian ware, almost perfect, and dating from
+    the first century. Several interesting pieces of sculpture have been
+    unearthed; one a finely sculptured lion standing over an animal which it
+    has evidently just killed; this was, no doubt, used as an outlet for
+    water at the fountain, judging by the projection of the lion&rsquo;s lower
+    lip. Another piece of sculpture represents a sun-god, the rays
+    surrounding his face; and several altars and many inscribed stones are
+    also amongst the treasures lately revealed. A clay mould of a human
+    figure was also found, which is supposed to represent some Keltic deity;
+    but as the figure wears a short tunic not unlike a kilt, and carries a
+    crooked club, the workmen promptly christened it Harry Lauder! The
+    buildings in this town, for it is much more than a military station,
+    have been large and imposing, as is shown by each successive revelation
+    made by the excavators&rsquo; spades. The portion of the Watling Street
+    leading from Corstopitum to the river has also been laid bare.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Roman road called the Stanegate runs westward from the North Tyne at
+    Cilurnum, a little to the north of Fourstones railway station, through
+    Newbrough, on past Grindon Hill, Grindon Lough, which it passes on the
+    south, and Grindon Dykes, to Vindolana (Chesterholm) another Roman town,
+    which lies a mile due south from Hot Bank farmhouse on the Wall.
+    Vindolana stood on a most favourable site, a high platform protected on
+    three sides, and it covered three and a half acres of ground. Here no
+    excavations have yet been made, and the site is grass grown and desolate
+    although the outlines of the station may be distinctly traced. A ruinous
+    building to the west of this station was popularly called the Fairies&rsquo;
+    Kitchen, a name given to it on account of the marks of fire and soot on
+    the pillars. From the station several inscribed stones and altars have
+    been taken to the museum at Chesters. One of them is dedicated to the
+    Genius of the Camp by Pituanius Secundus, the Prefect of the fourth
+    Cohort of the Gauls, which cohort, as we have already seen by the
+    <i>Votitia</i>, was stationed here. In the valley below Vindolana a little
+    cottage is standing. It is built entirely of Roman stones, and was
+    erected by an enthusiastic antiquary, Mr. Anthony Hedley, for himself.
+    Many of the stones used in its construction have inscriptions on them;
+    and in the covered passage, leading from the cottage down to the burn,
+    we come upon one of them inscribed with the name of our old friend the
+    XXth Legion, and its crest, the running boar. The most interesting relic
+    of all in the neighbourhood is a Roman mile-stone, standing in its
+    original position on the Stanegate.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Leaving Vindolana, this road goes on westward to Magna, where it joins
+    the Maiden Way, another important Roman road, which runs from north to
+    south. Coming from the neighbourhood of Bewcastle Fells, it enters
+    Northumberland at Gilsland, and leading eastward as far as Magna, then
+    turns directly southward past Greenhead.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In concluding this chapter on the Roman remains in our county, <i>apropos</i>
+    of the wholesale destruction of the Wall and larger stations which has
+    taken place in the last century or two, I will quote the words of two
+    historians on that subject. Dr. Thomas Hodgkin says: &ldquo;In the reign of
+    Queen Elizabeth, Camden, the enthusiastic antiquary, dared not traverse
+    the line of the wall by reason of the gangs of brigands by whom it was
+    infested. The union of the two countries brought peace, and peace
+    brought prosperity; prosperity, alas! more fatal to the Wall than
+    centuries of Border warfare. For now the prosperous farmers of
+    Northumberland and Cumberland awoke to the building facilities which
+    lurked in these square green enclosures on their farms, treated them as
+    their best quarries, and robbed them unmercifully of their fine
+    well-hewn stones. Happily that work of demolition is now in great
+    measure stayed, and at this day we visit the camps for a nobler purpose,
+    to learn all they can teach us as to the past history of our country.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    None, I think, will disagree with these words of the learned Doctor,
+    whether or not they may go as far as Cadwallader J. Bates, who, in
+    concluding his chapter on the Roman Wall, gave it as his opinion that
+    &ldquo;unless the island is conquered by some civilized nation, there will
+    soon be no traces of the Wall left. Nay, even the splendid whinstone
+    crags on which it stands will be all quarried away to mend the roads of
+    our urban and rural authorities.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus10"></a>
+<img src="images/166.jpg" width="300" height="174" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br/>SOME NORTHUMBRIAN STREAMS.</h2>
+
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Come, don&rsquo;t abuse our climate, and revile
+  The crowning county of England&mdash;yes, the best.
+</pre>
+
+<hr />
+
+<pre>
+  Have you and I, then, raced across its moors.
+  Till horse and boy were well-nigh mad with glee,
+  So often, summer and winter, home from school,
+  And not found that out? Take the streams away,
+  The country would be sweeter than the South
+  Anywhere; give the South our streams, would it
+  Be fit to match our Borders? Flower and crag,
+  Burnside and boulder, heather and whin,&mdash;you don&rsquo;t
+  Dream you can match them south of this? And then,
+  If all the unwatered country were as flat
+  As the Eton playing-fields, give it back our burns,
+  And set them singing through a sad South world,
+  And try to make them dismal as its fens&mdash;
+  They won&rsquo;t be! Bright and tawny, full of fun
+  And storm and sunlight, taking change and chance
+  With laugh on laugh of triumph&mdash;why, you know
+  How they plunge, pause, chafe, chide across the rocks,
+  And chuckle along the rapids, till they breathe
+  And rest and pant and build some bright deep bath
+  For happy boys to dive in, and swim up.
+  And match the water&rsquo;s laughter.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>
+    Northumberland is fortunate in the number of rivers which, owing to the
+    position of the Cheviot Hills, flow right across the county from west to
+    east. These Northumbrian streams have a distinct character of their own,
+    and are of a different breed from those of the southern; counties. They
+    are neither mountain torrents nor placid leisurely rivers, such as are
+    met elsewhere in Britain, but busy, bright, joyous, and sparkling,
+    never sluggish, never silent, even when deep and full, as is the Tyne in
+    its lower reaches. With the Tyne and its tributary streams we have
+    already travelled; but there are others yet awaiting us, claiming our
+    attention sometimes for the romantic scenery through which they run
+    their bright course, sometimes for the historic sites they pass on their
+    way, sometimes for both reasons. Wansbeck, Coquet, Aln, or Till&mdash;each
+    has its own interest, as has also the Tweed in that score or so of miles
+    along which it can he spoken of in connection with Northumberland.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The source of the Wansbeck, the only &ldquo;beck&rdquo; the county possesses, is
+    amongst the &ldquo;Wild Hills o&rsquo; Wannys&rdquo; (Wanny&rsquo;s beck) a group of picturesque
+    sandstone crags which surround Sweethope Lough, a sheet of water which
+    covers 180 acres. The scenery of this upper course of the Wansbeck is
+    very striking, from the Lough to Kirkwhelpington, flowing between bleak
+    moorland and rich pasture, and on to Littleharle Tower, which stands
+    secluded in deep woods.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Another mansion near at hand, and most picturesquely situated, is
+    Wallington Hall, lying a short distance away on the north bank of the
+    Wansbeck. It is one of the most notable country houses in
+    Northumberland, and especially so on account of its unique
+    picture-gallery, roofed with dull glass, and containing several series
+    of pictures connected with Northumbrian history. One of these is a
+    series of frescoes by William Bell Scott, whose name was for so many
+    years associated with all that was best in art in Newcastle, and whose
+    picture of the &ldquo;Building of the Castle&rdquo; may be seen at the head of the
+    staircase in the Lit. and Phil. building. His pictures at Wallington
+    are:&mdash;1. The Building of the Roman Wall. 2. The visit of King Egfrid
+    and Bishop Trumwine to St. Cuthbert on Fame. 3. A Descent of the Danes.
+    4. Death of the Venerable Bede. 5. The Charlton Spur. 6. Bernard Gilpin
+    taking down a challenge glove in Rothbury Church. 7. Grace Darling and
+    her father on the way to the wreck. 8. The Nineteenth Century&mdash;showing
+    the High Level Bridge, the Quayside, an Armstrong gun, etc., etc.
+    Another series consists of medallions and portraits of famous men
+    connected with Northumbrian events, from Hadrian and Severus down to
+    George Stephenson and others of modern times; while yet another depicts
+    all the incidents of &ldquo;Chevy Chase.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    Some miles further eastward, the Wansbeck receives the Hart Burn&mdash;which,
+    by the way, is larger than the parent stream at this point&mdash;and, a
+    little later, the Font. The lovely little village of Mitford, once
+    important enough to overshadow the Morpeth of that day, lies at the
+    junction of Font and Wansbeck. The Mitfords of Mitford can boast, if
+    ever family could, of being Northumbrian of the Northumbrians, as they
+    were seated here before the days of the Conqueror, who made such a
+    general upsetting amongst the Saxon landowners.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The beauty of the two miles walk along the banks of the Wansbeck from
+    here to Morpeth is not easy to surpass in all the county, though several
+    parts of the Coquet valley may justly compete with it. William Howitt
+    has left on record his admiration for this lovely region, and said
+    Morpeth was &ldquo;more like a town in a dream&rdquo; than a reality. Especially is
+    this so when looking at the town from the neighbourhood of the river.
+    Before actually reaching Morpeth the Wansbeck waters the fair fields
+    that once held Newminster Abbey in its pride; now, nothing remains but
+    an arch or so and a few stones, to remind us of the noble abbey which
+    Ralph de Merley built so long ago. When only half built it was
+    demolished by the Scots under King David; but willing hands set to work
+    again, and the abbey and monastery were completed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the town of Morpeth, though newer buildings are stretching out
+    towards the outskirts, many of the ancient buildings and streets remain,
+    and the general aspect of this part of it is much the same as when the
+    Jacobites of Northumberland gathered together here, and the clergyman,
+    Mr. Buxton, proclaimed James III. in its Market Place. Of Morpeth
+    Castle, built by a De Merley soon after the Conquest, only the gateway
+    tower remains, but the outlines of the original boundary walls can be
+    clearly traced. A company of five hundred Scots, whom Leslie had left as
+    a garrison in 1644, held out here for three weeks against two thousand
+    Royalists under Montrose. After the cannonading received during that
+    siege, the walls were not repaired again, and the castle fell into
+    decay. The inhabitants of Morpeth have a daily reminder of times yet
+    more remote, for the Curfew Bell still rings out over the little town
+    every evening at eight o&rsquo;clock.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Another walk of three miles along the still beautiful banks of the
+    Wansbeck brings us to Bothal, another little village of great beauty,
+    embowered and almost hidden amongst luxuriant woods. Its curious name is
+    derived from the Anglo-Saxon <i>bottell</i>, a place of abode (as in
+    Walbottle). The name conjures up memories of the knights of old, their
+    loves and their fortunes, fair or disastrous; for the best-known version
+    of &ldquo;The Hermit of Warkworth&rdquo; tells us that it was a Bertram of Bothal
+    who was the luckless hero of that tale, though another version avers
+    that he belonged to the house of Percy.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Wansbeck&rsquo;s fellow stream, the Coquet, has its birth amongst some of the
+    wildest scenery of the Cheviot Hills, where the heights of Deel&rsquo;s Hill
+    and Woodbist Law look down on the now silent Watling Street and the
+    deserted Ad Fines Camp. In its windings along the bases of the hills it
+    is joined by the Usway Burn, said to be named after King Oswy, between
+    which and the little river Alwine lies the famous Lordship of Kidland,
+    once desolate on account of the thieving and raiding of its neighbours
+    of Bedesdale and Scotland.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Hodgson, in his &ldquo;Northumberland,&rdquo; says of this region, &ldquo;All the said
+    Kydlande is full of lytle hilles or mountaynes, and between the saide
+    hilles be dyvers valyes in which discende litle Ryvvelles or brokes of
+    water, spryngynge out of the said hilles and all fallynge into a lytle
+    Rever or broke callede Kidlande water, w&rsquo;ch fallethe into the rever of
+    cockette nere to the towne of alwynntonn, w&rsquo;tin a myll of the castell of
+    harbottell.&rdquo; The reasons for the desolation of Kidland are graphically
+    set forth:&mdash;&ldquo;In somer seasons when good peace ys betwene England and
+    Scotland, th&rsquo;inhabitantes of dyv&rsquo;se townes thereaboutes repayres up with
+    theyr cattall in som&rsquo;ynge (summering) as ys aforesaid, and so have used
+    to do of longe tyme. And for the pasture of theyr cattall, so long as
+    they would tarye there they payed for a knoweledge two pens for a
+    household, or a grote at the most, though they had nev&rsquo; so many
+    cattalles. And yet the poore men thoughte their fermes dere enoughe.
+    There was but fewe yeres that they escaped w&rsquo;thout a greatter losse of
+    their goodes and cattalles, by spoyle or thefte of the Scottes or
+    Ryddesdale men, then would have paide for the pasture of theyr cattail
+    in a much better grounde. And ov&rsquo; (over, besides) that, the saide valyes
+    or hopes of Kidlande lyeth so distant and devyded by mounteynes one from
+    an other, that such as Inhabyte in one of these hoopes, valeys, or
+    graynes, can not heare the Fraye outcrye, or exclamac&rsquo;on of such as
+    dwell in an other hoope or valley upon the other side of the said
+    mountayne, nor come or assemble to theyr assystance in tyme of
+    necessytie. Wherefore we can not fynde anye of the neyghbours
+    thereabouts wyllinge cotynnally to Inhabyte or plenyshe w&rsquo;thin the saide
+    grounde of Kydland, and especially in wynter tyme.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    These reasons were given by the people of &ldquo;Cockdale&rdquo; in the neighbouring
+    valley, to account for the desolation of Kidland, which lay open on the
+    northward to attacks from the Scots, and had no defence on the south
+    from the rievers of Redesdale. The inhabitants of Coquetdale seem to
+    have been a right valiant and hardy fraternity, honest and fearless,
+    well able to give good blows in defence of their possessions, for it is
+    left on record that &ldquo;the people of the said Cock-dayle be best p&rsquo;pared
+    for defence and most defensyble people of themselfes, and of the truest
+    and best sorte of anye that do Inhabyte, endlonge, the frounter or
+    border of the said mydle m&rsquo;ches of England.&rdquo; The traces of these days of
+    raid and foray are to be found in abundance all over Coquetdale, as
+    indeed all over Northumberland, in pele-tower and barmkyn, fortified
+    dwelling and bastle house.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Harbottle Castle would have a good deal to tell, could it only speak, of
+    siege and assault from the day when, &ldquo;with the aid of the whole county
+    of Northumberland and the bishopric of Durham,&rdquo; it was built by Henry
+    II., until, after the Union of the Crowns, it shared the fate of many of
+    the Border strongholds, and fell into gradual decay, or was used as a
+    quarry from which to draw building material for new and modern
+    mansions. At Rothbury, a pele-tower has formed the dwelling of the
+    Vicars of that town from the time that any mention of Whitton Tower is
+    to be found, it being first noticed as &ldquo;Turris de Whitton, iuxta
+    Rothebery.&rdquo; Rothbury itself occupies quite the finest situation of any
+    of the Northumbrian towns. Others, besides it, lie on the banks of a
+    pretty river; others, too, possess fair meadows and rich pastures; but
+    none other has the combination of these attractive features with the
+    finer surroundings of hill, crag, and moorland as picturesquely
+    beautiful as those of Rothbury. In the old church here Bernard Gilpin,
+    &ldquo;the Apostle of the North,&rdquo; often preached; and even the fierce rival
+    factions of the Borderland were so influenced by the gentle, yet
+    fearless preacher, that they consented to forego their usual pleasure of
+    &ldquo;drawing&rdquo; whenever they met one of a rival family, at least so long as
+    Gilpin dwelt among them, and especially to refrain from showing their
+    hostility in church.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There are in Coquetdale, as elsewhere, memorials of the ancient British
+    days in the many camps to be found on the summits of the hills near the
+    town, on Tosson Hill and the Simonside Hills; and not camps only, but
+    barrows, cist-vaens, and flint weapons in considerable numbers. The
+    magnificent view to be obtained, on a clear day, from Tosson Hill or the
+    Simonsides is one to be remembered; to the west and north stretch the
+    vales of Coquet and Alwin, with the rolling heights of the Cheviots
+    bounding them; northward are the woods surrounding Biddlestone Hall, the
+    &ldquo;Osbaldistone Hals&rdquo; of Scot&rsquo;s <i>Rob Roy</i>, awakening memories of Di
+    Vernon; far to the eastward a faint blue haze denotes the distant
+    coastline; while southward, over the dales of Rede and Tyne, the smoke
+    of industrial Tyneside lies on the horizon, with the spires and towers
+    of Newcastle showing faintly against the heights of the Durham side of
+    the Tyne.
+</p>
+<p>
+    One of the chief sights of Rothbury is the beautiful mansion of Cragside
+    and the wonderful valley of Debdon and Crag Hill, as transformed by the
+    first Lord Armstrong into a paradise of beauty, where art and nature are
+    so blended as to make a romantically artistic whole. Another lovely spot
+    on the banks of Coquet is at Brinkburn, where the famous Priory stands
+    almost hidden at the foot of thickly wooded slopes. A very much larger
+    portion of this fine Priory is still standing than is the case with many
+    other religious houses of the same age, for it dates from the reign of
+    Henry I. The story is told of Brinkburn as well as of Blanchland, that a
+    party of marauding Scots on one of their forays passed by the Priory
+    without discovering it in its leafy bower; and so overjoyed were the
+    monks at their escape that they incautiously rang the bells by way of
+    showing their delight. The Scots, who had passed out of sight but not
+    out of hearing, immediately returned on their tracks, and, guided by the
+    joyful peal, reached the Priory, sacked the buildings, and then set them
+    on fire. It may well be that the tragedy occurred at both places, on
+    different occasions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Farther eastward down the Coquet are two places pre-eminently noted as
+    centres for the sport for which the river is famed above all other
+    Northumbrian streams, though some of them are worthy rivals. These two
+    places are Weldon Bridge and Felton; the old Angler&rsquo;s Inn at the
+    first-named is a favourite rendezvous of the fraternity of rod and
+    creel. Fishermen have long known the fascination of these two places,
+    and I quote from the &ldquo;Fisherman&rsquo;s Garland&rdquo; two stanzas written by two
+    enthusiastic anglers in praise of them. The writers are Robert Roxby
+    and Thomas Doubleday.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;But we&rsquo;ll awa&rsquo; to Coquetside,
+  For Coquet bangs them a&rsquo;;
+  Whose winding streams sae sweetly glide
+  By Brinkburn&rsquo;s bonny Ha&rsquo;!&rdquo;
+
+  <i>Written in 1821</i>
+
+  &ldquo;The Coquet for ever, the Coquet for aye!
+  The <i>Woodhall</i> and <i>Weldon</i> and <i>Felton</i> so gay,
+  And <i>Brinkburn</i> and <i>Linden</i>, wi&rsquo; a&rsquo; their sweet pride,
+  For they add to the beauty of dear Coquetside.&rdquo;
+
+  <i>Written in 1826</i>
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Felton, a charmingly placed little village, on the banks of the river
+    where they are overhung by graceful woods, and diversified by cliff and
+    grassy slope, stands just where the great North Road crosses the Coquet.
+    By reason of this position it has been the scene of one or two events of
+    historical interest, notably those connected with the &ldquo;Fifteen&rdquo; and the
+    &ldquo;Forty-five.&rdquo; On the former occasion, the gallant young Earl of
+    Derwentwater, with his followers, was joined here by a band of seventy
+    gentlemen from the Borders, and they rode on to Morpeth to proclaim
+    James III. And thirty years later, the soldiers of George II. passed
+    over the bridge from the southward, led by the Duke of Cumberland, and
+    pressed on towards the Scottish moor where they dealt the final blow to
+    the Stuart cause at Culloden. The interesting old church at Felton,
+    dating from the thirteenth century, is well worth a visit. After leaving
+    Felton behind, the Coquet enters on the most marked windings of all its
+    winding course, until, when it enters the sea at Warkworth Harbour, just
+    opposite Coquet Island, it has contrived to lengthen out its journey to
+    a distance of forty miles.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The bright clear stream of the Aln also begins its short journey across
+    Northumberland from the heights of Cheviot, but in the narrower
+    northern portion of the county. Alnham, with its pele-tower Vicarage,
+    ancient church, and memories of a castle, stands just at the foot of the
+    hills, near the source of the river. Some three or four miles eastward
+    along its banks, a walk through leafy woods brings us to
+    Whittingham&mdash;the final syllable of which, by the way, one pronounces as
+    &ldquo;jam,&rdquo; as one does that of nearly all the other place-names ending in
+    &ldquo;ing-ham&rdquo; in Northumberland, contrary though it be to etymological
+    considerations&mdash;excepting, curiously enough, Chillingham, situated in
+    the very midst of all the others. The &ldquo;ing&rdquo; and &ldquo;ham&rdquo; are in themselves
+    a historical guide to the days in which the various villages received
+    their names, these two syllables being a certain indication of a Saxon
+    settlement, the &ldquo;home of the sons, or descendants of&rdquo; whatever person
+    the first syllable indicates. Thus, Edlingham, only a few miles away, is
+    the &ldquo;home or settlement of the sons of Eadwulf&rdquo;; Ellingham, the &ldquo;home of
+    the sons of Ella,&rdquo; and so on. How the &ldquo;Whitt&rdquo; syllable was spelled we do
+    not know; most probably Hwitta or Hwitha&mdash;for all our <i>wh&rsquo;s</i> were <i>hw</i>
+    originally&mdash;<i>hwaet, hwa, hwaether</i> and so forth.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This ancient village is in these days a charming and peaceful place,
+    lying in the midst of rich meadow lands, and surrounded by magnificent
+    trees. It had its romances, too, in the course of years; so long ago as
+    the days of the early Danish invasions a certain widow in Whittingham,
+    in the reign of King Alfred, had no less a person than a Danish prince
+    among her slaves; he was ransomed, however, and made king of the Danes
+    in the North, in consequence of a vision in which St. Cuthbert had
+    directed the Abbot of Carlisle to see this done. Young Prince Guthred&rsquo;s
+    gratitude showed itself in a substantial grant of land to St. Cuthbert
+    at Durham. Whittingham Church is supposed to have been founded by the
+    Saxon king Ceolwulf, whose acquaintance we have already made at Holy
+    Island, and he bestowed the lands of Whittingham on the church at
+    Lindisfarne. It still shows some of the original Saxon work at the base
+    of the tower, and much more was to be seen before the so-called
+    &ldquo;restoration&rdquo; of the church in 1840. The pele-tower on the south side of
+    the river, after its days of storm and stress are over, still serves as
+    a shelter in time of need, for it is now used as an almshouse for the
+    poor of the village, a former Lady Ravensworth having originated the
+    quaint idea and seen it carried out.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Whittingham Fair, now Whittingham Sports, a well-known rendezvous of the
+    whole countryside, has lost some of its former splendour, but is still
+    looked forward to with great enjoyment in the surrounding district. The
+    old coaching road from Newcastle to Edinburgh passed through the
+    village, crossing the Aln by the stone bridge, from whence it went on
+    through Glanton and Wooler to Cornhill.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the vale of Whittingham, the little Aln flows placidly along, its
+    waters murmuring a soothing refrain, a peaceful interlude between its
+    busy bustling beginning and its ending. Before reaching Alnwick it flows
+    past the ancient walls of Hulne Abbey, the monastery of Carmelite friars
+    so romantically founded by the Northumbrian knight and monk after his
+    visit to the monastery on Mount Carmel. A considerable portion of the
+    ancient building is still standing, and few sites chosen by the old
+    monks, who had an unerring eye for beauty as well as safety and
+    convenience in their choice of abode, can surpass this one, surrounded
+    by fair meadows, and standing on the green hill-side, with the rippling
+    Aln flowing through the levels below. In Hulne Park is also the
+    Brislee Tower, erected by the first Duke of Northumberland in 1781, on
+    the top of Brislee Hill.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus11"></a>
+<a href="images/178.jpg">
+<img src="images/178.jpg" width="600" height="378" alt="[Illustration:
+Alnwick Castle]" /></a>
+<p class="caption"><b>Alnwick Castle</b></p>
+</div>
+	
+<p>
+    Alnwick itself, with its quaint, uneven, narrow streets, and grey stone
+    houses, looks the part of a Border town even in these days; and the grim
+    old Hotspur tower, bestriding the main street like an ancient warrior
+    still on guard, helps to give the illusion an air of reality. The tower,
+    however, was not built by Hotspur, but by his son. The names of the
+    streets, too, are redolent of the days when the only safety for the
+    inhabitants of a town worth plundering lay in the strength of its walls
+    and gateways. Bondgate, Bailiffgate, and Narrowgate, still speak of the
+    days of siege and sortie, of fierce attack and stout defence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The magnificent castle which dominates the town stands majestically at
+    the top of a green slope above the Aln, its vast array of walls and
+    towers far along the ridge, fronting the North as though still looking,
+    albeit with a seemingly languid interest, for the coming of the Scots
+    who were such inveterate foes of its successive lords. The principal
+    entrance, however, the Barbican, faces southwards to the town, and here
+    the massive gateway, with portcullis complete, and crowned by quaint
+    life-size figures of warriors in various attitudes of defence, conveys
+    the impression that the huge giant is still alert and on guard. The
+    history of Alnwick is the history of the castle and its lords, from the
+    days of Gilbert Tyson, variously known as Tison, Tisson, and De Tesson,
+    one of the Conqueror&rsquo;s standardbearers, upon whom this northern estate
+    was bestowed, until the present time. After being held by the family of
+    De Vesci (of which the modern rendering is Vasey&mdash;a name found all over
+    south-east Northumberland) for over two hundred years, it passed into
+    the hands of the house of Percy. The Percies, who hailed from the
+    village of Perce in Normandy, had large estates in Yorkshire, bestowed
+    by the Conqueror on the first of the name to arrive in England in his
+    train. The family, however, was represented by an heiress only in the
+    reign of Henry II., whose second wife, a daughter of the Duke of
+    Brabant, thought this heiress, with her wide possessions, a suitable
+    match for her own young half-brother Joceline of Louvain. The marriage
+    took place; and thereafter followed the long line of Henry Percies
+    (Henry being a favourite name of the Counts of Louvain) who played such
+    a large part in the history of both England and Scotland; for, as nearly
+    every Percy was a Warden of the Marches, Scottish doings concerned them
+    more or less intimately&mdash;indeed, often more so than English affairs.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was the third Henry Percy who purchased Alnwick in 1309 from Antony
+    Bec, Bishop of Durham and guardian of the last De Vesci, and from that
+    time the fortunes of the Percies, though they still held their Yorkshire
+    estates, were linked permanently with the little town on the Aln, and
+    the fortress which alike commanded and defended it. The fourth Henry
+    Percy began to build the castle as we see it now; but to call him &ldquo;the
+    fourth&rdquo; is a little confusing, as he was the second Henry Percy, Lord of
+    Alnwick. On the whole, it will be clearer to begin the enumerations of
+    the various Henry Percies from the time they became Lords of Alnwick. It
+    was, then, Henry Percy the second, Lord of Alnwick, who began the
+    re-building of the castle; he also was jointly responsible for the
+    safety of the realm during the absence of Edward III. in the French
+    wars, and in this official capacity, no less than in that of a Border
+    baron whose delight it was to exchange lusty blows with an ever-ready
+    foe, he helped to win the battle of Neville&rsquo;s Cross. His son, Henry,
+    married a sister of John of Gaunt, and their son, the next Henry Percy,
+    was that friend who stood John Wycliffe in such good stead, when he was
+    cited to appear before the Bishop of London. Henry Percy, who had been
+    made Earl Marshal of England, and the Duke of Lancaster took their
+    places one on each side of Wycliffe, and accompanied him to St. Paul&rsquo;s,
+    clearing a way for him through the crowd. It does not belong to this
+    story to tell how their private quarrels with the Bishop prevented
+    Wycliffe&rsquo;s interrogation, and how he left the Cathedral without having
+    uttered a word; we are concerned at the moment with his North-country
+    friend, who, the same year, was created Earl of Northumberland, which
+    title he was given after the coronation of Richard II. Nor was this all,
+    for he was that Northumberland whose doings in the next reign fill so
+    large a part of Shakespeare&rsquo;s Henry IV., and he was the father of the
+    most famous Percy of all, the gallant Henry Percy the fifth, better
+    known as &ldquo;Harry Hotspur.&rdquo; Hotspur never became Earl of Northumberland,
+    being slain at Shrewsbury in the lifetime of his father, whose estates
+    were forfeited under attainder on account of the rebellion of himself
+    and his son against King Henry IV.
+</p>
+<p>
+    King Henry V. restored Hotspur&rsquo;s son, the second Earl, to his family
+    honours, and the Percies were staunch Lancastrians during the Wars of
+    the Roses which followed, the third Earl and three of his brothers
+    losing their lives in the cause. The fifth Earl was a gorgeous person
+    whose magnificence equalled, almost, that of royalty. Henry Percy, the
+    sixth Earl of Northumberland, loved Ann Boleyn, and was her accepted
+    suitor before King Henry VIII. unfortunately discovered the lady&rsquo;s
+    charm, and interfered in a highhanded &ldquo;bluff King Has&rdquo; fashion, and
+    young Percy lost his prospective bride. He had no son, although married
+    later to the daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and his nephew, Thomas
+    Percy, became the seventh Earl.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thereafter, a succession of plots and counterplots&mdash;the Rising of the
+    North, the plots to liberate Mary Queen of Scots, and the Gunpowder
+    Plot&mdash;each claimed a Percy among their adherents. On this account the
+    eighth and ninth Earls spent many years in the Tower, but the tenth
+    Earl, Algernon, fought for King Charles in the Civil War, the male line
+    of the Percy-Louvain house ending with Josceline, the eleventh Earl. The
+    heiress to the vast Percy estates married the Duke of Somerset; and her
+    grand-daughter married a Yorkshire knight, Sir Hugh Smithson, who in
+    1766 was created the first Duke of Northumberland and Earl Percy, and it
+    is their descendants who now represent the famous old house.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At various points in the town are memorials of the constant wars between
+    Percies and Scots in which so many Percies spent the greater part of
+    their lives. At the side of the broad shady road called Rotten Row,
+    leading from the West Lodge to Bailiffgate, a tablet of stone marks the
+    spot where William the Lion of Scotland was captured as we have already
+    seen, in 1174, by Odinel de Umfraville and his friends; and there are
+    many others of similar interest.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Within the park, approached by the gate at the foot of Canongate, is the
+    fine gateway which is all that is left of Alnwick Abbey. No more
+    peaceful spot could have been found than this, on the level greensward,
+    surrounded by fine trees which shelter it on all sides save one, and
+    near the brink of the little Aln, whose banks are thickly covered with
+    wild flowers, while the steep slope on the opposite side of the river is
+    overhung with shady woods. The extent of the parks may be judged from
+    the fact that the enclosing wall is about five miles long. At the foot
+    of Bailiffgate, on the edge of a steep ridge above the descent to
+    Canongate and the banks of the river, the ancient parish church,
+    dedicated to St. Mary and St. Michael stands in a commanding position.
+    The present building dates from the fourteenth century, and occupies the
+    site of an earlier one, whose few remaining stones have been built into
+    the present structure. Two other reminders of long-past days are to be
+    found in Alnwick; one is the large stone in the Market Place to which
+    the bull ring used to be fixed in the days when bull-baiting and
+    bear-baiting took place; and the other, a relic of days still further
+    back in the distant years, is the sounding of the Curfew Bell, which is
+    still rung here every evening at eight o&rsquo;clock. Altogether there is the
+    quaintest and most unexpected mingling of the ancient and modern in the
+    little feudal town.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Between Alnwick and the sea, the Aln winds its way past Alnmouth
+    Station, formerly known as Bilton Junction, and past Lesbury, a pretty
+    little tree-shaded village, to the sandy flats by Alnmouth where it ends
+    its journey in the North Sea.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Till, by whose side we shall next wander, flows in the opposite
+    direction, for that historic stream is a tributary of &ldquo;Tweed&rsquo;s fair
+    river, broad and deep,&rdquo; and curves from the Cheviots round to the
+    North-west, where it enters the larger stream at Tillmouth. It begins
+    life as the Breamish, tumbling down the slopes of Cushat Law within
+    sight of all the giants of the Cheviot range. The Linhope Burn, a fellow
+    traveller down these steep hillsides, forms in its course the Linhope
+    Spout, one of the largest waterfalls to be found amongst the Cheviots,
+    before it joins the Breamish, which then flows through a country of
+    green slopes and grassy levels to Ingram. This village possesses an old
+    church with massive square tower and windows which suggest the fortress
+    rather than the church. The heights which stretch eastward from the
+    Cheviots and bound the valley of the Till add not a little to the beauty
+    and variety of the scenery in this district.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The little stream, which turns northward near Glanton railway station,
+    moves on in loops and windings past Beanley, which Earl Gospatric held
+    in former days by virtue of the curious office of being a kind of
+    official mediator between the monarchs of England and Scotland when they
+    came to blows; and past Bewick, with its little Norman church buried
+    from sight amongst leafy trees. The effigy of a lady in the chancel of
+    this church is said to be that of Matilda, wife of Henry I. This is the
+    more likely in that the lands of Bewick formed part of her dowry, and
+    were given by her to the monks of Tynemouth Priory. At Bewick Bridge the
+    little stream ceases to be the Breamish, and becomes the Till; as an old
+    rhyme has it&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;The foot of Breamish, and head of Till,
+  Meet together at Bewick Mils&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Some miles to the northward, the Till reaches the little village of
+    Chatton, having, on the way, passed a little to the westward of
+    Chillingham Castle and Park, where is the famous herd of wild cattle.
+    Roscastle, a craggy height covered with heather, stands at the edge of
+    the chase, and looks over a wild and romantic scene of moorland and
+    pastureland, deep glens and heathery hills. The Vicarage at Chatton is
+    another of those north-country vicarages in which an old pele-tower
+    forms part of the modern residence. On the top of Chatton Law is an
+    ancient British encampment, with inscribed circles similar to those on
+    Bewick Hill.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From Chatton, the loops and windings of the Till grow more insistent,
+    and the little stream adds miles to its length by reason of its
+    frequent doubling on its tracks; this, however, but gives an added charm
+    to the landscape, as the silvery gleams of the winding river come
+    unexpectedly into view again and again. It flows on through Glendale,
+    with which attractive region we have already made acquaintance; and on
+    its banks are the two prettiest villages in Northumberland&mdash;Ford and
+    Etal.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Ford Castle, as seen at the present day, is chiefly modern, but the
+    northwest tower is part of the old fortress of Odenel de Forde, which
+    experienced so many vicissitudes in its time. One of the most famous
+    owners of Ford Castle was Sir William Heron, who married Odenel&rsquo;s
+    daughter, and who held the responsible and troublesome office of High
+    Sheriff of Northumberland for eleven years, besides being Captain of
+    Bamburgh and Warden of the northern forests. The castle was burnt down
+    by James IV. of Scotland just before the battle of Flodden, which was
+    not by any means the only time in its career that it was demolished,
+    entirely or in part, and restored again.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the village of Ford, the walls of the schoolroom are decorated by a
+    series of pictures of the children of Scripture story, for whose
+    portrayal it is said the Marchioness of Waterford, the artist, took the
+    village children as models. The late Vicar of Ford, the Rev. Hastings
+    Neville, has laid all who are interested in the rural life of
+    Northumberland, and the quaint and traditional manners and customs of
+    the North-country which are so fast disappearing, under the greatest
+    obligation to him for his interesting and entirely delightful little
+    book, &ldquo;A Corner in the North.&rdquo; Historical records, and matters of
+    business, ownerships, etc., connected with any special area can always
+    be turned up for reference when required; but the manner of speech, the
+    customs of daily life, the quaint survivals of former usages and
+    half-forgotten lore, being entirely dependent on individual memory and
+    oral tradition, only too often disappear before any adequate record can
+    be made. Hence it is a matter for congratulation that such a book should
+    have been written.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Etal, Ford&rsquo;s pretty neighbour, also boasts a castle, built only two
+    years after that of Ford and by the same masons. A considerable portion
+    of the ruins remains, but, unlike Ford Castle, it was never restored
+    after James the Fourth&rsquo;s drastic handling of it, but was left to decay.
+    Opposite Ford and Etal, on the left bank of the Till, is Pallinsburn
+    House, referred to in another chapter, and the village of Crookham; and
+    beyond the woods of Pallinsburn, Flodden ridge, with its memories of the
+    disastrous field on which James was slain.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The mansion house of Tillmouth Park, owned by Sir Francis Blake, is
+    built of stones from the ruins of Twizell Castle, on the northern bank
+    of the Till; the castle was begun by a former Sir Francis Blake but
+    never finished. Between the two buildings the Berwick Road crosses the
+    Till by Twizell Bridge, over which Surrey marched his men southward on
+    the morning of Flodden. Not far from this bridge, to the westward, is
+    St. Helen&rsquo;s Well, alluded to by Scott in his account of the battle, in
+    &ldquo;Marmion&rdquo;&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Many a chief of birth and rank,
+  St. Helen, at thy fountain drank.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Sibyl&rsquo;s well, from which Lady Clare brought water to moisten the lips of
+    the dying Marmion, is beside the little church at Branxton. Tillmouth,
+    however, has older memories still; for it was to the little chapel there
+    that St. Cuthbert&rsquo;s body floated in its stone coffin from Melrose,
+    dating the course of its seven years&rsquo; wandering, ere it found a final
+    rest at Durham.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;From sea to sea, from shore to shore,
+  Seven years Saint Cuthbert&rsquo;s corpse they bore
+  They rested them in fair Melrose,
+  But though alive he loved it well
+  Not there his relics might repose,
+      For, wondrous tale to tell,
+  In his stone coffin forth he glides,
+  A ponderous bark for river tides,
+  Yet light as gossamer it glides
+      Downward to Tillmouth cell.
+</pre>
+
+<hr />
+
+<pre>
+  Chester-le-Street and Ripon saw
+  His holy corpse, ere Wardilaw
+      Hailed it with joy and fear;
+  Till, after many wanderings past,
+  He chose his lordly seat at last
+  Where his cathedral, huge and vast,
+      Looks down upon the Wear.&rdquo;
+
+  <i>Sir W. Scott</i>&mdash;MARMION.
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The &ldquo;stone coffin&rdquo; was boat-shaped, &ldquo;ten feet long, three feet and a
+    half in diameter, and only four inches thick, so that, with very little
+    assistance, it might certainly have swum; it still lies, or at least did
+    so a few years ago, in two pieces, beside the ruined chapel at
+    Tilmouth.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Sir W. Scott&rsquo;s Notes to &ldquo;Marmion.&rdquo;</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+    Three or four miles from Tillmouth, south-westward up the valley of the
+    Tweed, and just beyond Cornhill, lies the village of Wark, near which
+    the remains of the famous Border castle are still standing. The castle
+    was built on a stony ridge of detritus called the <i>Kaim</i>, which
+    stretches from Wark village towards Carham. In the reign of Henry I. all
+    those who owned land in the North were seemingly animated simultaneously
+    by a lively desire to secure their Borders; Bishop Flambard began to
+    build Norham Castle, Eustace Fitz-John, husband of Beatrice de Vesci,
+    built the greater part of Alnwick Castle, and Walter Espic raised the
+    mighty fortress, the great &ldquo;Wark&rdquo; or work (A.S. <i>were</i> or <i>weare</i>) on
+    the steep ridge above Tweed, in &ldquo;his honour (seignieury) of Carham.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    From that time the castle of Wark went through a greater succession of
+    sieges, assaults, burnings, surrenders, demolitions, and restorations
+    than any other place in England, except, perhaps, Norham Castle or
+    Berwick-upon-Tweed. In an age and situation where hard blows given and
+    returned, desperate adventures and equal chances of life or death were
+    the common-places of everyday existence, Wark was probably the place
+    where these excitements were to be had oftener than anywhere else.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The romantic episode which gave rise to the establishment of the Order
+    of the Garter is generally allowed to have taken place at Wark Castle.
+    The young king of Scotland, David Bruce, had &ldquo;ridden a raid&rdquo; into
+    England, and ravaged and plundered on his way as far as Auckland, after
+    having burnt the town of Alnwick, amongst others, but having been
+    repulsed before the castle. King Edward III. was at Stamford when he
+    heard of the invasion; but hurrying northward he reached Newcastle in
+    four days. The Scots, retreating before him, passed Wark Castle, which
+    was held by the Countess of Salisbury and her nephew, in the absence of
+    her husband. The young man was loth to let so much English booty be
+    carried off under his very eyes, so he fell upon the rearguard, and
+    succeeded in bringing a number of packhorses to the castle. On this the
+    whole Scottish array turned back, and a siege of the castle began; but
+    the Countess spiritedly held out, and Edward meanwhile drew nearer. Some
+    of the Scotsmen were captured, and from them the Countess&rsquo;s nephew
+    heard that Edward had reached Alnwick. He stole out of the castle before
+    dawning in heavy rain, to let the King know where his help was urgently
+    needed; and by noon of the same day Edward was at Wark, only to find his
+    quarry flown, the Scots having retreated a few hours earlier. The King
+    was joyfully received and thanked by the grateful Countess; and he in
+    his turn was much struck by the beauty and grace of the high-spirited
+    lady, and showed his admiration plainly. In the evening, according to
+    tradition, a ball was held, at which the incident occurred, so often
+    related, of the accidental losing of her garter by the fair chatelaine,
+    and the restoration of it by the King, with the remark, as a rebuke to
+    the smiling bystanders,&mdash;&ldquo;<i>Honi soit qui mal y pense.</i>&rdquo; This he
+    afterwards adopted as the motto of the Order he established in honour of
+    the beautiful Countess.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Garter is the most exclusive of Orders, and consists of the reigning
+    Sovereign and twenty-five Companions, of whom the Prince of Wales is
+    always one; and it takes precedence of all other titles, ranking next to
+    royalty. It is a matter of great pride to all Northumbrians that perhaps
+    the only instance of its having been bestowed on any except a peer of
+    the realm or a foreign Sovereign, has occurred recently in the bestowal
+    of the coveted decoration on Sir Edward Grey, a member of the ancient
+    and important Northumbrian house of that name.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Every King of England from Henry I. to Henry IV., seems to have been at
+    Wark at some time during his reign, with the exception of Richard
+    Coeur-de-Lion and Richard II. After the Union of the Crowns, Wark, like
+    most other fortresses in the north that were not in use as the dwellings
+    of their owners, was allowed to fall into decay. From Wark to Carham is
+    a walk of only two miles along the road which follows the course of the
+    river, and ultimately leads to Kelso. Carham has the remains of an
+    ancient monastery; and here the Danes, after having plundered
+    Lindisfarne, fought a battle in which the Saxons, led by several
+    Bishops, were defeated with great slaughter. From Carham, having reached
+    the last point of interest on the Tweed within the Northumbrian border,
+    we must retrace our steps to Tillmouth, and follow the Tweed through
+    pasture land and level haughs, until we come in sight of the steep
+    cliffs and overhanging woods by Norham Castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Naturally here, the words of the opening canto of &ldquo;Marmion&rdquo; are recalled
+    to our memory&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Day set on Norham&rsquo;s castled steep,
+  On Tweed&rsquo;s fair river, broad and deep,
+  And Cheviot&rsquo;s mountains lone
+  The battled towers, the donjon keep,
+  The loophole grates, where captives weep,
+  The flanking walls that round it sweep,
+      In yellow lustre shone.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The &ldquo;castled steep&rdquo; is still crowned by a massive fragment of the old
+    fortress that has braved, in its time, so many days of storm and stress.
+    A good deal of the curtain wall, too, is standing, and the natural
+    defences of the castle are admirable, for a deep ravine on the east and
+    the river with its steep banks on the south made it practically
+    unassailable at these points. It was built in 1121, as we have seen, by
+    Bishop Flambard of Durham, as a defence for the northern portions of his
+    diocese. The necessity for its presence there was soon made apparent,
+    for it was attacked by the Scots again and again; and by the time thirty
+    years had passed. Bishop Pudsey found it necessary to strengthen it
+    greatly. When Edward I. was called to arbitrate between the claimants
+    to the Scottish throne, he came to Norham and met the rival nobles, who,
+    with their followers, were quartered at Ladykirk, on the opposite side
+    of the Tweed. It was known as Upsettlington then, however; the name of
+    Ladykirk was bestowed upon it long afterwards, when James IV. built the
+    little chapel there, in gratitude for an escape from drowning in the
+    Tweed. Edward held his interview with the Scottish nobles in Norham
+    church, and announced that he had come there in the character of lord
+    paramount, and as such was prepared to make choice of one among them.
+    Edward did not by any means make up his mind quickly, and the various
+    places in which the successive acts in the affair took place are widely
+    scattered, for he met the nobles at Norham, some time afterwards
+    delivered his decision at Berwick, and finally received the homage of
+    John Balliol at Newcastle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Norham, like Wark, has also its romantic episode&mdash;or rather, an episode
+    more conspicuously so in a series of them to which the name might with
+    justice be applied. It occurred during the time that Sir Thomas Gray was
+    holding the castle against a determined blockade of it by the Scots in
+    1318. A certain fair lady of Lincolnshire sent one of her maidens to a
+    knight whom she loved, Sir William Marmion (whose name probably
+    suggested to Sir Walter Scott the name for the hero of his tale of
+    Norham and Flodden). Sir William was at a banquet when the maiden came
+    before him bearing a helmet with a golden crest, together with a letter
+    from his lady bidding him go &ldquo;into the daungerust place in England, and
+    there to let the heaulme be seene and knowen as famose.&rdquo; Evidently it
+    was well known where &ldquo;the daungerust place in England&rdquo; was to be found,
+    for the story laconically says &ldquo;So he went to Norham.&rdquo; He had not been
+    there more than a day or two when a band of nearly two hundred Scots,
+    bold and expert horsemen, led by Philip de Mowbray, made an attack on
+    the castle, rousing Sir Thomas and his garrison from their dinner. They
+    quickly mounted, and were about to sally forth when Sir Thomas caught
+    sight of Marmion, in rich armour, and on his head the helmet with the
+    golden crest; and halting his men, he cried out, &ldquo;Sir knight, ye be come
+    hither as a knight-errant to fame your helm; and since deeds of chivalry
+    should rather be done on horseback than on foot, mount up on your horse,
+    and spur him like a valiant knight into the midst of your enemies here
+    at hand, and I forsake God if I rescue not thy body dead or alive, or I
+    myself will die for it.&rdquo; At this Marmion mounted and spurred towards the
+    Scots, by whom he was instantly set upon, wounded, and dragged from the
+    saddle. But before they had time to give him the final blow they were
+    scattered by the rapid charge of Sir Thomas and his men, who quickly
+    rescued Marmion and set him on his horse again; and using their lances
+    against the horses of the Scots, caused many of them to throw their
+    riders, while the rest galloped away. The women of the castle caught
+    fifty of the riderless horses, on which more of the garrison mounted and
+    joined in the pursuit of the flying Scots, whom they chased nearly to
+    Berwick.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The tables were sometimes turned, however; and on one of these occasions
+    the valiant Sir Thomas Gray and his son were enticed out of the castle
+    into an ambush laid for them by their foes, and both captured.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1513, just before the battle of Flodden, its walls were at length
+    laid low by James IV., but not until the famous cannon &ldquo;Mons
+    Meg&rdquo;&mdash;still, I believe, to be seen at Edinburgh Castle&mdash;had been brought
+    against it. One of the cannon-balls fired from &ldquo;Mons Meg&rdquo; was found,
+    and is still kept with others at the Castle. It is said that the Scots
+    were told of the weakest spot in the fortifications by a treacherous
+    inmate of the castle, who doubtless expected a rich reward for his
+    information. Indeed, the ballad of &ldquo;Flodden&rdquo; says he came for it; but
+    the valiant and chivalrous king would give him no reward but that which
+    he said every traitor deserved&mdash;a rope.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Afterwards the castle was restored once more, but its more stirring days
+    were over; and, to-day, it stands a shattered but dignified ruin,
+    overlooking the tranquil river and peaceful woodlands which once echoed
+    so continuously to the clash of arms and the shouts of besiegers and
+    besieged.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The village of Norham was in Saxon days known as Ubbanford&mdash;the Upper
+    Ford of two that were available in those days on the Tweed. There was a
+    church here, too, in Saxon times, for Bishop Ecfrid built one about the
+    year 830, and in it was buried the Saxon king Ceolwulf who became a
+    monk: the present church has a good deal remaining of the one built on
+    the same site by Bishop Flambard, about the same time as the castle.
+    Earl Gospatric, whom William the Conqueror made Earl of Northumberland
+    in return for a considerable sum of money&mdash;doubtless thinking that to
+    give a Northumbrian the Earldom would reconcile the North to his
+    rule&mdash;is buried in the church porch. Gospatric joined in the resistance
+    of the North to William, but returned to his allegiance later. The
+    Market Cross of Norham stands on the original base.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From Norham to Tweedmouth the river sweeps forward between picturesque
+    ever-widening banks, and often hidden by a leafy screen, past the
+    village of Horncliffe, beneath the Union Suspension Bridge, one of the
+    first erected of its kind, until at length its bright waters lave the
+    historic walls of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and in the quiet harbour there
+    meet the inrushing tide from the North Sea.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br/>DRUM AND TRUMPET.</h2>
+
+<p>
+    &ldquo;The history of Northumberland is essentially a drum and trumpet
+    history, from the time when the <i>buccina</i> of the Batavian cohort first
+    rang out over the moors of Procolitia down to the proclamation of James
+    III. at Warkworth Cross&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Cadwallader J Bates</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This sentence of the historian of Northumberland sums up the story of
+    our northern county no less admirably than tersely, and it would be
+    difficult to find one which should more clearly bring before us the
+    whole atmosphere of north-country history and north-country doings for
+    many centuries.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Within the limits of this chapter it is impossible to go into the
+    details of every &ldquo;foughten field&rdquo; within the county; the most that can
+    be done is to indicate the many and treat in detail only the few. A
+    goodly number have already been alluded to in connection with the place
+    where each occurred.
+</p>
+<p>
+    After the Roman campaigns, from those of Agricola to those of Theodosius
+    the elder and Maximus, and the legion sent by Stilicho, the earliest
+    battle story is that of the one in Glendale fought by King Arthur. Then
+    the forming of the kingdom of Bernicia with the advent of Ida at
+    Bamburgh was the beginning of a long-protracted struggle between the
+    various little states, each fighting for its life, and surrounded by
+    others equally determined to take every advantage that offered against
+    it. The sons of Ida fought against the celebrated Urien, a Keltic
+    chief, who almost succeeded in dispossessing them of their kingdom of
+    Bernicia. Hussa, one of Ida&rsquo;s sons, ultimately vanquished Urien&rsquo;s son
+    Owen, &ldquo;chief of the glittering West&rdquo;; and after Hussa&rsquo;s death Ethelric
+    of Bernicia, as we have seen, overcame the neighbouring chieftain of
+    Deira, thus forming the kingdom of Northumbria. His successor,
+    Ethelfrith, in the year 603 gained a great victory over a large force of
+    northern Britons under a leader named Aedan at a place called
+    Daegsanstan, which is thought to be Dissington, near Newcastle. His
+    further victories were gained outside the limits of our present survey.
+</p>
+<p>
+    After the long and glorious reign of Edwin, his successor, Ethelfrith&rsquo;s
+    sons came back to Bamburgh; the eldest, Eanfrid, was slain within a
+    year, and his brother Oswald carried on the struggle against Penda of
+    Mercia. We have seen how he fought against Penda and Cadwallon on the
+    Heavenfield near Chollerford, and gained a victory which obtained for
+    him many years of peace. Penda was finally slain by Oswald&rsquo;s successor
+    Oswy in a great battle which is supposed to have taken place on the
+    banks of the Tweed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Many years afterwards, Sitric, grandson of that Prince Guthred who was
+    once a slave at Whittingham, married a sister of King Athelstan,
+    grandson of Alfred the Great. When Sitric died, Athelstan came northward
+    to claim Northumbria for himself. He captured Bamburgh&mdash;the first time
+    that stronghold of the Bernician kings had ever been taken&mdash;and arranged
+    for two earls to govern Northumbria for him. They attempted
+    unsuccessfully to oppose a force of Scots under Anlaf the Red, who was
+    joined by two earls of Bretland (Cumbria); and the whole force encamped
+    near a place called Weondune, supposed to be Wandon near Chatton.
+    Athelstan advanced against them and challenged them to a pitched battle
+    on this ground. They agreed, and with much deliberation the course was
+    staked out with hazel wands between a wood and a river (Chillingham
+    woods and the Till). The Scots greatly outnumbered Athelstan&rsquo;s men, who
+    set up their tents at the narrowest part of the plain, giving their king
+    time to reach a little &ldquo;burg&rdquo; (Old Bewick) in the neighbourhood. A
+    running fight followed, which was carried on the next day, and with the
+    help of two brothers, Egil and Thorold, who were Norsemen, it ended in a
+    complete victory for Athelstan. While in the north, King Athelstan gave
+    the well-known rhyming charter to a certain Paulan of Roddam;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;I kyng Adelstan
+  giffs hier to Paulan
+  Oddam and Roddam
+  als gud and als fair
+  als evyr thai myne war,
+  and thar to wytness
+  Mald my Wiffe.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Shortly after this, at the Battle of Brunanburh, Athelstan vanquished
+    Anlaf Sitricsson and Constantine, king of the Scots. The site of this
+    battle would seem to have been in Northumbria, as it was into the Humber
+    that Anlaf and Constantine sailed with their large fleet; but the
+    precise spot has never been determined.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the reign of Knut the Dane, the Scots obtained the whole of Lothian
+    from the Saxon earl of Northumberland, and the vast possessions of St.
+    Cuthbert beyond the Tweed seemed about to be lost to the church of
+    Durham. Accordingly, the clergy called upon all the people of St.
+    Cuthbert from the Tees to the Tweed&mdash;all those, that is, who dwelt on
+    lands granted by various donors to the church of St. Cuthbert&mdash;to rise
+    and march northward to fight for their lands. This great company set
+    out, in the autumn of 1018, and reached Carham on the Tweed, where they
+    were met by Malcolm king of the Scots. A comet had been seen in the sky
+    for some weeks and the fears inspired by this dread visitant seem to
+    have had more effect upon the Northumbrians than upon the Scots. From
+    whatever cause it arose, when the two forces joined in battle a panic
+    spread among the followers of St. Cuthbert. They were utterly routed,
+    and most of the leading Northumbrians as well as eighteen priests were
+    slain&mdash;thus curiously repeating the experience of the earlier battle of
+    Carham.
+</p>
+<p>
+    For the next three hundred years Northumberland was swept by successive
+    waves of raid and reprisal, in the course of which occurred the two
+    well-known events, the attack of William the Lion of Scotland on Alnwick
+    Castle, and the more famous affair still, the struggle between Percy and
+    Douglas known as the battle of Otterburn, which was fought in &ldquo;Chevy Chase&rdquo;
+    (Cheviot Forest). More important poetically than politically, it stands out
+    more vividly in the records of the time than many other conflicts of larger
+    import. The personal element in the fight, the deeds of gallantry recorded,
+    the sounding roll of the chief knights&rsquo; names, and the high renown of the
+    two leaders, throw a glamour around this particular contest which is kept
+    alive by the ballads that chant the praises of Percy or Douglas according
+    as the singer was Scot or Saxon. Sir Philip Sidney, that &ldquo;verray parfit
+    gentil knight&rdquo; and discriminating <i>litterateur</i>, said &ldquo;I never heard
+    the old song of Percie and Douglas that I found not my hart mooved more
+    than with a trumpet: and yet it is sung but by some blynd Crowder,<a
+    href="#fn-11" name="fnref-11" id="fnref-11"><sup>[11]</sup></a> with no
+    rougher voyce than rude stile! which beeing so evill apparelled in the dust
+    and cobweb of that uncivill age, what wolde it work trimmed in the gorgeous
+    eloquence of Pindare!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-11" id="fn-11"></a> <a href="#fnref-11">[11]</a>
+Crowder = fiddler.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+    In the endless warfare of the Borders the second of two short-lived
+    periods of truce had just expired, and an organised raid on a large
+    scale was arranged by the Scots. The main body was to ravage Cumberland;
+    and a smaller, but picked force led by Earls Douglas, Moray, and March
+    came southward by way of Northumberland. But Northumbrian towers and
+    towns knew nothing of their passing; they marched rapidly and by stealth
+    into Durham, having crossed the Tyne between Corbridge and Bywell, and
+    began to harry and lay waste the greener pastures and richer villages of
+    the southern county, the smoke of whose burning homesteads was the first
+    intimation to the unlucky English of the fact that a Scottish host was
+    in their midst.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Earl of Northumberland remained at Alnwick in the hope that he might
+    be able to attack the Scots on their homeward journey; but he despatched
+    his sons Henry Hotspur and Ralph in all haste to defend Newcastle. The
+    Scots in due time appeared before the walls.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  And he marched up to Newcastel
+  And rode it round about;
+  &ldquo;O wha&rsquo;s the lord o&rsquo; this castel?
+  Or wha&rsquo;s the lady o&rsquo;t?&rdquo;
+
+  But up spake proud Lord Percy then,
+  And O but he spake hie!
+  &ldquo;I am the lord o&rsquo; this castel,
+  My wife&rsquo;s the lady gay.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Douglas challenged Percy to meet him in single combat, and Percy
+    promptly accepted. In the duel Percy was unhorsed, and Douglas captured
+    his pennon and his gauntlet gloves, embroidered with the Percy lion in
+    pearls. This trophy Douglas vowed he would carry off to Scotland with
+    him, and set it in the topmost tower of his castle of Dalkeith, that it
+    might be seen from afar. &ldquo;By heaven! that you never shall,&rdquo; replied
+    Percy; &ldquo;you shall not carry it out of Northumberland.&rdquo; &ldquo;Come and take
+    it, then,&rdquo; was Douglas&rsquo; answer; and Hotspur would have attempted its
+    recovery there and then, but he was restrained by his knights. Douglas,
+    however, said he would give Percy a chance to recover it, and agreed to
+    await him at Otterburn.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Yet I will stay at Otterbourne,
+  Where you shall welcome be;
+  And if ye come not at three dayis end,
+  A fause lord I&rsquo;ll call thee&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Next day the Scots left Newcastle and marched northward. They took Sir
+    Aymer de Athol&rsquo;s castle of Ponte-land, and the good knight Sir Aymer
+    himself, and went on their way, harrying and burning as they went. At
+    Otterburn they halted, and rested all night, making huts for themselves
+    of boughs and branches. The spot they had chosen was a strong one, on
+    the site of a former British camp; and not only was it surrounded by
+    trees, but was near marshy ground as well. Next day they attempted to
+    take Otterburn tower, but without success.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Meanwhile word was brought to Hotspur that the Scots would spend the
+    night at Otterburn; and he, without waiting for Walter de Skirlaw,
+    Bishop of Durham, who was expected that evening with a strong force, at
+    once set off with 600 spearmen, and a force on foot which is variously
+    given as anything from 800 to 8,000. They covered the thirty-odd miles
+    by the time evening fell: and as the Scots were at supper in their
+    little huts, they were startled by a tumult amongst their grooms and
+    camp-followers, and cries of &ldquo;a Percy! a Percy!&rdquo; and the Englishmen were
+    among them. The Scottish leaders had placed their camp-followers and
+    servants at the outermost; part of their encampment, facing the
+    Newcastle road; and Hotspur&rsquo;s force, ignorant of this, mistook it for
+    the main camp. While they were thus engaged, the Scottish knights were
+    enabled to make a detour around the scene of the first attack, and take
+    the English in the rear. With loud shouts of &ldquo;Douglas! Douglas!&rdquo; they
+    fell upon them, and a fierce hand-to-hand struggle began. The moon rose
+    clear and bright, and the quiet evening air was filled with the din of
+    battle, the ring of steel on steel, the crash of axe on armour, the
+    groans of the wounded, and the battle-cries of the combatants on each
+    side. Sir Ralph Percy, pressing too rashly forward, was captured by a
+    newly-made Scottish knight, Sir John Maxwell. The battle was turning in
+    favour of Hotspur, when Douglas sent his silken banner to the front and
+    with renewed shouts of &ldquo;Douglas!&rdquo; the Scots pressed forward and overbore
+    their foes. According to Froissart, there was not a man there, knight,
+    squire, or groom, who played the coward. &ldquo;This bataylle was one of the
+    sorest and best foughten without cowards or faynte hearts; for there was
+    neither knight nor I squire but that did his devoyre and foughte hande
+    to hande.&rdquo; Great deeds were done, and the fame of none amongst them is
+    greater than that of the gallant Widdrington;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;For Witherington my heart is woe,
+  That ever he slaine sholde be!
+  For when his legs were hewn in two
+  He knelt and fought on his knee&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Douglas rushed into the thickest of the fray, and Hotspur tried to find
+    him, but in the dim light that was difficult, especially as Douglas
+    had, in his haste, come to the fight without helmet or breastplate.
+    Presently he was borne to the ground by three English spears; and as he
+    lay guarded by his faithful chaplain, Sir John and Sir Walter Sinclair,
+    with Sir James Lindsay, came upon him. &ldquo;How fare you, cousin?&rdquo; asked Sir
+    John. &ldquo;But poorly, I thank God,&rdquo; answered Douglas; &ldquo;for few of my
+    ancestors died in bed or chamber. I count myself dead, for my heart
+    beats slow. Think now to avenge me. Raise my banner and shout &lsquo;Douglas!&rsquo;
+    and let neither my friends nor my foes know of my state, lest the one
+    rejoice and the other be discomforted.&rdquo; His dying commands were obeyed;
+    and while his battle-cry was raised anew, his dead body was laid by a
+    &ldquo;bracken bush,&rdquo; and the fact of his death concealed from friend and foe
+    alike. The furious onslaught of the Scots now carried all before them;
+    and Hotspur fell a captive to the sword of Sir Hugh Montgomery, a nephew
+    of Douglas, after a fierce hand-to-hand encounter. The two chief English
+    leaders being captured, the day, or rather the night, was with the
+    Scots, in fulfilment of an old prophesy that &ldquo;a dead Douglas should win
+    a field.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;This deed was done at Otterbourne
+  At the breaking of the day;
+  Earl Douglas was buried at the braken bush,
+  And the Percy led captive away.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    When the fray was over, the two sides treated their captives with
+    knightly courtesy, many being allowed to go to their homes until they
+    recovered from their wounds, on giving their word of honour to send the
+    amount of their ransom, or themselves return to their captors.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Bishop of Durham, immediately after having had some refreshment at
+    Newcastle, had set out to join the Percies; but as he and his men
+    neared Otterburn, they met so many fugitives who gave them anything but
+    reassuring accounts of the fortunes of their friends, that half of his
+    force melted away, and the Bishop had perforce to return to Newcastle;
+    it was scarcely to be expected, indeed, that everyone should have that
+    thirst for hard blows which distinguished the knights and their
+    immediate followers. The Bishop, however, made one capture&mdash;Sir James
+    Lindsay, who had ridden so far in pursuit of Sir Matthew Redman that he
+    found himself amongst the force advancing under the leadership of the
+    warlike prelate.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the Scots retired from their camp, they took the body of Douglas
+    from the &ldquo;bracken bush&rdquo; where it lay, and carried it away for burial in
+    Melrose Abbey; and Hotspur, as the price of his ransom, built a castle
+    for Sir Hugh Montgomery.
+</p>
+<p>
+    After this there was peace on the Borders for the next ten years or so,
+    when the game began again as merrily as ever. When Sir Thomas Gray was
+    absent from his castle of Wark-on-Tweed, attending Parliament, the Scots
+    came down upon it and carried off his children and servants. Sir Robert
+    Umfraville met and checked another company that were harrying
+    Coquetdale. In the year 1400, Henry Bolingbroke himself led an army to
+    Edinburgh; but a guerilla band of Scots, avoiding his line of march,
+    stole behind him and ravaged Bamburghshire.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Two years after this, a party of Scots under the next Douglas rode into
+    Northumberland, coming nearly as far south as Newcastle. Hotspur set off
+    from Bamburgh, of which castle he was Constable at the time, to
+    intercept them. He awaited them on the banks of the Glen, near Wooler;
+    and the archers of his force went out for forage meanwhile. When the
+    Scots arrived, they found themselves in the presence of an enemy whom
+    they had imagined to be behind them, and they immediately occupied
+    Homildon Hill. The archers, returning, saw the Scottish force on the
+    hill, and began the attack forthwith, letting fly their arrows upon the
+    foe with deadly precision. Flight after flight fell upon the Scots, who
+    were completely bewildered, and seemed incapable of action. A Scottish
+    knight, Sir John Swinton, implored the leaders to charge, passionately
+    exclaiming, &ldquo;What madness has seized you, my brave countrymen, that you
+    stand here like deer to be shot down? Follow me, those who will! We will
+    either gain the victory, or die like men of courage.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    On hearing these brave words, Adam de Gordon, Swinton&rsquo;s deadly foe, felt
+    his hatred turn to admiration, and kneeling before Swinton, begged that
+    he might receive the honour of knighthood from so valiant a hand. The
+    two gallant knights then charged the enemy, followed by a number of the
+    Scots; but the showers of arrows forced them to retreat towards the
+    river, and thither also moved the whole Scottish force, followed still
+    by that grim and deadly hail from the English bows. Hotspur would now
+    have charged, but the Earl of March, his former antagonist, now his
+    friend, restrained his impetuous leader, and persuaded him to let the
+    archers continue their effective work.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The event proved his wisdom; the Scots were utterly routed by the
+    archers alone. The unfortunate Archibald Douglas added another to his
+    long list of reverses; he was taken prisoner, sorely wounded, as was
+    also Sir Hugh Montgomery, and over four-score others of importance. It
+    was in connection with these prisoners, whom Hotspur refused to deliver
+    up to Bolingbroke, that the quarrel took place which eventually led
+    Northumberland and his son Hotspur openly to throw off their allegiance
+    to Henry Bolingbroke and join in the rebellion of Owen Glendower. Not
+    only did Hotspur refuse to give up Douglas and the others to King Henry,
+    but he wished Henry to ransom his brother-in-law Mortimer.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  <i>K. Henry</i>. But sirrah, henceforth
+  Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer.
+  Send me your prisoners with the speediest means,
+  Or you shall hear in such a kind from me
+  As will displease you.&mdash;My lord Northumberland,
+  We licence your departure with your son.&mdash;
+  Send us your prisoners, or you&rsquo;ll hear of it.
+</pre>
+<p>
+    (<i>Exeunt</i> K. Henry, Blunt, <i>and train</i>)
+</p>
+<pre>
+  <i>Hotspur</i>. And if the devil come and roar for them
+  I will not send them:&mdash;I will after, straight,
+  And tell him so.
+</pre>
+
+<hr />
+
+<pre>
+  <i>Worcester</i>. These same noble Scots
+  That are your prisoners&mdash;
+
+  <i>Hotspur</i>. I&rsquo;ll keep them all;
+  By heaven, he shall not have a Scot of them;
+  No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not;
+  I&rsquo;ll keep them, by this hand.
+
+  <i>Worcester</i>. You start away,
+  And lend no ear unto my purposes.
+  Those prisoners you shall keep.&mdash;
+
+  <i>Hotspur</i>. Nay, I will, that&rsquo;s flat:&mdash;
+  He said he would not ransom Mortimer;
+  Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer;
+  But I will find him when he lies asleep,
+  And in his ear I&rsquo;ll holla &ldquo;Mortimer!&rdquo;
+  Nay, I&rsquo;ll have a starling shall be taught to speak
+  Nothing but &ldquo;Mortimer,&rdquo; and give it him
+  To keep his anger still in motion.
+
+  <i>The First Part of</i> KING HENRY IV., <i>Act I., Scene 3</i>.
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The fight at Homildon Hill took place on a Monday in August, 1402, and
+    the memory of it is kept alive by the name of the &ldquo;Monday Clough&rdquo; near
+    Wooler, where the archers commenced the fight.
+</p>
+<p>
+    More than a hundred years after this, the last, and in many respects the
+    greatest, battle ever fought on Northumbrian soil took place at Flodden.
+    King James IV. of Scotland had several grievances against England, which
+    had rankled in his mind for some time; he had not yet received the full
+    amount of the dowry which had been promised with his wife, Margaret
+    Tudor, sister of Henry VIII., although they had been married for many
+    years; a Scottish noble, Sir Robert Ker, had been killed in
+    Northumberland, and the slayer could not be found to be brought to
+    justice&mdash;he was outlawed, but that seemed to King James very
+    insufficient; a Border raid on a large scale, led by Lord Hume, had met
+    with disastrous defeat on Milfield Plain at the hands of Sir William
+    Bulmer; and Andrew Barton, a notable sea-captain, whom James was looking
+    forward to seeing as one of the best leaders of his new navy, had been
+    killed in a sea-fight by Thomas Howard, Lord Admiral of England. Added
+    to all this, France had appealed to him to invade England in order to
+    force Henry VIII. to abandon his French war; the English monarch was
+    just then conducting the siege of Terouenne, and the Queen of France
+    sent a romantic appeal to James (together with a large sum of money)
+    begging him to march &ldquo;three feet on to English ground&rdquo; for her sake.
+</p>
+<p>
+    No time could have been more favourable in James&rsquo; eyes for the
+    enterprise; and in a very short space of time he had an army of 100,000
+    men collected, and marched from Edinburgh to the Tweed, which he crossed
+    near Coldstream. He laid siege to Norham, and captured it after a week&rsquo;s
+    investment; and thereafter Wark, Ford, Etal, Duddo and Chillingham fell
+    before him. He took up his quarters at Ford Castle, and on marching
+    later to meet Surrey, left it almost in ruins.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Surrey meantime had gathered a large force from the northern counties,
+    much to James&rsquo; surprise, for he had taken it for granted that nearly
+    every English fighting man would be with Henry in Flanders. There were
+    bowmen and billmen from Cheshire and Lancashire under the Stanley
+    banner; and James Stanley, Bishop of Ely, brought the banner of St.
+    Etheldreda, the Northumbrian queen who founded the monastery of Ely.
+    Admiral Sir Thomas Howard brought a band of sailors to join his father
+    at Alnwick. Dacre came with a strong contingent from the western
+    Marches, men from Alston Moor, Gilsland, and Eskdale, and also some from
+    Tynemouth and Bamburgh; and Sir Brian Tunstall with Sir William Bulmer
+    led the men of the Bishopric under the banner of St. Cuthbert.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From Alnwick Surrey sent a letter pledging himself to meet James by
+    September 9th, and challenging him to battle, a challenge which was
+    promptly accepted by the Scottish king. Marching from Alnwick towards
+    the Scottish army, Surrey encamped on September 6th on Wooler Haughs.
+    James had formed his camp on Flodden Hill, and all Surrey&rsquo;s devices
+    could not induce him abandon this strong position. Many of his own
+    nobles advised him not to risk a battle, but to withdraw while there was
+    yet time; and some were ready to leave the camp and return home, which
+    thousands of the more undisciplined in his army had done already, being
+    more anxious to carry off their plunder safely than to stay and fight.
+    But James was eager for the contest, and felt himself bound in honour to
+    give battle to Surrey; he answered haughtily those who counselled
+    retreat, and scornfully told Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, that he
+    might go home if he were afraid. The old man sorrowfully left the field,
+    but his two sons remained with their rash but gallant king, and were
+    both slain.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the day before the battle took place, Surrey, that &ldquo;auld crooked
+    carle,&rdquo; as James called him, marched his men northward across the Till
+    and encamped for the night near Barmoor Wood. To the Scots this looked
+    as though they had gone off towards Berwick, to repeat James&rsquo; own
+    manoeuvre, and invade the country in the absence of its king; and they
+    must have thought that there would be little chance of the battle for
+    which James had punctiliously waited taking place on the morrow. But
+    Surrey&rsquo;s purpose proved to be quite otherwise. On the following morning
+    he sent the vanguard of his army, with the artillery, to make a detour
+    of several miles round by Twizell bridge, where they re-crossed to the
+    south bank of the Till; and coming south-eastward towards Flodden, they
+    were joined by the rest of the army, which had plunged through the
+    stream, swollen by continuous rains, at two points near Crookham. The
+    two divisions met at Branxton, after having waded through a marsh which
+    extended from Branxton nearly to the Till, and which the Scots had
+    thought impassable.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Seeing that the English were about to occupy Branxton Hill, which would
+    entirely cut him off from communication with Scotland, James was forced
+    to abandon his advantageous position; he gave orders for the camp-refuse
+    to be fired, and under cover of the dense clouds of smoke marched down
+    to forestall Surrey and occupy Branxton ridge. The two armies suddenly
+    found themselves within a few spears&rsquo; length of each other, and the
+    battle was begun by the artillery on both sides.
+</p>
+<pre>
+      Sudden, as he spoke,
+  From the sharp ridges of the hill,
+  All downward to the banks of Till
+      Was wreathed in sable smoke.
+  Volumed, and vast, and rolling far,
+  The cloud enveloped Scotland&rsquo;s war
+      As down the hill they broke;
+  Nor martial shout, nor minstrel tone
+  Announced their march; their tread alone,
+  At times one warning trumpet blown,
+      At times a stifled hum.
+  Told England, from his mountain throne
+      King James did rushing come.
+  Scarce could they hear or see their foes
+  Until at weapon-point they close.
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Many of the raw levies on the English side fled at the first sound of
+    the Scottish cannon; but the master of the ordnance, Lord Sinclair, was
+    killed, and his guns silenced. Then the battle joined, and the first
+    result was that the English right wing under Sir Edmund Howard was
+    scattered and broken before the impetuous charge of the Gordons and
+    Highlanders under the Earl of Huntley and Lord Home. Sir Edmund narrowly
+    escaped with his life; but Lord Dacre bringing up his reserve of
+    horsemen at that moment checked the further advance of the Scots. The
+    two central divisions of the armies engaged each other fiercely, the
+    Earl of Surrey, with his son Sir Thomas Howard commanding the English
+    centre, and King James, with the Earls of Crawford and Montrose that of
+    the Scots. Sir Thomas, after having been so hard pressed as to send the
+    <i>Agnus Dei</i> he wore to his father as a signal for help, afterwards with
+    Sir Marmaduke Constable defeated the Earl of Crawford, whose division
+    was opposed to him. Dacre and Sir Thomas now charged Lord Home and
+    drove him some little way back, but could not dislodge his men entirely
+    from their position. The Earl of Bothwell, who commanded the Scottish
+    reserves, now came up to the help of the king, and the day seemed about
+    to be decided in favour of the Scots, when Lord Stanley, on the English
+    left, exactly reversed the fortunes of the right wing, and scattered and
+    routed the Highlanders led by the Earls of Lennox and Argyle. Then with
+    his Lancashire lads he attacked the rear of the Scottish position, as
+    did also Dacre and Sir Thomas Howard.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;They saw Lord Marmion&rsquo;s falcon fly,
+  And stainless Tunstall&rsquo;s banner white
+  And Edmund Howard&rsquo;s lion bright
+  All bear them bravely in the fight,
+    Although against them come
+  Of gallant Gordons many a one,
+  And many a stubborn Highlandman,
+  And many a rugged Border clan
+    With Huntly and with Home.
+  Far on the left, unseen the while,
+  Stanley broke Lennox and Argyle.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Nothing now remained for the Scottish centre, hemmed in on all sides,
+    but to make a stubborn last stand; and gallantly did they do it. The
+    flower of Scotland&rsquo;s chivalry surrounded their brave monarch, and in the
+    falling dusk fought desperately to guard their king.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;No thought was there of dastard flight;
+  Linked in that serried phalanx tight,
+  Groom fought like noble, squire like knight,
+    As fearlessly and well.
+  The stubborn spearmen still made good
+  Their dark impenetrable wood,
+  Each stepping where his comrade stood
+    The instant that he fell.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    As night fell, the fierce struggle continued until the darkness made it
+    impossible to see friend or foe, but the fate of Scotland&rsquo;s bravest was
+    sealed. The king lay dead, covered with wounds, and around him a heap of
+    slain; those who were able made their way in haste from the field, while
+    the English host encamped where it stood. The more lawless in each army
+    plundered both sides impartially, and when the king&rsquo;s body was found
+    next day, it too was stripped like many others around it.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Then did their loss his foemen know,
+  Their king, their lords, their mightiest low,
+  They melted from the field as snow
+    Dissolves in silent dew.
+  Tweed&rsquo;s echoes heard the ceaseless plash
+    While many a broken band,
+  Disordered, through its currents dash
+    To gain the Scottish land;
+  To town and tower, to down and dale,
+  To tell red Flodden&rsquo;s dismal tale,
+  And raise the universal wail.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The tragic effects of that terrible day were long felt in Scotland.
+    Every family of note in the land lost one or more of its members on the
+    fatal field, besides the thousands of humbler beings who fell at the
+    same time. Scotland did not recover from the crushing blow for more than
+    a hundred years; and for many a day the people could not believe that
+    their gallant king was really slain, but continued to hope that he had
+    escaped in the darkness, and would one day return.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There has recently been erected on Flodden Field a simple cross of stone
+    as a memorial of that tragic day. It was unveiled on September 27th,
+    1910, by Sir George Douglas, Bart. The inscription on the stone is &ldquo;To
+    the Brave of both Nations.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  THE FLOWERS OF THE FOREST.
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  A LAMENT FOR FLODDEN.
+
+  I&rsquo;ve heard the liltin&rsquo; at our ewe-milking,
+  Lasses a&rsquo; liltin&rsquo; before dawn o&rsquo; day;
+  But now they are moaning on ilka green loaning&mdash;
+  The Flowers of the Forest are a&rsquo; wede away.
+
+  At bughts,<a href="#fn-12" name="fnref-12" id="fnref-12"><sup>[12]</sup></a> in the mornin&rsquo;, nae blythe lads are scornin&rsquo;,
+  Lasses are lonely and dowie and wae;
+  Nae daffin&rsquo;, nae jabbin&rsquo;, but sighin&rsquo; and sabbin&rsquo;,
+  Ilk ane lifts her leglin<a href="#fn-13" name="fnref-13" id="fnref-13"><sup>[13]</sup></a> and hies her away.
+
+  In harst, at the shearing, nae youths now are jeering,
+  Bandsters are lyart,<a href="#fn-14" name="fnref-14" id="fnref-14"><sup>[14]</sup></a> and runkled, and gray;
+  At fair or at preaching, nae wooing, nae fleeching<a href="#fn-15" name="fnref-15" id="fnref-15"><sup>[15]</sup></a>
+  The Flowers of the Forest are a&rsquo; wede away.
+
+  At e&rsquo;en, in the gloaming, nae younkers are roaming
+  &rsquo;Bout stacks, with the lasses at &ldquo;bogle&rdquo; to play;
+  But ilk ane sits drearie, lamenting her dearie&mdash;
+  The Flowers of the Forest are weded away.
+
+  Dool and wae for the order sent our lads to the Border!
+  The English for ance by guile wan the day;
+  The Flowers of the Forest, that fought aye the foremost,
+  The prime of our land, are cauld in the clay.
+
+  We&rsquo;ll hear nae mair liltin&rsquo; at our ewe-milkin&rsquo;;
+  Women and bairns are heartless and wae;
+  Sighing and moaning on ilka green loaning&mdash;
+  The Flowers of the Forest are a&rsquo; wede away.
+</pre>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-12" id="fn-12"></a> <a href="#fnref-12">[12]</a>
+Bughts = sheep-pens.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-13" id="fn-13"></a> <a href="#fnref-13">[13]</a>
+Leglin = milk-pail.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-14" id="fn-14"></a> <a href="#fnref-14">[14]</a>
+Lyart = grizzled.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-15" id="fn-15"></a> <a href="#fnref-15">[15]</a>
+Fleeching = coaxing.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X.<br/>TALES AND LEGENDS.</h2>
+
+<p>
+    Northumberland, as might be guessed from its wild history, is rich in
+    tales of daring and stories of gallant deeds; there are true tales, as
+    well as legendary ones, which latter, after all, may be true in
+    substance though not in detail, in spirit and possibility though not in
+    a certain sequence of facts. Now-a-days we look upon dragons as fabulous
+    animals, and stories of the destruction they wrought, their fierceness
+    and their might are dismissed with a smile, and mentally relegated to a
+    place amongst the fairy tales that delighted our childhood&rsquo;s days, when
+    the idea of belief or disbelief simply did not enter the question. Yet
+    what are the dragon stories but faint memories of those gigantic and
+    fearsome beasts which roamed the earth in the &ldquo;dim, red dawn of
+    man&rdquo;&mdash;their names, as we read the labels on their skeletons in our
+    museums, being now the most fearsome things about them! No one can deny
+    that the ichthyosaurus, plesiosaurus, and all the rest of their tribe
+    did exist; and were they to be encountered in these days would spread
+    the same terror around, and find man almost as helpless before them as
+    did any fierce dragon of the fairy tales. That part of the legends,
+    therefore, has its foundation in fact; though from the nature of the
+    case, we certainly do not possess an authenticated account of any
+    particular contest between primitive man and one of these gigantic
+    creatures. That oldest Northumbrian poem, however, the &ldquo;Beowulf,&rdquo;
+    chants the praises of its hero&rsquo;s prowess in encounters of the kind; and
+    the north-country still has its legends of the Sockburn Worm, the
+    Lambton Worm, and the &ldquo;Laidly&rdquo; Worm of Spindleston Heugh, the two first
+    having their <i>venue</i> in Durham, and the last in Northumberland. The
+    Spindlestone, a high crag not far from Bamburgh, and Bamburgh Castle
+    itself, form the scene of this well-known legend. The fair Princess
+    Margaret, daughter of the King of Bamburgh was turned into a &ldquo;laidly
+    worm&rdquo; (loathly or loathsome serpent) by her wicked stepmother, who was
+    jealous of the lovely maid. The whole district was in terror of this
+    dreadful monster, which desolated the country-side in its search for
+    food.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;For seven miles east and seven miles west
+  And seven miles north and south,
+  No blade of grass or corn would grow,
+  So deadly was her mouth.
+
+  The milk of seven streakit cows
+  It was her cost to kepe,
+  They brought her dayly, whyche she drank
+  Before she wente to slepe.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    This offering proved successful in pacifying the creature, and it
+    remained in the cave at Spindleston, coming out daily to drink its fill
+    from the trough prepared for it. But the fear of it in no wise
+    diminished, and
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Word went east, and word went west,
+  And word is gone over the sea,
+  That a laidly worm in Spindleston Heugh
+  Would ruin the North Countree.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The news in due course comes to the ears of Princess Margaret&rsquo;s only
+    brother, the Childe Wynde, who is away seeking fame and fortune abroad.
+    In fear for his lovely sister, he calls together his &ldquo;merry men all,&rdquo;
+    and they set to work to build a ship
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;With masts of the rowan-tree,&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    a sure defence against the spells of witchcraft; and hoisting their
+    silken sails they hasten homeward.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;... ... The wind with speed
+  Blew them along the deep.
+  The sea was calm, the weather clear,
+  When they approached nigher;
+  King Ida&rsquo;s castle well they knew,
+  And the banks of Bamburghshire.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The wicked queen saw the little bark coming near, and knew that her
+    guilt was about to meet its reward. In haste she tried to wreck the
+    vessel, but the rowan-tree masts made her spells of no avail. Then she
+    bade her servants go to the beach and oppose the landing of the Childe
+    and his crew; but the servants were beaten back, and the young knight
+    and his men landed in Budle Bay. The worm came fiercely to the attack,
+    as the Childe Wynde advanced against it; but on meeting him, and feeling
+    the touch of his &ldquo;berry-brown sword,&rdquo; it besought him to do it no harm.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;&lsquo;O quit thy sword, unbend thy brow,
+  And give me kisses three;
+  For though I be a laidly worm
+  No harm I&rsquo;ll do to thee.
+
+  O quit thy sword, unbend thy brow,
+  And give me kisses three;
+  If I&rsquo;m not won ere the sun goes down
+  Won shall I never be.&rsquo;
+
+  He quitted his sword, and smoothed his brow,
+  And gave her kisses three;
+  She crept intill the hole a worm,
+  And came out a fayre ladie.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The knight clasped his lovely sister in his arms, and, casting around
+    her his crimson cloak, led her back to her home, where the trembling
+    queen awaited them. Her doom was spoken by the Childe Wynde&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Woe be to thee, thou wicked witch;
+  An ill death mayst thou dee!
+  As thou hast likened my sister dear,
+  So likened shalt thou be&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    and he turned her into the likeness of an ugly toad, in which hateful
+    shape she remained to her dying day, wandering around the castle and the
+    green fields, an object of hatred to all who saw her. The
+    &ldquo;Spindlestone,&rdquo; a tall crag on which the young knight hung his bridle,
+    when he went further on to seek the worm in the &ldquo;heugh,&rdquo; is still to be
+    seen, but the huge trough from which the worm was said to drink has been
+    destroyed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There are two legends somewhat similar to each other which are told of a
+    company held in the spell of a magic sleep, to be awakened by certain
+    devices, in which the blowing of a horn and the drawing of a sword are
+    prominent. One is the story of &ldquo;Sir Guy the Seeker,&rdquo; and is told of
+    Dunstanborough Castle. Sir Guy sought refuge in the Castle from a storm;
+    and while within the walls a spectre form with flaming hair addressed
+    him,
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Sir knight, Sir knight, if your heart be right,
+  And your nerves be firm and true,&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    (fancy &ldquo;nerves&rdquo; in a ballad!)&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Sir knight, Sir knight, a beauty bright
+  In durance waits for you.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The ballad, written by M.G. Lewis, now describes in a painfully
+    commonplace manner the knight&rsquo;s further adventures. He and his guide
+    wandered round and round and high and low in the maze of chambers within
+    the castle, until at last a door of brass, whose bolt was a venomous
+    snake, gave them entrance to a gloomy hall, draped in black, which the
+    &ldquo;hundred lights&rdquo; failed to brighten. In the hall a hundred knights of
+    &ldquo;marble white&rdquo; lay sleeping by their steeds of &ldquo;marble black as the
+    raven&rsquo;s back.&rdquo; At the end of the hall, guarded by two huge skeleton
+    forms, the imprisoned lady was seen in tears within a crystal tomb. One
+    skeleton held in his bony fingers a horn, the other a &ldquo;falchion bright,&rdquo;
+    and the knight was told to choose between them, and the fate of himself
+    and the lady would depend upon his choice. Sir Guy, after long
+    hesitation, blew a shrill blast upon the horn; at the sound the hundred
+    steeds stamped their hoofs, the hundred knights sprang up, and the
+    unlucky knight fell down senseless, with his ghastly guide&rsquo;s words
+    ringing in his ears&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Shame on the coward who sounded a horn
+  When he might have unsheathed a sword!&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    In the morning, the unfortunate Sir Guy awoke to find himself lying
+    amongst the ruins, and forthwith began his ceaseless and unavailing
+    search for the lady he had failed to rescue.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The legend similar to this in many respects is that of King Arthur and
+    his court at Sewingshields, to which allusion has already been made in
+    the chapter on the Roman Wall. I cannot do better than give this in the
+    words of Mr. Hodgson, who tells the story in his History of
+    Northumberland. &ldquo;Immemorial tradition has asserted that King Arthur,
+    his queen Guenever, his court of lords and ladies, and his hounds were
+    enchanted in some cave of the crags, or in a hall below the castle of
+    Sewingshields, and would continue entranced there until someone should
+    first blow a bugle-horn that lay on a table near the entrance of the
+    hall, and then with the &lsquo;sword of the stone&rsquo; (was this Excalibur?) cut a
+    garter, also placed there beside it. But none had ever heard where the
+    entrance to this enchanted hall was, till the farmer at Sewingshields,
+    about fifty years since, was sitting knitting on the ruins of the
+    castle, and his clew fell, and ran downwards through a rush of briars
+    and nettles, as he supposed, into a subterraneous passage. Full in the
+    faith that the entrance to King Arthur&rsquo;s hall had now been discovered,
+    he cleared the briary portal of its weeds and rubbish, and entering a
+    vaulted passage, followed in his darkling way the thread of his clew.
+    The floor was infested with toads and lizards; and the dark wings of
+    bats, disturbed by his unhallowed intrusion, flitted fearfully around
+    him. At length his sinking courage was strengthened by a dim, distant
+    light, which as he advanced grew gradually brighter, till all at once he
+    entered a vast and vaulted hall, in the centre of which a fire without
+    fuel, from a broad crevice in the floor blazed with a high and lambent
+    flame, that showed all the carved walls and fretted roof, and the
+    monarch and his queen and court reposing around, in a theatre of thrones
+    and costly couches. On the floor beyond the fire lay the faithful and
+    deep-toned pack of thirty couple of hounds; and on a table before it the
+    spell-dissolving horn, sword, and garter. The shepherd reverently, but
+    firmly, grasped the sword, and as he drew it leisurely from its rusty
+    scabbard, the eyes of the monarch and his courtiers began to open, and
+    they rose till they sat upright. He cut the garter; and as the sword was
+    being slowly sheathed the spell assumed its ancient power, and they all
+    gradually sank to rest; but not before the monarch had lifted up his
+    eyes and hands, and exclaimed&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;O woe betide that evil day
+  On which this witless wight was born,
+  Who drew the sword, the garter cut.
+  But never blew the bugle horn!&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Terror brought on loss of memory, and the shepherd was unable to give
+    any correct account of his adventure, or to find again the entrance to
+    the enchanted hall.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Another legend is connected with Tynemouth. Just above the short sands
+    was a cave known as Jingling Geordie&rsquo;s Hole; the &ldquo;Geordie&rdquo; is evidently
+    a late interpolation, for earlier mention of the cave gives it as the
+    Jingling Man&rsquo;s Hole. No one knows how it came by its name; tradition
+    says that it was the entrance to a subterranean passage leading from the
+    Priory beneath the Tyne to Jarrow. In this cave it was said that a
+    treasure of a fabulous amount was concealed, and the tale of this hoard
+    fired a boy named Walter to seek it out, when he heard the tale from his
+    mother. On his attaining to knighthood, he resolved to make the finding
+    of the treasure his particular &ldquo;quest,&rdquo; and arming himself, he
+    adventured forth on the Eve of St. John. Making his way fearlessly down
+    into the cave, undaunted by spectre or dragon, as they attempted to
+    dispute his passage, he arrived at a gloomy gateway, where hung a bugle,
+    fastened by a golden cord. Boldly he placed the bugle to his lips, and
+    blew three loud blasts. To his amazement, at the sound the doors rolled
+    back, displaying a vast and brightly-lit hall, whose roof was supported
+    on pillars of jasper and crystal; the glow from lamps of gold shone
+    softly down on gold and gems, which were heaped upon the floor of this
+    magic chamber, and the treasure became the rich reward of the dauntless
+    youth.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Gold heaped upon gold, and emeralds green,
+  And diamonds and rubies, and sapphires untold,
+  Rewarded the courage of Walter the Bold.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The fortunate youth became a very great personage, indeed, as by means
+    of his great riches he was &ldquo;lord of a hundred castles&rdquo; and wide domains.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of a very different character is the story of the Hermit of Warkworth.
+    It is unfortunate that this, the most tragic and moving of all
+    Northumbrian tales, should be most widely known by means of the prosy
+    imitation ballad by Dr. Percy, whose ability as a poet did by no means
+    equal his zeal as a collector of ballads. The hero of the sorrowful tale
+    is said to have been a Bertram of Bothal, who loved fair Isabel,
+    daughter of the lord of Widdrington. Bertram was a knight in Percy&rsquo;s
+    train, and at a great feast made by the lord of Alnwick the fair maiden
+    and her father were amongst the guests. As the minstrels chanted the
+    praises of their lord, and sang of the valiant deeds by which his noble
+    house had won renown, the heart of Isabel thrilled at the thought of her
+    true knight rivalling those deeds of fame. Summoning one of her
+    attendant maidens, she sent her to Bertram, bearing a helmet of steel
+    with crest of gold. With the helmet the maiden gave her mistress&rsquo;
+    message, that she would yield to her knight&rsquo;s pleadings and become his
+    bride, as soon as he had proved himself a valiant and worthy wearer of
+    the golden-crested helm. Reverently Bertram accepted the commands of
+    his lady, and vowed to prove his devotion wherever hard blows were to be
+    given and danger to be found. The lord of Alnwick straightway arranged
+    for an expedition on to Scottish land, in requital of old scores, and
+    assembled together a goodly company to ride against the Scots. Earl
+    Douglas and his men opposed them, and blows were dealt thick and fast on
+    both sides. Bertram was sorely wounded, after showing wondrous prowess
+    in the fight; but being rescued by Percy, was borne to the castle of
+    Wark upon the Tweed, to recover from his wounds in safety. Isabel&rsquo;s aged
+    father had seen the young knight&rsquo;s valour, and promised that the maiden
+    herself should tend his hurts and care for him until he recovered. Day
+    after day passed, however, and still she came not. At last the knight,
+    scarcely able to take the saddle, rode back to Widdrington, tended by
+    his gallant young brother, to satisfy himself of what had become of his
+    lady. They reached Widdrington tower to find it all in darkness; and
+    after repeated knockings the aged nurse came to the gateway and demanded
+    the name of those who so insistently clamoured at the door. Bertram
+    enquired for the lady Isabel; and then, indeed, all was dismay. The
+    nurse, trembling with fear, told the two youths that her mistress had
+    set out immediately on hearing of her lover&rsquo;s plight, reproaching
+    herself for having led him to adventure his life so rashly, and it was
+    now six days since she had gone. Weary and weak, Bertram rested the
+    night at the castle, and then set out on his search for his lost lady.
+    That they might the sooner search the country round, he and his brother,
+    who loved him dearly, took different directions, one going eastward, and
+    the other north. They put on various disguises as they went, Bertram
+    appearing now in the guise of a holy Palmer, now as a wandering
+    minstrel As he was sitting, despondent and well-nigh despairing,
+    beneath a hawthorn tree, an aged monk came by, and on seeing the
+    supposed minstrel&rsquo;s face of sorrow, said to him,
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;All minstrels yet that e&rsquo;er I saw
+  Are full of game and glee,
+  But thou art sad and woe-begone;
+  I marvel whence it be.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Bertram replied that he served an aged lord whose only child had been
+    stolen away, and that he would know no happiness until he had found her.
+    The pilgrim comforted him and bade him hope, telling him that
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Behind yon hills so steep and high,
+  Down in a lonely glen,
+  There stands a castle fair and strong,
+  Far from the abode of men.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Saying that he had heard a lady&rsquo;s voice lamenting in this lonely tower,
+    he passed on, giving Bertram the hope that now at last his quest was
+    ended. He made his way to that strong castle, and with his music
+    prevailed upon the porter to let him stay near at hand in a cavern; for
+    the porter refused to admit him to the castle in the absence of his
+    lord, though at the same time giving him food and directing him to the
+    cave. He piped all day and watched all night, and was rewarded by
+    hearing his lady&rsquo;s voice lamenting within the walls of her prison. On
+    the second night he caught a glimpse of her beauteous form, fair as the
+    moonbeams that shone around the tower. On the third night, worn with
+    watching, he slept, and only awakened as dawn drew nigh. Grasping his
+    weapon, he stole near to the castle walls, when to his amazement, he saw
+    his lady descend from her window by a ladder of rope, held for her by a
+    youth in Highland dress. Stunned at the sight, he could not move to
+    follow them, till they had left behind them the castle where the lady
+    had been held captive, and were about to disappear over the hill.
+    Silently and swiftly then he drew near, and crying furiously, &ldquo;Vile
+    traitor! yield that lady up!&rdquo; fell upon the youth who accompanied her,
+    who in his turn fought as furiously as he. In a few moments Bertram&rsquo;s
+    antagonist lay stretched on the ground; and as he gave him the fatal
+    thrust he cried, &ldquo;Die, traitor, die!&rdquo; The lady recognised his voice, and
+    rushing forward, shrieked, &ldquo;Stay! stay! it is thy brother.&rdquo; But the
+    sword of Bertram, already descending with the force of rage and fury in
+    the blow, could not be stayed until too late. The fair maid&rsquo;s breast was
+    pierced by the sword of the knight who loved her, and she sank down by
+    the side of the youth who had delivered her. It was indeed Bertram&rsquo;s
+    brother, who had succeeded in his search; and the dying maiden found
+    time to tell of his devotion, in rescuing her from this castle of the
+    son of a Scottish lord who fain would have made her his bride, before
+    she, too, lay lifeless by the side of her brave rescuer, leaving her
+    lover too despairing and desolate to seek safety in flight, so that the
+    band of searchers from the castle, seeking their prisoner on the hills,
+    and dreading their lord&rsquo;s wrath on his return, bore him back with them
+    to the dungeon. Their lord, however, had meantime been taken captive by
+    Percy (Hotspur), who, as soon as he heard of Bertram&rsquo;s capture, quickly
+    exchanged the Scottish chief for his friend. Bertram&rsquo;s sorrow lasted for
+    the rest of his days; he gave away his lands and possessions to the
+    poor, and retiring to a lovely spot on the banks of the Coquet, where
+    rocky cliffs overhung the river, he carved out in the living stone a
+    little cell, dormitory, and chapel, and dwelt there, passing his days in
+    mourning, meditation, and prayer. In the chapel, with its gracefully
+    arched roof, he fashioned on an altar-tomb the image of a lady, and at
+    her feet the figure of a hermit, in the attitude of grief, one hand
+    supporting his head and the other pressed against his breast, leaning
+    over and gazing at the lady for ever. The poignant sentence &ldquo;My tears
+    have been my meat day and night,&rdquo; is carved over the entrance to the
+    little chapel. Here, in this beautiful spot, almost under the shadow of
+    the castle walls belonging to his noble friend, the sorrowing knight,
+    now a holy hermit, spent the remainder of his life in the little
+    dwelling he had wrought in the living rock. It remains to-day more
+    beautiful, if possible, than ever, overhung by a canopy of waving
+    greenery, and draped with ferns and mosses, their graceful fronds laved
+    by the rippling Coquet whose gentle murmurings fill the still air with
+    music.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The next tale takes us to the neighbourhood of Belford, and out upon the
+    old post road from London to Edinburgh. In the unsettled times of James
+    the Second&rsquo;s reign, one Sir John Cochrane of Ochiltree was condemned to
+    death for his part in the rising which was led by the Duke of Argyle.
+    Powerful friends, heavily bribed by Sir John&rsquo;s father, the Earl of
+    Dundonald, were working in Sir John&rsquo;s favour, and they had strong hopes
+    of obtaining a pardon. But meanwhile, Sir John lay in the Tolbooth at
+    Edinburgh, and the warrant for his execution was already on its way
+    northward, in the post-bag carried forward by horseman after horseman
+    throughout the length of the way. Could the arrival of the warrant only
+    be delayed by some means, his life might be saved. In this strait, his
+    daughter Grizzel, a girl of eighteen, conceived the desperate idea of
+    preventing the warrant&rsquo;s reaching its destination. Saying nothing to
+    anyone of her intentions, she stole away from home, and rode swiftly to
+    the Border. Following the road for about four miles on the English
+    side, she arrived at the house of her old nurse; and here she changed
+    her clothes, persuading the old dame to lend her a suit belonging to her
+    foster-brother. Making her way southward, she went to the inn at Belford
+    where the riders carrying the mail usually put up for the night. Here,
+    the same night, came the postman, and the seeming youth watched
+    nervously, but determinedly, for an opportunity of finding out whether
+    the fateful paper was in his bag or not. No slightest chance presented
+    itself, however, and an attempt to obtain the mail-bag during the night
+    failed by reason of the fact that the man slept upon it. One thing she
+    did accomplish, which gave her hope that the encounter for which she was
+    nerving herself might end successfully for her; she managed, unseen, to
+    draw the charges from his pistols. Then the courageous girl rode off
+    through the dark night to select a favourable spot in which to await his
+    coming. For two or three lonely hours she waited, the thought that she
+    was fighting for her father&rsquo;s life giving her courage. In the dim light
+    of the early dawn she heard the sound of his horse&rsquo;s hoofs from where
+    she stood in the shadow of a clump of trees; and steeling herself for
+    the part she was to play, and in ignorance of whether he might have
+    found out that the charges had been withdrawn from his pistols and might
+    have re-loaded them, she waited until he was almost abreast of her, and
+    fired at his horse, bringing it down. Before he could extricate himself
+    she was upon him with drawn sword; but promising to spare his life if he
+    would let her have the mail-bag, she seized it and darted away. He
+    attempted to follow to recover his charge, but she reached her horse,
+    and rode off like the wind. When she reached a place of safety and
+    examined the contents of the bag, what was her joy to find that the
+    warrant was there. It was speedily destroyed; and during the time that
+    elapsed before the news of the loss could be sent to London and another
+    one made out, the friends of Sir John succeeded in obtaining his pardon.
+    &ldquo;Cochrane&rsquo;s bonny Grizzy&rdquo; lived to a good old age; and &ldquo;Grizzy&rsquo;s clump&rdquo;
+    on the north road near the little village of Buckton keeps green the
+    memory of her daring exploit.
+</p>
+<p>
+    &ldquo;Bonny Grizzy&rdquo; was a Scottish maid, though her gallant if lawless deed
+    was performed on Northumbrian soil; but there is one Northumbrian maiden
+    whose fame will live as long as the sea-waves beat on the wild
+    north-east coast, and as long as men&rsquo;s hearts thrill to a tale of
+    courage and high resolve. Grace Darling&rsquo;s name still awakens in every
+    bosom a response to all that is compassionate, courageous, and
+    unselfish; and the thoughts of all north-country folk bold that
+    admiration for the gentle girl which has been voiced as no other could
+    voice it, in the magical words of Swinburne&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Take, O star of all our seas, from not an alien hand,
+  Homage paid of song bowed down before thy glory&rsquo;s face,
+  Thou the living light of all our lovely stormy strand,
+  Thou the brave north-country&rsquo;s very glory of glories, Grace.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The story of her gallantry has been many times re-told, but never grows
+    wearisome. The memory of that stormy voyage of the <i>Forfarshire</i>, which
+    ended in disaster on the Harcar rocks in the Farne group, remains in
+    men&rsquo;s minds as the dark and tragic setting which throws into bright
+    relief the gallant action of the father and daughter who dared almost
+    certain death to rescue their fellow-creatures in peril. It was in
+    September, 1838, that the ill-fated vessel left Hull for Dundee; but a
+    leak in the boilers caused the fires to be nearly extinguished in the
+    storm the vessel encountered. It reached St. Abb&rsquo;s Head by the aid of
+    the sails, but then drifted southward, driven by the storm, and struck
+    in the early morning, in a dense fog, on the Harcar rocks. Nine of the
+    people on board managed to escape in a small boat, which was driven in a
+    miraculous manner through the only safe outlet between the rocks. They
+    were picked up by a passing boat and taken to Shields. Meanwhile a heavy
+    sea had crashed down upon the <i>Forfarshire</i>, and broken it in half, one
+    portion, with the greater number of crew and passengers, being swept
+    away immediately. The remaining portion, the fore part of the vessel,
+    was firmly fixed upon the rock. Here the shivering survivors clung all
+    that stormy day, the waves dashing over them continually. The captain
+    and his wife were washed overboard, clasped in each others&rsquo; arms; and
+    two little children, a boy of eight and a girl of eleven years of age,
+    died from exposure and the relentless buffeting of the waves, their
+    distracted mother clasping them by the hand long after life was extinct.
+    To a terrible day succeeded a yet more terrible night.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Scarce the cliffs of the islets, scarce the walls of Joyous Gard
+  Flash to sight between the deadlier lightnings of the sea;
+  Storm is lord and master of a midnight evil-starred,
+  Nor may sight nor fear discern what evil stars may be.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Until the morning they endured; and in the stormy dawn the keeper of the
+    Longstone lighthouse, William Darling, and his daughter Grace saw them
+    huddled in a shivering heap upon the wave-swept fragments of the wreck.
+    The girl begged her father to try to save them, and to allow her to help
+    in the task, and after some natural hesitation he consented. The
+    brave-hearted mother helped them to launch the boat, and they set forth.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus12"></a>
+<a href="images/228.jpg">
+<img src="images/228.jpg" width="600" height="393" alt="Illustration:
+The Wreck of the “Forfarshire”" /></a>
+<p class="caption"><b>The Wreck of the &ldquo;Forfarshire&rdquo;</b></p>
+</div>
+
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Sire and daughter, hand on oar and face against the night.
+  Maid and man whose names are beacons ever to the north.
+  ...... all the madness of the stormy surf
+  Hounds and roars them back, but roars and hounds them back in   vain.
+
+  Not our mother, not Northumberland, brought ever forth.
+  Though no southern shore may match the sons that kiss her mouth,
+  Children worthier all the birthright given of the ardent north,
+  Where the fire of hearts outburns the suns that fire the south.&rdquo;
+
+  They reached the rock, where nine persons were still
+  clinging to the wreck, and
+
+  &ldquo;Life by life the man redeems them, head by storm-worn head,
+  While the girl&rsquo;s hand stays the boat whereof the waves are fain.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    With five of the exhausted survivors the boat returned to the Longstone;
+    and two of the men went back with William Darling for the other four.
+    All were safely housed in the lighthouse and tended by the noble family
+    of the Darlings; but the storm raged for several days longer, and made
+    it impossible for them to be put ashore. When at length they returned to
+    their homes, and the story of the rescue was made known, the whole
+    country was moved by it; and presents of all kinds, money, and offers of
+    marriage poured in upon Grace, who remained quite unmoved by it all, and
+    was still the gentle unassuming girl that she had always been. She
+    refused to leave her home, though she was offered twenty pounds a night
+    at the Adelphi if she would consent merely to sit in a boat for London
+    audiences to gaze upon her. Sad to say, she died of consumption about
+    two years afterwards, after having tried in vain to arrest the course of
+    her sickness by change of air at Wooler and Alnwick; and she sleeps in
+    Bamburgh churchyard, within sound of the sea by which she had spent her
+    short life.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;East and west and south acclaim her queen of England&rsquo;s maids.
+  Star more sweet than all their stars, and flower than all their flowers.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    The actual boat in which the gallant deed was performed was long
+    preserved at Newton Hall, Stocksfield; but the owners have lately
+    presented it to the Marine Laboratory at Cullercoats.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus13"></a>
+<img src="images/231.jpg" width="300" height="181" alt="[Illustration:
+Drawing of boat]" />
+</div>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br/>BALLADS AND POEMS.</h2>
+
+<p>
+    The ballads of Northumberland, as all true ballads should do, partake of
+    the characteristics of the district which is their home. As we should
+    expect, they treat chiefly of warlike themes, of the chieftain&rsquo;s doughty
+    deeds, the moss-trooper&rsquo;s daring and skill, of the knight&rsquo;s courtesies
+    and gallant feats of arms, and the feuds of rival clans; in fact, they
+    portray for us vividly the time of which they treat, and in a few
+    graphic touches bring before us the very spirit of the period. In direct
+    and simple phrases the narrative proceeds, giving with rare power just
+    the necessary expression to the tale.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These ballads fall naturally into three main divisions. The historical
+    ballad is at its best in the famous &ldquo;Chevy-Chase,&rdquo; which has been the
+    delight of gentle and simple for centuries; and the oft-quoted
+    declaration of Sir Philip Sidney concerning it still finds an echo in
+    our own day.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of the two best known versions of the ballad, the one here given is the
+    more poetical by far; the other, however, contains the account of the
+    courage of Hugh Widdrington which has made the gallant squire immortal.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The latter version is as evidently English as the former is Scottish; or
+    rather, each has grown to its present form as the reciters exercised
+    their art to please an English or a Scottish audience. In the one
+    version it is Douglas who takes the offensive, and challenges Percy,
+    waiting for him at Otterbourne; in the other we are told that
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;The stout Erle of Northumberland
+  A vow to God did make,
+  His pleasure in the Scottish woods
+  Three summer days to take.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    On the death of Douglas&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Erle Percy took
+  The dead man by the hand,
+  And said, &lsquo;Erle Douglas, for thy life
+  Would I had lost my land!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    When the battle is over,
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Next day did many widdowes come
+  Their husbands to bewayle;
+  Their bodyes bathed in purple blood
+  They bore with them away;
+  They kist them dead a thousand times
+  Ere they were cladd in clay.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    It was neither of these versions, however, that so moved the heart of
+    gallant Sidney, but a much older one, beginning
+</p>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;The Perse owt off Northomberlande
+    And a vow to God made he,
+  That he wold hunt in the mountayns
+    Off Chyviat within days iii.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<p>
+    Other historical ballads are &ldquo;The Rising of the North,&rdquo; &ldquo;The Raid of the
+    Reidswire,&rdquo; &ldquo;Flodden Field,&rdquo; &ldquo;Homildon Hils&rdquo; and &ldquo;Hedgeley Moor.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    The next division may be termed semi-historical; that is, they treat of
+    events which actually happened, but which have chiefly a local interest;
+    and these may therefore be said to be more truly Northumbrian than any
+    others. Such are &ldquo;Jock o&rsquo; the Side,&rdquo; &ldquo;Johnnie Armstrong,&rdquo; &ldquo;Hobbie Noble&rdquo;
+    and &ldquo;The Death of Parcy Reed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of the third class, the romantic ballads, we have not so rich a store;
+    yet &ldquo;The Gay Goss-hawk,&rdquo; the &ldquo;Nut-browne Mayde&rdquo; and the touchingly
+    beautiful &ldquo;Barthram&rsquo;s Dirge&rdquo; may stand amongst the best of their kind.
+</p>
+<p>
+    &ldquo;The Gay Gross-hawk&rdquo; is one of those delightful and imaginative
+    productions of which there are so many examples, in which birds and
+    hounds share their lords&rsquo; and ladies&rsquo; secrets, and serve them staunchly
+    in hours of peril; they belong to the times when fairies were still seen
+    holding their moonlight revels, when witches exercised their baleful
+    arts, and fearsome dragons wore still to be met and conquered&mdash;&ldquo;and if
+    you do not believe it,&rdquo; said Dr. Spence Watson, &ldquo;I am sorry for you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+    The &ldquo;Nut-browne Mayde&rdquo; is supposed to have been a Lady Margaret Percy,
+    who lived in the reign of Henry VIII.; and the lover to whom she was so
+    faithful, notwithstanding his trial of her love by declaring that he was
+    an outlaw, and &ldquo;must to the greenwood go, alone, a banished man,&rdquo; was
+    Henry Clifford, son of the Earl of Westmoreland. The inordinate length
+    of this ballad forbade its inclusion in the present selection; I am
+    sensible that that selection may appear somewhat meagre, but only want
+    of space has prevented the inclusion of others that many of my readers
+    would doubtless have been glad to see.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of songs in dialect, Joe Wilson&rsquo;s &ldquo;Aw wish yor Muthor wad cum!&rdquo; stands
+    easily first; and the other, &ldquo;Sair feyl&rsquo;d, hinny!&rdquo; is given as an
+    example of the Northumbrian muse in another mood.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In conclusion, let me say that of the modern verse every example is from
+    the pen of a Northumbrian.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  CHEVY CHASE I.
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  It fell about the Lammas tide,
+  When muir-men win their hay,
+  The doughty Douglas bound him to ride
+  Into England to drive a prey.
+
+  He chose the Gordons and the Graemes,
+  With them the Lindsays, light and gay;
+  But the Jardines would not with them ride,
+  And they rue it to this day.
+
+  And he has burned the dales o&rsquo; Tyne,
+  And part o&rsquo; Bamburghshire;
+  And three good towers on Reidswire fells
+  He left them all on fire.
+
+  And he marched up to New Castel,
+  And rode it round about;
+  &ldquo;O wha&rsquo;s the lord of this castel?
+  Or wha&rsquo;s the lady o&rsquo;t?&rdquo;
+
+  And up spake proud Lord Percy then,
+  And O! but he spake hie!
+  &ldquo;O I&rsquo;m the lord of this castel,
+  My wife&rsquo;s the lady gay.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;If thou art the lord of this castel,
+  Sae weel it pleases me!
+  For ere I cross the Border fells,
+  The tane of us sall die.&rdquo;
+
+  He took a lang spere in his hand
+  Shod wi&rsquo; the metal free,
+  And for to meet the Douglas there
+  He rode right furiouslie!
+
+  But oh! how pale his lady looked
+  Frae off the castle wa&rsquo;,
+  When down before the Scottish speare
+  She saw proud Percy fa&rsquo;!
+
+  &ldquo;Had we twa been upon the green,
+  And never an eye to see,
+  I wad hae had you, flesh and fell,
+  But your sword shall gae wi&rsquo; me.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;But gae ye up to Otterbourne
+  And wait there dayis three,
+  And if I come not ere three dayis end,
+  A fause knight ca&rsquo; ye me.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;The Otterbourne&rsquo;s a bonnie burn,
+  &rsquo;Tis pleasant there to be;
+  But there is naught at Otterbourne
+  To feed my men and me.
+
+  &ldquo;The deer rins wild on hill and dale,
+  The birds fly wild frae tree to tree,
+  But there is neither bread nor kale
+  To feed my men and me.
+
+  &ldquo;Yet I will stay at Otterbourne
+  Where you sall welcome be;
+  And if ye come not at three dayis end
+  A fause lord I&rsquo;ll call thee.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;Thither will I come,&rdquo; proud Percy said,
+  &ldquo;By the might of Our Ladye!&rdquo;
+  &ldquo;Thither will I bide thee,&rdquo; said the Douglas,
+  &ldquo;My troth I plight to thee.&rdquo;
+
+  They lighted high on Otterbourne,
+  Upon the bent sae brown;
+  They lighted high on Otterbourne
+  And threw their pallions down.
+
+  And he that had a bonnie boy,
+  Sent out his horse to grass;
+  And he that had not a bonnie boy,
+  His ain servant he was.
+
+  And up then spake a little foot-page,
+  Before the peep o&rsquo; dawn&mdash;
+  &ldquo;O waken, waken ye, my good lord,
+  The Percy is hard at hand!&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;Ye lee, ye lee, ye leear loud!
+  Sae loud I hear ye lee!
+  For Percy had not men yestreen
+  To dight my men and me!&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;But I hae dreamed a dreary dream,
+  Beyond the Isle of Skye;
+  I saw a dead man win a fight,
+  An&rsquo; I think that man was I.&rdquo;
+
+  He belted on his gude braid-sword,
+  And to the field he ran;
+  But he forgot his helmet good,
+  That should have kept his brain.
+
+  When Percy wi&rsquo; the Douglas met
+  I wat he was fu&rsquo; fain!
+  They swakked their swords till sair they swat,
+  The blude ran down like rain.
+
+  But Percy, with his gude braid-sword,
+  That could sae sharply wound,
+  Has stricken Douglas on the brow,
+  Till he fell to the ground.
+
+  Then he called on his little foot-page
+  And said, &ldquo;Run speedilie,
+  And fetch my ain dear sister&rsquo;s son,
+  Sir Hugh Montgomerie.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;My nephew good,&rdquo; the Douglas said,
+  &ldquo;What recks the death of ane?
+  Last night I dreamed a dreary dream,
+  And I ken the day&rsquo;s thy ain.
+
+  &ldquo;My wound is deep, I fain wad sleep;
+  Take thou the vanguard of the three,
+  And hide me by the bracken bush
+  That grows on yonder lilye lea.
+
+  &ldquo;O bury me by the bracken bush,
+  Beneath the bloomin&rsquo; brier;
+  Let never a living mortal ken
+  That ever a kindly Scot lies here.&rdquo;
+
+  He lifted up that noble lord,
+  Wi&rsquo; the saut tear in his e&rsquo;e;
+  He hid him in the bracken bush
+  That his merrie men might not see.
+
+  The moon was clear, the day drew near,
+  The speres in flinders flew,
+  And mony a gallant Englishman
+  Ere day the Scotsmen slew.
+
+  The Gordons gude, in English blude
+  They steeped their hose and shoon;
+  The Lindsays flew like fire about
+  Till a&rsquo; the fray was dune.
+
+  The Percy and Montgomerie met,
+  And either of other was fain;
+  They swakk&#232;d swords, and sair they swat,
+  And the blude ran doun like rain.
+
+  &ldquo;Now yield thee, yield thee, Percy!&rdquo; he cried;
+  &ldquo;Or else will I lay thee low.&rdquo;
+  &ldquo;To whom sall I yield?&rdquo; quoth Erle Percy,
+  &ldquo;Sin I see it maun be so.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;Thou shalt not yield to lord or loon,
+  Nor yet shalt thou yield to me,
+  But thou shalt yield to the bracken bush
+  That grows on yon lilye lea.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;I will not yield to a bracken bush;
+  Nor yet will I yield to a brier;
+  But I would yield to Erle Douglas,
+  Or Hugh Montgomerie if he were here.&rdquo;
+
+  As soon as he knew it was Montgomerie
+  He stuck his sword&rsquo;s-point in the gronde;
+  The Montgomerie was a courteous knight,
+  And quickly took him by the honde.
+
+  This deed was done at the Otterbourne,
+  About the breaking of the day;
+  Erle Douglas was buried at the bracken bush.
+  And the Percy led captive away.
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  JOCK O&rsquo; THE SIDE.
+
+  Now Liddesdale has ridden a raid,
+  But I wat they had better hae staid at hame;
+  For Michael o&rsquo; Winfield he is dead,
+  And Jock o&rsquo; the Side is prisoner ta&rsquo;en.
+
+  For Mangerton house Lady Downie has gane,
+  Her coats she has kilted up to her knee;
+  And down the water wi&rsquo; speed she rins,
+  While tears in spates fa&rsquo; fast frae her e&rsquo;e.
+
+  Then up and spoke our guid auld laird&mdash;
+  &ldquo;What news, what news, sister Downie, to me?&rdquo;
+  &ldquo;Bad news, bad news, for Michael is killed,
+  And they hae taken my son Johnnie.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;Ne&rsquo;er fear, sister Downie,&rdquo; quo&rsquo; Mangerton,
+  &ldquo;I have yokes of owsen, twenty and three,
+  My barns, my byres, and my faulds a&rsquo; weel filled,
+  I&rsquo;ll part wi&rsquo; them a&rsquo; ere Johnnie shall dee.
+
+  &ldquo;Three men I&rsquo;ll send to set him free,
+  A&rsquo; harnessed wi&rsquo; the best o&rsquo; steel;
+  The English loons may hear, and drie
+  The weight o&rsquo; their braid-swords to feel.
+
+  &ldquo;The Laird&rsquo;s Jock ane, the Laird&rsquo;s Wat twa,
+  O Hobbie Noble, thou ane maun be!
+  Thy coat is blue, thou has been true
+  Since England banished thee to me.&rdquo;
+
+  Now Hobbie was an English man,
+  In Bewcastle dale was bred and born;
+  But his misdeeds they were so great,
+  They banished him ne&rsquo;er to return.
+
+  Laird Mangerton them orders gave,
+  &ldquo;Your horses the wrang way maun be shod;
+  Like gentlemen ye maunna seem,
+  But look like corn-cadgers ga&rsquo;en the road.
+
+  &ldquo;Your armour gude ye maunna show,
+  Nor yet appear like men of weir;
+  As country lads be a&rsquo; array&rsquo;d,
+  Wi&rsquo; branks and brecham on each mare.&rdquo;
+
+  Sae their horses are the wrang way shod,
+  And Hobbie has mounted his gray sae fine;
+  Jock his lively bay, Wat&rsquo;s on his white horse behind.
+  And on they rode for the water of Tyne.
+
+  At the Cholerford they a&rsquo; light doun,
+  And there wi&rsquo; the help o&rsquo; the light o&rsquo; the moon,
+  A tree they cut, wi&rsquo; fifteen nogs on each side,
+  To climb up the wa&rsquo; of Newcastle toun,
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  But when they cam&rsquo; to Newcastle toun,
+  And were alighted at the wa&rsquo;
+  They fand their tree three ells ower laigh,
+  They fand their stick baith short and sma&rsquo;.
+
+  Then up and spak the Laird&rsquo;s ain Jock,
+  &ldquo;There&rsquo;s naething for&rsquo;t; the gates we maun force.&rdquo;
+  But when they cam&rsquo; the gate untill,
+  A proud porter withstood baith men and horse.
+
+  His neck in twa the Armstrangs wrung;
+  With fute or hand he ne&rsquo;er played pa!
+  His life and his keys at once they hae ta&rsquo;en,
+  And cast the body ahint the wa&rsquo;.
+
+  Now sune they reach Newcastle jail,
+  And to the prisoner thus they call:
+  &ldquo;Sleeps thou, or wakes thou, Jock o&rsquo; the Side,
+  Or art thou weary of thy thrall?&rdquo;
+
+  Jock answered thus, wi&rsquo; doleful tone,
+  &ldquo;Aft, aft I wake&mdash;I seldom sleep;
+  But wha&rsquo;s this kens my name sae weel,
+  And thus to ease my wae does seek.&rdquo;
+
+  Then out and spake the gude Laird&rsquo;s Jock,
+  &ldquo;Now fear ye na&rsquo;, my billie,&rdquo; quo&rsquo; he;
+  &ldquo;For here are the Laird&rsquo;s Jock, the Laird&rsquo;s Wat,
+  And Hobbie Noble, come to set thee free.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;Now haud thy tongue, my gude Laird&rsquo;s Jock,
+  For ever, alas! this canna be;
+  For if a&rsquo; Liddesdale were here the night,
+  The morn&rsquo;s the day that I maun dee.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;Full fifteen stane o&rsquo; Spanish iron
+  They hae laid a&rsquo; right sair or me;
+  Wi&rsquo; locks and keys I am fast bound
+  Into this dungeon dark and dreirie!&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;Fear ye nae that,&rdquo; quo&rsquo; the Laird&rsquo;s Jock;
+  &ldquo;A faint heart ne&rsquo;er won a fair ladie;
+  Work thou within, we&rsquo;ll work without,
+  And I&rsquo;ll be sworn we&rsquo;ll set thee free.&rdquo;
+
+  The first strong door that they cam&rsquo; at,
+  They loosed it without a key;
+  The next chain&rsquo;d door that they cam&rsquo; at
+  They gar&rsquo;d it a&rsquo; to flinders flee.
+
+  The prisoner now upon his back
+  The Laird&rsquo;s Jock has gotten up fu&rsquo; hie;
+  And down the stair, him, irons and a&rsquo;,
+  Wi&rsquo; nae sma&rsquo; speid and joy brings he.
+
+  &ldquo;Now Jock, my man,&rdquo; quo Hobbie Noble,
+  &ldquo;Some o&rsquo; his weight ye may lay on me.&rdquo;
+  &ldquo;I wat weel no,&rdquo; quo&rsquo; the Laird&rsquo;s ain Jock;
+  &ldquo;I count him lighter than a flee.&rdquo;
+
+  Sae out at the gates they a&rsquo; are gane,
+  The prisoner&rsquo;s set on horseback hie;
+  And now wi&rsquo; speed they&rsquo;re ta&rsquo;en the gate,
+  While ilk ane jokes fu&rsquo; wantonlie.
+
+  &ldquo;O Jock! sae winsomely &rsquo;s ye ride,
+  Wi&rsquo; baith your feet upon ae side;
+  Sae weel ye&rsquo;re harnessed, and sae trig,
+  In troth ye sit like ony bride!&rdquo;
+
+  The night, tho&rsquo; wat, they didna mind,
+  But hied them on fu&rsquo; merrilie
+  Until they cam&rsquo; to Cholerford brae,
+  Where the water ran baith deep and hie.
+
+  But when they came to Cholerford,
+  There they met with an auld man,
+  Says, &ldquo;Honest man, will the water ride?
+  Tell us in haste, if that ye can.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;I wat weel no,&rdquo; quo&rsquo; the gude auld man;
+  &ldquo;I hae lived here thirty years and three,
+  And I ne&rsquo;er yet saw the Tyne sae big,
+  Nor running anes sae like a sea.&rdquo;
+
+  Then out and spake the Laird&rsquo;s Saft Wat,
+  The greatest coward in the companie;
+  &ldquo;Now halt, now halt, we needna try&rsquo;t,
+  The day is come we a&rsquo; maun dee.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;Puir faint-hearted thief!&rdquo; cried the Laird&rsquo;s ain Jock,
+  &ldquo;There&rsquo;ll nae man die but him that&rsquo;s fey;
+  I&rsquo;ll guide ye a&rsquo; right safely thro&rsquo;,
+  Lift ye the prisoner on ahint me.&rdquo;
+
+  Wi&rsquo; that the water they hae ta&rsquo;en;
+  By anes and twas they a&rsquo; swam thro&rsquo;;
+  &ldquo;Here we are a&rsquo; safe,&rdquo; quo&rsquo; the Laird&rsquo;s Jock,
+  &ldquo;And puir faint Wat, what think ye now?&rdquo;
+
+  They scarce the other brae had won
+  When twenty men they saw pursue;
+  Frae Newcastle toun they had been sent,
+  A&rsquo; English lads baith stout and true.
+
+  But when the land-serjeant the water saw,
+  &ldquo;It winna ride, my lads,&rdquo; says he;
+  Then cried aloud&mdash;&ldquo;The prisoner take,
+  But leave the fetters, I pray, to me.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;I wat weel no,&rdquo; quo&rsquo; the Laird&rsquo;s Jock;
+  &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll keep them a&rsquo;; shoon to my mare they&rsquo;ll be.
+  My gude bay mare&mdash;for I am sure
+  She has bought them a&rsquo; right dear frae thee.&rdquo;
+
+  Sae now they are on to Liddesdale,
+  E&rsquo;en as fast as they could them hie;
+  The prisoner is brought to his ain fireside,
+  And there o&rsquo; his airns they mak&rsquo; him free.
+
+  &ldquo;Now, Jock, ma billie,&rdquo; quo&rsquo; a&rsquo; the three,
+  &ldquo;The day is com&rsquo;d thou was to dee.
+  But thou&rsquo;s as weel at thy ain ingle-side,
+  Now sitting, I think &rsquo;twixt thou and me.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  BARTHRAM&rsquo;S DIRGE.
+
+  They shot him dead at the Nine-stane Rig,
+  Beside the Headless Cross,
+  And they left him lying in his blood,
+  Upon the moor and moss.
+
+  They made a bier of the broken bough
+  The sauch and the aspin grey,
+  And they bore him to the Lady Chapel,
+  And waked him there all day.
+
+  A lady came to that lonely bower,
+  And threw her robes aside;
+  She tore her ling lang yellow hair,
+  And knelt at Barthram&rsquo;s side.
+
+  She bathed him in the Lady-Well,
+  His wounds sae deep and sair;
+  And she plaited a garland for his breast,
+  And a garland for his hair.
+
+  They rowed him in a lily sheet
+  And bare him to his earth;
+  And the Grey Friars sung the dead man&rsquo;s mass
+  As they passed the Chapel garth.
+
+  They buried him at the mirk midnight,
+  When the dew fell cold and still,
+  When the aspin grey forgot to play,
+  And the mist clung to the hill.
+
+  They dug his grave but a bare foot deep,
+  By the edge of the Nine-stane Burn,
+  And they covered him o&rsquo;er with the heather-flower,
+  The moss and the lady-fern.
+
+  A Grey Friar staid upon the grave,
+  And sang till the morning tide;
+  And a friar shall sing for Barthram&rsquo;s soul
+  While the Headless Cross shall bide.
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  THE FAIR FLOWER OF NORTHUMBERLAND
+
+  It was a knight in Scotland born,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Was taken pris&rsquo;ner and left forlorn,
+  Even by the good Earl of Northumberland.
+
+  Then was he cast in prison strong,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Where he could not walk nor lie along,
+  Even by the good Earl of Northumberland.
+
+  And as in sorrow thus he lay,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  The Earl&rsquo;s sweet daughter passed that way,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  And passing by, like an angel bright,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  The prisoner had of her a sight,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  And aloud to her this knight did cry,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  The salt tears standing in her eye,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  &ldquo;Fair lady,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;take pity on me,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And let me not in prison dee,
+  And you the fair flower of Northumberland.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;Fair sir, how should I take pity on thee,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Thou being a foe to our countrie,
+  And I the fair flower of Northumberland?&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;Fair lady, I am no foe,&rdquo; he said,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  &ldquo;Through thy sweet love here was I stayed,
+  And thou the fair flower of Northumberland.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;Why shouldst thou come here for love of me,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Having wife and bairns in thy own countrie,
+  And I the fair flower of Northumberland?&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;I swear by the Blessed Trinity,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  That neither wife nor bairns have I,
+  And thou the fair flower of Northumberland.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;If courteously thou wilt set me free,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  I vow that I will marry thee,
+  And thou the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  &ldquo;Thou shalt be lady of castles and towers,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And sit like a queen in princely bowers,
+  Even thou the fair flower of Northumberland.&rdquo;
+
+  Then parted hence this lady gay,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And got her father&rsquo;s ring away,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  Likewise much gold got she by sleight,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And all to help this forlorn knight,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  Two gallant steeds both good and able,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand),
+  She likewise took out of the stable,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  And to the goaler she sent the ring,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Who the knight from prison forth did bring,
+  To meet the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  This token set the prisoner free,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Who straight went to this fair ladye,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  A gallant steed he did bestride,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And with the lady away did ride,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  They rode till they came to a water clear,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  &ldquo;Good sir, how shall I follow you here,
+  And I the fair flower of Northumberland?
+
+  &ldquo;The water is rough and wonderful deep,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And on my saddle I shall not keep,
+  And I the fair flower of Northumberland?
+
+  &ldquo;Fear not the ford, fair lady,&rdquo; quoth he,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  &ldquo;For long I cannot stay for thee,
+  Even thou the fair flower of Northumberland.&rdquo;
+
+  The lady prickt her gallant steed,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And over the water swam with speed,
+  Even she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  From top to toe all wet was she,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  &ldquo;This have I done for love of thee,
+  Even I the fair flower of Northumberland.&rdquo;
+
+  Thus rode she all one winter&rsquo;s night.
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Till Edenborough they saw in sight,
+  The fairest town in all Scotland.
+
+  &ldquo;Now I have a wife and children five,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  In Edenborough they be alive,
+  And thou the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  &ldquo;And if thou wilt not give thy hand,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Then get thee home to fair England,
+  And thou the fair flower of Northumberland
+
+  &ldquo;This favour thou shalt have, to boot,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  I&rsquo;ll have thy horse; go thou on foot,
+  Even thou the fair flower of Northumberland.&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;O false and faithless knight,&rdquo; quoth she;
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  &ldquo;And canst thou deal so bad with me,
+  Even I the fair flower of Northumberland?&rdquo;
+
+  He took her from her stately steed,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And left her there in extreme need,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  Then she sat down full heavily,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  At length two knights came riding by,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  Two gallant knights of fair England,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And there they found her on the strand,
+  Even she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  She fell down humbly on her knee,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Crying, &ldquo;Courteous knights, take pity on me,
+  Even I the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  &ldquo;I have offended my father dear,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  For a false knight that brought me here,
+  Even I the fair flower of Northumberland.&rdquo;
+
+  They took her up beside them then,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And brought her to her father again,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  Now all you fair maids, be warned by me,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Scots never were true, nor ever will be,
+  To lord, nor lady, nor fair England.
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  WHITTINGHAM FAIR.
+
+  Are you going to Whittingham Fair
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  Remember me to one that lives there,
+  For once she was a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell her to make me a cambric shirt,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  Without any seam or needlework,
+  Then she shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell her to wash it in yonder well,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  Where never spring water or rain ever fell,
+  And she shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell her to dry it on yonder thorn,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  Which never bore blossom since Adam was born.
+  Then she shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Now he has asked me questions three,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  I hope he&rsquo;ll answer as many for me,
+  Before he shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell him to buy me an acre of land,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  Betwixt the salt water and the sea sand,
+  Then he shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell him to plough it with a ram&rsquo;s horn.
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  And sow it all over with one pepper corn.
+  And he shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell him to shear&rsquo;t with a sickle of leather,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  And bind it up with a peacock feather,
+  And he shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell him to thrash it on yonder wall,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  And never let one corn of it fall,
+  Then he shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  When he has done and finished his work,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  O tell him to come and he&rsquo;ll have his shirt,
+  And he shall be a true lover of mine.
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  O THE OAK AND THE ASH.
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  A North country mayde up to London had strayed,
+  Although with her nature it did not agree.
+  Which made her repent, and often lament,
+  Still wishing again in the North for to be.
+    &ldquo;O the Oak and the Ash and the bonny Ivy tree,
+    They are all growing green in my North Countrie!&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;O fain wad I be in the North Countrie
+  Where the lads and the lasses are all making hay;
+  O there wad I see what is pleasant to me,&mdash;
+  A mischief &rsquo;light on them enticed me away!
+    O the Oak and the Ash and the bonny Ivy tree,
+    They are all growing green in my North Countrie!&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;Then farewell my father, and farewell my mother,
+  Until I do see you I nothing but mourn;
+  Remembering my brothers, my sisters, and others&mdash;
+  In less than a year I hope to return.
+    O the Oak and the Ash and the bonny Ivy tree.
+    They are all growing green in my North Countrie!&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  SAIR FEYL&rsquo;D, HINNY!
+</pre>
+<pre>
+     &ldquo;Sair feyl&rsquo;d, hinny!
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d now,
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d, hinny,
+      Sin&rsquo; aw ken&rsquo;d thou.
+  Aw was young and lusty,
+  Aw was fair and clear;
+  Aw was young and lusty
+  Mony a lang year.
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d, hinny!
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d now;
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d, hinny,
+      Sin&rsquo; aw ken&rsquo;d thou.
+
+  &ldquo;When aw was young and lusty
+  Aw cud lowp u dyke;
+  But now aw&rsquo;m aud and still.
+  Aw can hardly stop a syke.
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d, hinny!
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d now,
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d hinny,
+      Sin&rsquo; aw ken&rsquo;d thou.
+
+  &ldquo;When aw was five and twenty
+  Aw was brave an bauld.
+  Now at five an&rsquo; sixty
+  Aw&rsquo;m byeth stiff an&rsquo; cauld.
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d, hinny!
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d now.
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d, hinny,
+      Sin&rsquo; aw ken&rsquo;d thou&rdquo;
+
+  Thus said the aud man
+  To the oak tree;
+  &ldquo;Sair feyl&rsquo;d is aw
+  Sin&rsquo; aw kenn&rsquo;d thee!
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d, hinny!
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d now;
+      Sair feyl&rsquo;d, hinny,
+      Sin&rsquo; aw ken&rsquo;d thou.&rdquo;
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  AW WISH YOE MUTHER WAD CUM!
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;Cum, Geordy, haud the bairn,
+  Aw&rsquo;s sure aw&rsquo;ll not stop lang,
+  Aw&rsquo;d tyek the jewl me-sel,
+  But really aw&rsquo;s not strang.
+  Thor&rsquo;s flooer and coals te get,
+  The hoose-torns thor not deun,
+  So haud the bairn for fairs,
+  Ye&rsquo;re often deun&rsquo;d for fun!&rdquo;
+
+  Then Geordy held the bairn,
+  But sair agyen his will,
+  The poor bit thing wes gud,
+  But Geordy had ne skill,
+  He haddint its muther&rsquo;s ways,
+  He sat both stiff an&rsquo; num,&mdash;
+  Before five minutes wes past
+  He wished its muther wad cum!
+
+  His wife had scarcely gyen,
+  The bairn begun te squall,
+  Wi&rsquo; hikin&rsquo;t up an&rsquo; doon
+  He&rsquo;d let the poor thing fall,
+  It waddent haud its tung,
+  Tho&rsquo; sum aud teun he&rsquo;d hum,&mdash;
+  &lsquo;Jack an&rsquo; Gill went up a hill&rsquo;&mdash;
+  &ldquo;Aw wish yor muther wad cum!&rdquo;
+
+  &ldquo;What weary toil,&rdquo; says he,
+  &ldquo;This nursin bairns mun be,
+  A bit on&rsquo;t&rsquo;s weel eneuf,
+  Ay, quite eneuf for me;
+  Te keep a crying bairn,
+  It may be grand te sum,
+  A day&rsquo;s wark&rsquo;s not as bad&mdash;
+  Aw wish yor muther wad cum.
+
+  &ldquo;Men seldom give a thowt
+  Te what thor wives indure,
+  Aw thowt she&rsquo;d nowt te de
+  But clean the hoose, aw&rsquo;s sure.
+  Or myek me dinner an&rsquo; tea&mdash;
+  It&rsquo;s startin&rsquo; te chow its thumb,
+  The poor thing wants its tit,
+  Aw wish yor muther wad cum.&rdquo;
+
+  What a selfish world this is,
+  Thor&rsquo;s nowt mair se than man;
+  He laffs at wummin&rsquo;s toil,
+  And winnet nurse his awn;&mdash;
+  It&rsquo;s startin&rsquo; te cry agyen,
+  Aw see tuts throo its gum,
+  Maw little bit pet, dinnet fret,&mdash;
+  Aw wish yor muther wad cum.
+
+  &ldquo;But kindness dis a vast.
+  It&rsquo;s ne use gettin&rsquo; vext.
+  It winnet please the bairn,
+  Or ease a mind perplext.
+  At last&mdash;its gyen te sleep,
+  Me wife&rsquo;ll not say aw&rsquo;s num,
+  She&rsquo;ll think aw&rsquo;s a real gud norse,
+  Aw wish yor muther wud cum!&rdquo;
+
+  <i>Joe Wilson</i>
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  THE AULD FISHER&rsquo;S LAST WISH
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  The morn is grey, and green the brae, the wind is frae the wast
+  Before the gale the snaw-white clouds are drivin&rsquo; light and fast;
+  The airly sun is glintin&rsquo; forth, owre hill, and dell, and plain,
+  And Coquet&rsquo;s streams are glitterin&rsquo;, as they run frae muir to main.
+
+  At Dewshill wood the mavis sings beside her birken nest,
+  At Halystane the laverock springs upon his breezy quest;
+  Wi&rsquo; eydent e&rsquo;e, aboon the craigs, the gled is high in air,
+  Beneath brent Brinkburn&rsquo;s shadowed cliff the fox lies in his lair.
+
+  There&rsquo;s joy at merry Thristlehaugh tie new-mown hay to win;
+  The busy bees at Todstead-shaw are bringing honey in;
+  The trouts they loup in ilka stream, the birds on ilka tree;
+  Auld Coquet-side is Coquet still&mdash;but there&rsquo;s nae place for me!
+
+  My sun is set, my eyne are wet, cauld poortith now is mine;
+  Nae mair I&rsquo;ll range by Coquet-side and thraw the gleesome line;
+  Nae mair I&rsquo;ll see her bonnie stream in spring-bright raiment drest,
+  Save in the dream that stirs the heart when the weary e&rsquo;e&rsquo;s at rest.
+
+  Oh! were my limbs as ance they were, to jink across the green.
+  And were my heart as light again as sometime it has been,
+  And could my fortunes blink again as erst when youth was sweet,
+  Then Coquet&mdash;hap what might beside&mdash;we&rsquo;d no be lang to meet&rsquo;
+
+  Or had I but the cushat&rsquo;s wing, where&rsquo;er I list to flee,
+  And wi&rsquo; a wish, might wend my way owre hill, and dale, and lea.
+  &rsquo;Tis there I&rsquo;d fauld that weary wing, there gaze my latest gaze.
+  Content to see thee ance again&mdash;then sleep beside thy braes!
+
+  &mdash;<i>Thomas Doublerday</i>.
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  A SONNET.
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  Go, take thine angle, and with practised line.
+    Light as the gossamer, the current sweep;
+    And if thou failest in the calm, still deep,
+  In the rough eddy may a prize be thine.
+  Say thou&rsquo;rt unlucky where the sunbeams shine;
+    Beneath the shadow, where the waters creep
+    Perchance the monarch of the brook shall leap&mdash;
+  For fate is ever better than design.
+
+  Still persevere; the giddiest breeze that blows,
+    For thee may blow with fame and fortune rife.
+  Be prosperous; and what reck if it arose
+    Out of some pebble with the stream at strife,
+  Or that the light wind dallied with the boughs?
+    Thou art successful.&mdash;Such is human life!
+
+  &mdash;<i>Thomas Doubleday</i>.
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  A VISION OF JOYOUS-GARDE.
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  &ldquo;And so sir Launcelot brought sir Tristan and La Beate Isoud unto
+  Joyous-gard, the which was his owne castle that hee had wonne with his
+  owne hands.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Malory</i>.
+
+  &ldquo;Bamburgh ... the great rock-fortress that was known to the Celts as
+  Dinguardi, and was to figure in Arthurian romance as Joyous Garde ...
+  &ldquo;&mdash;<i>C.J. Bates</i> (History of Northumberland).
+
+    I wandered under winter stars
+    The lone Northumbrian shore;
+  And night lay deep in silence on the sea.
+    Save where, unceasingly,
+    Among the pillared scaurs
+  Of perilous Farnes, wild waves for ever more
+    Breaking in foam,
+  Sounded as some far strife through the star-haunted gloam.
+
+    Before me, looming through the night,
+    Darker than night&rsquo;s sad heart,
+  King Ida&rsquo;s castle on the sheer crag set
+    Waked darker sorrow yet
+    Within me for the light,
+  Beauty, and might of old loves rent apart,
+    Time-broken, spent,
+  And strewn as old dead winds among the salt-sea bent.
+
+    Till, dreaming of the glittering days,
+    And eves with beauty starred,
+  Time fell from me as some night-cloud withdrawn,
+    And in enchanted dawn,
+    All in a golden haze,
+  I saw the gleaming towers of Joyous Garde
+    In splendour rise,
+  Tall, pinnacled, and white to my dream-laden eyes.
+
+    While thither, as in days of old,
+    Launcelot homeward came,
+  War-wearied, and yet wearier of the strife
+    Of love that tore his life;
+
+    Burning, beneath the cold
+  Armour of steel, a never-dying flame:
+    The fierce desire
+  Consuming honour&rsquo;s gold on the heart&rsquo;s altar fire!
+
+    And thither in great love he brought
+    The fugitives of love,
+  Isoud and Tristram fleeing from King Mark.
+    One day &rsquo;twixt dark and dark
+    These lovers, by fate caught
+  In love&rsquo;s bright web, dreamed with blue skies above
+    Of love no tide
+  Of wavering life may part, or death&rsquo;s swift sea divide.
+
+    But Launcelot, in their bliss forlorn,
+    Fled from the laughter clear
+  Of happy lovers, and love&rsquo;s silent noon;
+    All night beneath the moon
+    He strode, his spirit torn
+  For Guenevere! All night on Guenevere
+    He cried aloud
+  Unto the moonlit foam and every windy cloud.
+</pre>
+
+<hr />
+
+<pre>
+    Then faded, quivering, from my sight
+    The memory-woven dream.
+  The towers of Joyous Garde shall never more
+    Lighten that desolate shore;
+    No longe&rsquo;r through the night
+  Wrestling with love, beneath the pale moon gleam
+    That anguished form!&mdash;
+  But keen with snow and wind, and loud with gathering storm.
+
+  <i>&mdash;Wilfrid W. Gibson</i>.
+
+  (In &ldquo;The Northern Counties Magazine,&rdquo; March, 1901).
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  MY NORTH COUNTRIE.
+</pre>
+<pre>
+  O though here fair blows the rose, and the woodbine waves on high,
+  And oak, and elm, and bracken fronds enrich the rolling lea,
+  And winds, as if in Arcady, breathe joy as they go by,
+  Yet I yearn and I pine for my North Countrie!
+
+  I leave the drowsing South, and in thought I northward fly,
+  And walk the stretching moors that fringe the ever-calling sea,
+  And am gladdened as the gales that are so bitter-sweet rush by.
+  While grey clouds sweetly darken o&rsquo;er my North Countrie.
+
+  For there&rsquo;s music in the storms, and there&rsquo;s colour in the shades,
+  And joy e&rsquo;en in the grief so widely brooding o&rsquo;er the sea;
+  And larger thoughts have birth amid the moors and lonely glades
+  And reedy mounds and sands of my North Countrie!
+
+  &mdash;<i>Thomas Runciman</i>.
+</pre>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/257.jpg" width="170" height="298" alt="Illustration:
+Drawing" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">
+ANDREW REID &amp; COMPANY. LIMITED, PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS,
+NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus14"></a>
+<a href="images/map.jpg">
+<img src="images/map.jpg" width="432" height="600" alt="Illustration:
+SKETCH MAP OF NORTHUMBERLAND" /></a>
+<p class="caption"><b>SKETCH MAP OF NORTHUMBERLAND</b></p>
+</div>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Northumberland Yesterday and To-day, by Jean F. Terry
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORTHUMBERLAND YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY ***
+
+***** This file should be named 11124-h.htm or 11124-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/1/2/11124/
+
+Produced by Miranda van de Heijning, Margaret Macaskill
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
+be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
+law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
+so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
+States without permission and without paying copyright
+royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
+of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
+and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive
+specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this
+eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook
+for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports,
+performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given
+away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks
+not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the
+trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.
+
+START: FULL LICENSE
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
+Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+
+1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
+destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your
+possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
+Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
+by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
+person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
+1.E.8.
+
+1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
+paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this
+agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the
+Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
+of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual
+works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
+States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
+United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
+claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
+displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
+all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
+that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting
+free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm
+works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
+Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily
+comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
+same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when
+you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
+in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
+check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
+agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
+distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
+other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no
+representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
+country outside the United States.
+
+1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
+immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear
+prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work
+on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed,
+performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
+
+  This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+  most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
+  restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
+  under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+  eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
+  United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you
+  are located before using this ebook.
+
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is
+derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
+contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
+copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
+the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
+redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
+either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
+obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm
+trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
+additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
+will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works
+posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
+beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
+any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
+to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format
+other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official
+version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site
+(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
+to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
+of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain
+Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the
+full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+provided that
+
+* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+  the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+  you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
+  to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has
+  agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
+  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
+  within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
+  legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
+  payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
+  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
+  Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
+  Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+  you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+  does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+  License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
+  copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
+  all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm
+  works.
+
+* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
+  any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+  electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
+  receipt of the work.
+
+* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+  distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than
+are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
+from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The
+Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
+Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
+contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
+or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
+other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
+cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
+with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
+with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
+lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
+or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
+opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
+the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
+without further opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO
+OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
+damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
+violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
+agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
+limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
+unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
+remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in
+accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
+production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
+including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
+the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
+or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or
+additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any
+Defect you cause.
+
+Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
+computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
+exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
+from people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future
+generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
+Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
+www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
+U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the
+mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its
+volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous
+locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt
+Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to
+date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and
+official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+
+    Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+    Chief Executive and Director
+    gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
+DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
+state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
+donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be
+freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
+distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of
+volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
+the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
+necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
+edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search
+facility: www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+
+</html>
+
+
diff --git a/old/11124-h/images/001.jpg b/old/11124-h/images/001.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..278e9d7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-h/images/001.jpg
diff --git a/old/11124-h/images/010.jpg b/old/11124-h/images/010.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..32a6d24
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-h/images/010.jpg
diff --git a/old/11124-h/images/043.jpg b/old/11124-h/images/043.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..25e75f4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-h/images/043.jpg
diff --git a/old/11124-h/images/043.png b/old/11124-h/images/043.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..674d86a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-h/images/043.png
diff --git a/old/11124-h/images/066.jpg b/old/11124-h/images/066.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..26f59cf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-h/images/066.jpg
diff --git a/old/11124-h/images/092.jpg b/old/11124-h/images/092.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..851106c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-h/images/092.jpg
diff --git a/old/11124-h/images/092.png b/old/11124-h/images/092.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1162ec7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-h/images/092.png
diff --git a/old/11124-h/images/098.jpg b/old/11124-h/images/098.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..44d4549
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-h/images/098.jpg
diff --git a/old/11124-h/images/098.png b/old/11124-h/images/098.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4e7928e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-h/images/098.png
diff --git a/old/11124-h/images/110.jpg b/old/11124-h/images/110.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d98e142
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-h/images/110.jpg
diff --git a/old/11124-h/images/120.jpg b/old/11124-h/images/120.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bfd373c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-h/images/120.jpg
diff --git a/old/11124-h/images/120.png b/old/11124-h/images/120.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f43713f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-h/images/120.png
diff --git a/old/11124-h/images/144.jpg b/old/11124-h/images/144.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..81436ae
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-h/images/144.jpg
diff --git a/old/11124-h/images/166.jpg b/old/11124-h/images/166.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8e9a214
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-h/images/166.jpg
diff --git a/old/11124-h/images/166.png b/old/11124-h/images/166.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..36b460d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-h/images/166.png
diff --git a/old/11124-h/images/178.jpg b/old/11124-h/images/178.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2cc3c94
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-h/images/178.jpg
diff --git a/old/11124-h/images/228.jpg b/old/11124-h/images/228.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c69ec81
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-h/images/228.jpg
diff --git a/old/11124-h/images/231.jpg b/old/11124-h/images/231.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cc8f58a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-h/images/231.jpg
diff --git a/old/11124-h/images/231.png b/old/11124-h/images/231.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7e3ace9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-h/images/231.png
diff --git a/old/11124-h/images/257.jpg b/old/11124-h/images/257.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a1168d6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-h/images/257.jpg
diff --git a/old/11124-h/images/257.png b/old/11124-h/images/257.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cf39552
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-h/images/257.png
diff --git a/old/11124-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/11124-h/images/cover.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..345d16d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-h/images/cover.jpg
diff --git a/old/11124-h/images/map.jpg b/old/11124-h/images/map.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c2a03b5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124-h/images/map.jpg
diff --git a/old/11124.txt b/old/11124.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..26950cb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,7949 @@
+Project Gutenberg's Northumberland Yesterday and To-day, by Jean F. Terry
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Northumberland Yesterday and To-day
+
+Author: Jean F. Terry
+
+Release Date: February 17, 2004 [EBook #11124]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORTHUMBERLAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Miranda van de Heijning, Margaret Macaskill and PG
+Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: BAMBURGH CASTLE.]
+
+Northumberland Yesterday and To-day.
+BY
+JEAN F. TERRY, L.L.A. (St. Andrews), 1913.
+
+_To Sir Francis Douglas Blake,
+this book is inscribed in admiration of
+an eminent Northumbrian._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.--The Coast of Northumberland
+
+CHAPTER II.--North and South Tyne
+
+CHAPTER III.--Down the Tyne
+
+CHAPTER IV.--Newcastle-upon-Tyne
+
+CHAPTER V.--Elswick and its Founder
+
+CHAPTER VI.--The Cheviots
+
+CHAPTER VII.--The Roman Wall
+
+CHAPTER VIII.--Some Northumbrian Streams
+
+CHAPTER IX.--Drum and Trumpet
+
+CHAPTER X.--Tales and Legends
+
+CHAPTER XI.--Ballads and Poems
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+BAMBURGH CASTLE
+(_From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham_.)
+
+TYNEMOUTH PRIORY
+(_From photograph by T.H. Dickinson, Sheriff Hill_.)
+
+HEXHAM ABBEY FROM NORTH WEST
+(_From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham_.)
+
+THE RIVER TYNE AT NEWCASTLE
+(_From photograph by T.H. Dickinson, Sheriff Hill_.)
+
+NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE
+
+NORTH GATEWAY, HOUSESTEADS, AND ROMAN WALL
+(_From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham_.)
+
+ALNWICK CASTLE
+(_From photograph by J.P. Gibson. Hexham_.)
+
+WRECK OF THE "FORFARSHIRE"
+(_From illustration kindly lent by B. Rowland Hill, Newcastle_.)
+
+SKETCH MAP OF NORTHUMBERLAND
+(_From a Drawing by C.H. Abbey_)
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+
+The following book makes no pretensions to be a mine of deep historical
+research or antiquarian lore; its object will have been achieved, and
+its existence to some extent justified, if haply by its aid some of the
+dwellers in this northern county of ours, with its past so full of
+action, and its present so rich in the memorials of those actions, may
+pass a pleasant hour in becoming acquainted through its pages with the
+happenings which have taken place in their own particular fields, their
+own streets, or by their own riverside.
+
+I am aware that many learned volumes on this subject, representing an
+enormous amount of patient labour and careful research in their
+compilation, are already in existence. To such this little book can in
+no sense be a rival; but there must be many people who have not a
+superabundance of time, to enable them to dig out the information for
+which they wish, from these various sources; nor can they always make
+these volumes their own, to be consulted at leisure.
+
+Northumbrians have always been interested in the records of their own
+county, and are now-a-days not less so than when, some three-and-a-half
+centuries ago, Roger North found them "great antiquarians within their
+own bounds." If to such as these this little book may perhaps bring in a
+more convenient form the information they seek, and help them to become
+better acquainted with the county which inspired Swinburne to write in
+stirring phrases of "Northumberland," and to address the home of his
+people as
+
+  "Land beloved, where nought of legend's dream
+  Outshines the truth"--
+
+I shall be more than satisfied. I would take this opportunity of
+expressing my grateful thanks to the Rev. Canon Savage, of Hexham, for
+information relating to the tomb of Alfwald the Just, in the Abbey,
+given with courteous readiness; to the Rev. Canon Jeffery, of Bywell,
+for similar kindness regarding Bywell St. Peter's; to R.O. Heslop, Esq.,
+whose profound store of learning on the subject of "Northumberland
+words" was in cases of uncertainty my final court of appeal; to E.T.
+Nisbet, Esq., and J. Treble, Esq., to whom I am greatly indebted for
+their goodness in reading my manuscript, and for their generous
+encouragement following thereupon; to C.H. Abbey, Esq., for his kindness
+in executing the map which accompanies these pages; and to Mr. G.P.
+Dunn, of Corbridge, for much helpful criticism, and many suggestions
+which only want of space has prevented my adopting in their entirety.
+
+J.F.T.
+
+_31st May_, 1913.
+
+
+
+
+NORTHUMBERLAND YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+THE COAST OF NORTHUMBERLAND.
+
+  "We'll see nae mair the sea banks fair,
+  And the sweet grey gleaming sky,
+  And the lordly strand of Northumberland,
+  And the goodly towers thereby."
+
+  --_A.C. Swinburne_.
+
+
+Wild and bleak it may be, hard and cruel at times it undoubtedly is,
+but, nevertheless, this north-east coast of ours is at all times
+inspiring, whether half-hidden by storm-clouds, its cliffs and hollows
+lashed by the "wild north-easter," or seen calmly brooding in the warm
+haze of a summer's day, its grey-blue water smiling beneath the
+grey-blue sky, and its stretches of sand and bents edging the sea with a
+border of gold and silver.
+
+In keeping with either mood of nature, the ancient Priory of Tynemouth,
+standing on the sandstone cliffs on the northern bank of the Tyne,
+rearing its grey and roofless walls above the harbour mouth, strikes a
+note that is symbolic of the Northumbria of old and the Northumberland
+of to-day--the note, that is, of the intimate commingling of the romance
+of the warlike past and the romance of the industrial present. Here,
+above the mouth of the river on which so many of the most noteworthy
+advances in industrial science have been made, and out of which sail the
+vessels which are often the last word of the moment in marine
+engineering and construction, stand calmly looking down upon them all
+the fragments of a building which was a century old when John signed
+Magna Charta, and which stands upon the site of another that had already
+braved the storms of nearly five hundred years.
+
+Looking upon the Priory of St. Mary and St. Oswin we are carried back to
+the days when Edwin, the first king of Northumbria to embrace
+Christianity, built a little church here, in which his daughter took the
+veil. King Oswald had the first wooden structure replaced by a stone
+one; and here, in 651, the body of another good king--Oswyn--was brought
+for burial from Gilling, near Richmond in Yorkshire, where, disbanding
+his army, he sacrificed his cause and his life to Oswy of Bernicia, with
+whom he had been about to fight.
+
+[Illustration: THE PRIORY, TYNEMOUTH.]
+
+When the pirate ships of the Danes swept down upon our coasts, the
+Priory of St. Oswin, conspicuous on its bold headland, could not hope to
+escape their ravages. It was destroyed by the fierce invaders; but King
+Ecgfrith[1] of Northumbria restored the shattered shrine. Again, in the
+year 865, it was sacked and burnt, and the poor nuns of St. Hilda, who
+had already fled from Hartlepool to Tynemouth hoping to find safety,
+were ruthlessly slain and earned the crown of martyrdom. It was again
+restored; but, five years later, the destroying hands of the invaders
+fell on the place once more, and for two hundred years the Priory stood
+roofless and tenantless. After the Norman Conquest, Waltheof, Earl of
+Northumberland bestowed it upon the monks of Jarrow. The rediscovery of
+the tomb of St. Oswyn in 1065, had gladdened the hearts of the monks,
+and forthwith the monastery was reared anew over the ashes of its former
+self.
+
+[Footnote 1: Pronounced "Edge-frith."]
+
+Mowbray, the next Earl of Northumberland, re-endowed the building. He
+had quarrelled with the Bishop of Durham, so in order to do him a
+displeasure, he made Tynemouth Priory subordinate to St. Albans instead
+of to Durham and brought monks from St. Albans to dwell there. The new
+buildings were finished in 1110, and the bones of St. Oswyn enshrined
+within them, the right of sanctuary being extended for a mile around his
+resting-place. This right, however, was already in existence, and had
+been appealed to in 1095 by Mowbray himself, who fled here pursued by
+the followers of William Rufus, against whom he had rebelled. The King's
+men disregarded the sanctuary right, captured Mowbray, and sent him
+prisoner to Durham[2]. [Footnote 2: See account of Bamburgh Castle.]
+
+In later days the queens of Edward I. and Edward II. visited Tynemouth
+Priory; and it was from Tynemouth that the foolish King Edward II. and
+his worthless favourite Piers Gaveston fled from the angry barons to
+Scarborough. In the reign of Edward III., after the battle of Neville's
+Cross, David of Scotland was brought here by his captors on his way to
+Bamburgh, from whence he was sent to the Tower.
+
+At the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. the Priory was
+inhabited by eighteen monks with their Prior. They bowed to the King's
+decree and left the monastery; but the church continued to be used as
+the parish church until the days of Charles II., when Christ Church was
+built.
+
+The Priory has many times formed the subject of pictures by famous
+artists, the best known being that of no less a genius than J. M. W.
+Turner; and its picturesque ruins are a well-known landmark to the
+hundreds of voyagers who pass it on their journeys, outward or homeward
+bound. Within the last few years the Priory has been in some measure
+repaired and restored.
+
+There is but little left of Tynemouth Castle, which was built as a
+protection for the monastery against the attacks of the Danes. It stands
+in a commanding position on a neighbouring cliff, and is now used as
+barracks for garrison artillery corps. During the days when Scotland
+harried the English borders, the Priors of Tynemouth maintained a
+garrison here; and later, in Stuart days, Charles I. visited the North,
+and the fortress was strengthened just before the outbreak of the Civil
+War. It was captured, notwithstanding, by Leslie, Earl of Leven, after
+he had left Newcastle. Colonel Lilburn, left in charge as governor,
+shortly afterwards avowed himself on the side of King Charles; but he
+speedily paid for his change of allegiance, for the Castle was re-taken
+by a force from Newcastle under Sir Arthur Hazelrigg, and Lilburn lost
+his life in the fight. The Castle has long been used as a depot for the
+storage of arms and ammunition. Behind the Spanish Battery which
+commands the entrance to the Tyne stands a statue of the famous
+North-countryman, Admiral Collingwood.
+
+Connected with Tynemouth, by the fact that a small chantry belonging to
+the Priory once stood there, is St. Mary's Island. One may walk
+unhindered at low tide across the rocks to this favourite place, but
+where the chantry stood there is now a lighthouse with a powerful
+lantern, flashing its welcome light to the seafarers nearing the mouth
+of the Tyne, and extending
+
+  "To each and all our equal lamp, at peril of the sea,
+  The white wall-sided war-ships, or the whalers of Dundee."
+
+
+Between Tynemouth and St. Mary's Island lie Cullercoats, Whitley Bay,
+and Monkseaton, and together these places make practically one extended
+seaside town, stretching for three or four miles along the sea-front,
+and joined by a fine parade which leads to open links at Monkseaton. Of
+these places Cullercoats is most noteworthy. This picturesque fishing
+village, with quaint old houses perched in every conceivable position on
+the curve of its rocky bay, is, needless to say, a favourite camping
+ground for artists. The Cullercoats fishwife, with her cheerful
+weather-bronzed face, her short jacket and ample skirts of blue flannel,
+and her heavily laden "creel" of fish is not only appreciated by the
+brotherhood of brush and pencil, but is one of the notable sights of the
+district. At Cullercoats is struck a note of the most modern of modern
+achievements--the Wireless Telegraphy Station (225 feet); and here, too,
+is situated the Dove Marine Laboratory, looked after by scientists on
+the staff of the Armstrong College at Newcastle.
+
+In fine weather the crowds which pass and repass along the top of the
+bold cliffs which overlook the fine stretch of sands between Cullercoats
+and Monkseaton show how many hundreds of Northumbria's busy workers
+enjoy the fresh breezes from the sea on this pleasant and bracing coast.
+Out at sea, opposite the Parade, vessels built in the busy shipyards on
+the Tyne may be seen doing their speed trials over the measured mile.
+The Peace of St. Oswyn may, in fact, be said to brood over Tynemouth,
+even in these days, for it is an increasing custom for those who can do
+so to remain in Newcastle and other busy centres of toil only during
+business hours, and to leave workshop and office every evening for their
+home by the sea: while the tide of noisy, happy, boisterous
+excursionists has rolled on to Whitley Bay, leaving Tynemouth to its
+old-time sleepy content. Northward to Hartley and Seaton Sluice the
+cliffs are very fine. Hartley, with its bright-looking red-tiled houses,
+once belonged to Adam of Gesemuth (Jesmond) who lived in the reign of
+King John. Coming down to modern times, about thirty years ago a gallant
+Hartley man, Thomas Langley, rescued two successive shipwrecked crews on
+the same day, in one case allowing himself to be lowered over the cliffs
+at a terrible risk in the furious storm.
+
+Seaton Sluice belongs to the ancient family of the Delavals, whose
+house, Delaval Hall, may be seen not far away, peeping from amongst the
+trees which surround it. Seaton Sluice owes its name to the Delaval who
+placed the large sluice gates upon the burn, in order to have a strong
+current which, in rushing down to the sea, would be able to wash the
+mouth of the stream clear from the silt and mud brought in by the
+incoming tide. A later baronet, Sir John Hussey Delaval, made the
+cutting through the solid rock which is so striking a feature of the
+harbour. It was ready for the entrance of vessels in March, 1763.
+
+Delaval Hall is now owned by Lord Hastings, the present representative
+of the Delavals, which family became extinct in the male line early in
+the nineteenth century. The last Delaval, a very learned man, was buried
+in Westminster Abbey in 1814. The Hall was built for Admiral Delaval in
+1707 to the design of Sir J. Vanbrugh, who also designed Blenheim
+Palace, given by the nation to the great Duke of Marlborough about the
+same time.
+
+Hartley Colliery, about half a mile away, has a sad interest as being
+the scene of the terrible accident in 1862, when a number of men and
+boys were imprisoned in the workings owing to the blocking up of the
+only shaft by a mass of debris, caused by the fall of an iron beam
+belonging to the pumping engine at the pit-head. Before the shaft could
+be cleared and a way opened to the workings, all the poor fellows had
+died, overcome by the deadly "choke-damp." Joseph Skipsey, the pitman
+poet, in a simple ballad, tells the pathetic story.
+
+  "Oh, father! till the shaft is rid,
+  Close, close beside me keep;
+  My eyelids are together glued,
+  And I,--and I,--must sleep."
+
+  "Sleep, darling, sleep, and I will keep
+  Close by--heigh ho."--To keep
+  Himself awake the father strives.
+  But he--he, too--must sleep.
+
+  "Oh mother dear! wert, wert thou near
+  Whilst--sleep!" The orphan slept;
+  And all night long, by the black pit-heap
+  The mother a dumb watch kept.
+
+From here, northward, the coast is rather dull and uninteresting,
+although the sands are fine, until we reach Blyth, at the mouth of the
+little river of the same name. This town is growing rapidly in size and
+importance; the export of coal has greatly increased since the harbour
+was so much improved by Sir Matthew White Ridley, and now totals some
+millions of tones a year. The river Wansbeck not far north of the mouth
+of the Blyth, in the latter part of its course flows through a district
+begrimed by all the necessary accompaniments of the traffic in "black
+diamonds," and reaches the sea between the colliery villages of Cambois
+and North Seaton.
+
+On the point at the northern curve of Newbiggin Bay stands Newbiggin
+Church, and ancient building, whose steeple, "leaning all awry," is a
+well-known landmark for sailors. The site of this church is in danger
+of being undermined by the waves, and, indeed, part of the churchyard
+crumbled away many years ago; but such defences as are possible have
+been built up around it,--and the danger averted for a time. Newbiggin
+itself is a large fishing village and an increasingly popular holiday
+resort, for it possesses not only good sands but a wide moor near at
+hand which provides one of the best of golf courses; and, also, a short
+distance along the coast, are the attractive Fairy Rocks.
+
+Newbiggin was a town of some importance in Plantagenet days, with a busy
+harbour, and a pier; and in the reign of Edward II. it was required to
+contribute a vessel towards the naval defence of the Kingdom.
+
+Northward from Newbiggin Point is the magnificent sweep of Druridge Bay,
+stretching in a fine curve of ten miles or more to Hauxley Haven. Here,
+the sands of a warm golden colour, the wind-swept bents of silvery-grey,
+and the vivid green of the grassy cliff tops edge the curve of the bay
+with a line of bright and delicate colour, only thrown into greater
+relief by the brown reefs and ridges which stretch out from the rocky
+shores, and by the deep blue-green of the waves rolling inshore in long
+majestic lines, to break into hissing foam on the sharp reefs, or slide
+smoothly up the yellow sands in the centre of the bay. Above, beyond the
+grassy tops of the cliffs, stretch deep woods, with the old pele-tower
+of Cresswell looking out from amongst the trees, fields many-coloured
+with their burden of varying crops, and wide lonely moors, where one may
+walk for half a day without hearing any sound save the wild screaming of
+sea-birds, or the whistle of the wind, with the low boom of the waves
+below sounding a deep-toned accompaniment. The bay is not always so
+peaceful, however, and many wild scenes and terrible shipwrecks have
+taken place here, as everywhere along our wild north-east coast. The
+Bondicar rocks, by Hauxley, and the cruel spikes of the reef at Snab
+Point, near Cresswell, have betrayed many a gallant little vessel to her
+doom. Not, however, without bringing on many an occasion proof of the
+courage which is shown as a matter of course by the fisher folk on our
+coasts. At Newbiggin, and Cresswell, for instance, deeds have been done,
+which, in their simple unassuming heroism, may be taken as typical of
+the hardy race which could count Grace Darling among its daughters.
+
+About thirty years ago, a ship drove ashore off Cresswell one bitter
+night in January, and the fisher folk crowded down to the shore,
+watching with sorrowful eyes the hapless crew clinging to their
+unfortunate vessel, which was slowly being broken up by the waves. There
+was no lifeboat at Cresswell then, and all the men of the village,
+except the old men who were past work, had gone northward, when the
+oncoming storm prevented their return. The women and girls heard the
+cries of the schooner's crew, and mourned to each other their inability
+to help. But one gallant-hearted girl, named Peggy Brown, cried out, "If
+I thowt she could hing on a bit, I wad be away for the lifeboat." But
+between them and Newbiggin, the nearest lifeboat station, the Lyne Burn
+runs into the sea, and spreads widely out over the sands; and the older
+people told Peggy she could never cross the burn in the dark. She set
+off, however, the thought of the drowning men hastening her on. For four
+miles she made her way in the storm and darkness, partly along the
+shore, scrambling over rock's, and wading waist-deep through the Lyne
+Burn and one or two other places where the waves had driven far up the
+sands, and partly across Newbiggin Moor, where the icy wind tore at her
+in her drenched clothing. She pressed on, however, and managed to reach
+the coxswain's house and give her message. The lifeboat was immediately
+run out, and the men reached the wreck in time to save all the crew
+except one, who had been washed overboard.
+
+On another occasion one of the fishermen, named Tom Brown, was preparing
+to go out, with the help of his two sons, in his own fishing coble to
+the aid of a ship in distress on the reef. A carter had come down to the
+beach, the better to watch the progress of events, and, terrified by the
+thundering waves, his horse took fright, and in its plunging drove the
+cart against the little boat, making a hole clear through one side. "Big
+Tom," as he was generally called, merely took off his coat, rolled it
+into a bundle and stuffed it against the hole. Then he beckoned to
+another fisherman, saying to him "Sit on that." The man clambered in,
+and without the loss of another minute these four heroes set off to save
+their fellow creatures' lives, with a broken and leaking boat in a heavy
+sea. And they did it, reaching the brig only just in time, for it went
+to pieces a few minutes after the shivering crew had been safely landed.
+
+Incidents like these, which could be multiplied indefinitely, bring a
+glow of pride to the heart, and a reassuring sense that the degeneration
+of the race is not proceeding in such wholesale fashion--in the country
+districts, at any rate--as the pessimists would have us believe.
+
+At the northern extremity of Druridge Bay is the little fishing village
+of Hauxley, with the chimneys and pit-head engines of Ratcliffe and
+Broomhill Collieries darkening the sky to the south-west. Passing the
+Bondicar rocks and rounding the point we enter the "fairway" for
+Warkworth Harbour and Amble, where a brisk exportation of the coal of
+the neighbourhood is carried on.
+
+Lying out at sea, opposite Amble coastguard station, the white
+lighthouse on Coquet Island keeps watch over the entrance to the
+harbour. Some of the walls of the monastery, which stood on the island
+in Saxon days, can now be seen forming part of the dwelling of the
+lighthouse keeper. For many generations, too, hermit after hermit went
+to dwell on this tiny islet, and St. Cuthbert himself is said to have
+inhabited the little cell at one time. The island was captured by the
+Scots in the Civil Wars of King Charles's reign, and held by them for a
+time.
+
+The situation of Amble, at the mouth of the Coquet, has been looked upon
+as convenient from very early days, for there are signs which tell us of
+a population here at an early period. Several cist-vaens, or ancient
+stone coffins, have been found near the town, and a broken Roman altar
+was unearthed in the neighbourhood. The monastery which stood here, like
+that on Holy Island, was, in later times, inhabited by Benedictine
+monks, who were under the authority of the Prior of Tynemouth. William
+the Conqueror gave the then Prior the right to collect the tithes of the
+little town.
+
+A short distance from Amble, and practically encircled by the Coquet
+which here makes a wide sweep, we come upon Warkworth, prettiest of
+villages, combining the beauties of sea-shore and river scenery, and
+rich in the possession of that romantic castle, the ruins of which carry
+the mind back to Saxon times; for they stand on the site of an older
+fortress erected by Ceolwulf, a Saxon King of Northumbria. He was the
+patron of Bede, who dedicated his "Ecclesiastical History" to his royal
+friend. Ceolwulf built both the fortress and the earliest church at
+Warkworth, and a few stones of this latter building are still to be
+seen. In 737, two years after the death of Bede, this royal Saxon laid
+aside his kingly state and became a monk on Lindisfarne,
+
+  "When he, for cowl and beads, laid down
+  The Saxon battle-axe and crown."
+
+It was when the castle was bestowed by Edward III. upon Lord Percy of
+Alnwick that it became, for more than two hundred years, the chief
+residence of that illustrious family; becoming in the next reign of
+historical value as the home of that Hotspur whose valour and gallantry
+made Henry IV. envy the Earl of Northumberland, in that he "should be
+the father of so blest a son." In Act II., Scene 3 of "Henry IV.," Part
+II., Shakespeare has laid the scene at Warkworth Castle, where Hotspur's
+wife, troubled by her lord's moody abstraction, tries to win from him
+the reason of his secret care. And after the battle of Shrewsbury,
+Rumour, flying with the news of Hotspur's death, says:--
+
+  "Thus have I rumoured through the peasant towns,
+  Between the royal field of Shrewsbury
+  And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,
+  Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,
+  Lies crafty-sick."
+
+Two years after this, the castle was besieged by Henry IV. himself, and
+surrendered to him after a brief bombardment by the newly invented
+cannon. The keep was re-built by Hotspur's son, after the family
+possessions had been restored to him by Henry V., and it is now the only
+remaining part of the castle which is almost perfect. One of the
+half-ruinous towers remaining is called the Lion Tower, from the
+sculptured lion on its walls; while another rejoices in the curious name
+of Cradyfargus. A strange story is told of a blue stone to be seen in
+the courtyard of the castle. Many years ago, so runs the tale, one of
+the custodians of Warkworth Castle dreamed three nights in succession
+that a large treasure was concealed beneath a blue stone in a certain
+part of the castle grounds. He told this dream to a neighbour, and after
+allowing two or three days to pass, finding the dream constantly
+recurring to his mind, he thought he would go to the place indicated,
+and see what he could find. To his disappointment, however, he
+discovered that some one had been there before him; a large hole had
+been dug, and on the edge of it lay the blue stone.
+
+Needless to say, the hole was empty, nor could the keeper discover
+anything about the treasure in the neighbourhood. It is said that a
+certain family in the village became suddenly rich; and, many years
+afterwards, a large and ancient pot, supposed to have been that in which
+the buried treasure had been contained, was found in the Coquet.
+
+The main street of Warkworth leads straight up to the postern gate of
+the castle, and many stirring sights have the successive inhabitants of
+the little village looked upon, as the fortunes of the owners of the
+castle waxed and waned throughout the many centuries in which the lords
+of Warkworth played a notable part in the history of England. They saw
+Henry Percy, entrusted with a share in the safe keeping of the country,
+set out from Warkworth for Durham, to help in winning the victory of
+Neville's Cross.
+
+They saw Hotspur's force set out for the Cheviots to intercept Douglas
+and his followers, which they did at Homildon Hill, near Wooler; and it
+was the quarrel in connection with the prisoners taken on that day which
+led Hotspur and his father openly to throw off their allegiance to
+Henry IV., so that a few months later the peasants of Warkworth saw
+their idolised young lord set out for what was to prove the fatal field
+of Shrewsbury. They saw Hotspur's father, the first Henry Percy to
+receive the title of Earl, (a title which had been given him at the
+coronation of Richard II.) set out with a brave force after Hotspur's
+departure; and they saw his return, almost alone, dejected and broken in
+spirit, having learnt that the help so tardily given had come too late,
+and the life of his gallant son was ended.
+
+They saw the siege train of Henry Bolingbroke laid against the castle,
+directed by Henry in person, provoked into these active measures by the
+open rebellion of father and son, though Northumberland had tried to
+make it appear that he was innocent of any treasonable act. After
+capturing the castle, Bolingbroke bestowed it on his third son, John of
+Lancaster, and the villagers saw the young prince riding in and out
+among them daily so long as he made the castle his home.
+
+Then, in the next reign, they welcomed the return of Hotspur's son,
+Henry, to the home of his fathers, restored to him by Henry V.; and,
+within a short time, saw him bring home his bride, Eleanor Neville,
+daughter of his friend and neighbour, the Earl of Westmoreland.
+
+In the Wars of the Roses, Warkworth Castle saw many changes of fortune,
+as the tide of victory flowed this way and that. The Percies were all
+Lancastrians, though Sir Ralph Percy changed sides twice. The castle
+fell into the hands of the Yorkists, and the great Earl of Warwick, the
+"King-maker" himself, made it his headquarters for a time, while he
+superintended the sieges of Alnwick, Dunstanborough, and Bamburgh, which
+were all invested at the same time. Eventually, after the Wars of the
+Roses concluded, Warkworth was restored, along with the other Percy
+estates, to its original owners.
+
+Finally, the inhabitants of the little village saw the church entered by
+the Jacobites in 1715, when Mr. Buxton, chaplain of the little force,
+prayed for James III. and Mary the Queen-mother; and General Forster,
+dressed as a trumpeter, proclaimed King James III. at the village cross.
+
+A few miles north from the mouth of the Coquet, the little Aln spreads
+over the sandy flats near Alnmouth, and reaches the sea. It has changed
+its course, for at one time it flowed to the south of Church Hill,
+instead of to the north as at present. The town of Alnmouth, viewed from
+the train just before entering Alnmouth Station, looks very picturesque,
+especially if the rare sunshine of an English summer should be lighting
+up the bay, bringing out the vivid red of the tiled roofs against the
+grassy hills fringing the links which lie on their seaward side, and
+lighting up, also, the yellow sands and long lines of sparkling wavelets
+edged with white.
+
+Alnmouth depends for its living on a fleet of fishing boats, and on the
+numbers of visitors who seek its fresh breezes and inviting shores each
+summer. Golfers, indeed, find it pleasant all the year round, as there
+is only a scarcely appreciable interval in the winter months when their
+favourite pastime cannot be followed on the breezy links. On Church
+Hill, now crowned by a few old stones, once stood a Norman church,
+dedicated to St. Valery, which, in its turn, occupied the site of an
+older Saxon building, supposed to have been the church which Bede refers
+to as being at Twyford, where a great synod of clergy was held in the
+year 684, and Cuthbert appointed Bishop of Lindisfarne. It is a matter
+of dispute whether this Twyford was Alnmouth or Whittingham, but the
+two fords at Alnmouth seem to point to a decision in favour of that
+place. The old Norman church, which fell into ruin at the beginning of
+last century, was fired at by the famous pirate Paul Jones; the cannon
+shot, weighing 68 pounds, missed the church, but struck a neighbouring
+farm house, doing great damage.
+
+The coast north of Alnmouth becomes rocky and wild, and very
+picturesque, and the villages along the coast are being sought out by
+holiday makers in increasing numbers, year by year. Boulmer, one of
+these villages, was a famous place for smuggling in the old days, and
+many an exciting scene and sharp encounter took place between the
+smugglers and the King's men. Not far away is Howick Dene, a lovely
+little glen leading down to the sea from Howick Hall, the home of Earl
+Grey.
+
+Cullernose Point, a striking crag, is formed by the outcrop of a portion
+of the Great Whin Sill, which from here can be traced to the south-west,
+and thence right across the county.
+
+At Craster, another fishing village and a favourite holiday haunt, is
+Craster Tower, which has been the home of the family of Craster since
+before the Conquest. Not far to the north is the famous Rumble Churn in
+the rocks below Dunstanborough Castle, where the waves roll in and out
+of the caves and chasms with weird and hollow rumblings. There is
+another Rumbling Churn in the cliffs near Howick.
+
+The famous divine of the Middle Ages, John Duns Scotus, was born in this
+parish--that of Embleton; the group of buildings known as Dunston Hall,
+or Proctor's Steads, is supposed to have been his birthplace, and a
+portrait of the learned doctor is to be seen there.
+
+Dunstanborough Castle stands in lonely grandeur on great whinstone
+crags, close to the very edge of the sea, and on the first sight of it,
+Keats' wonderful lines spring involuntarily to the lips:--
+
+  "Magic casements, opening on the foam
+  Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn."
+
+Forlorn, indeed, though not in exactly the sense conveyed by the poem,
+is this huge fortress now; it abides, says Freeman, "as a castle should
+abide, in all the majesty of a shattered ruin." The primitive cannon of
+the days of the Wars of the Roses began to shatter those mighty walls,
+and, unlike Bamborough, it has never been strengthened since. Simon de
+Montford once owned this estate, and the next lord of Dunstanborough was
+a son of Henry III., to whom Earl Simon's forfeited estate was given.
+His eldest son, Thomas of Lancaster, took part with the barons in
+bringing the unworthy favourite of Edward II., Piers Gaveston, to his
+death. Under the King's anger, Lancaster went away to his Northumbrian
+estate, and began to build this mighty fortress, though he already owned
+the castles of Kenilworth and Pontefract. In the Wars of the Roses,
+Dunstanborough Castle was taken and retaken no less than five times, and
+Queen Margaret found refuge here, as well as at Bamburgh; but apart from
+these occasions, Dunstanborough has not taken nearly so great a part in
+either local or national history as the other Northumbrian castles of
+Bamburgh, Warkworth, and Alnwick, though greater in extent than any of
+them. In 1538 an official report describes "Dunstunburht" as "a very
+reuynous howse"; and the process of dilapidation was soon aided by
+enterprising dwellers in the neighbourhood using the stones of the
+forsaken castle to build their own homesteads.
+
+From the castle northward curves Embleton Bay, in which, after having
+been buried in the sand for ages, a sandstone rock was uncovered by the
+tide, having on its surface, chiselled in rough but distinct lettering,
+the name "Andra Barton." Sir Andrew Barton, daring Scottish sea-captain
+and fearless freebooter, was slain in a sea-fight off this part of the
+coast, in the days of Henry VIII., by the sons of Surrey, one of whom,
+Sir Thomas Howard, was Lord Admiral at the time, and so, in a measure,
+responsible for the defence of the English coast. The loss of his brave
+sea-captain and his "goodly ships" was one of the grievances in the long
+list which led King James IV. to declare war against England, and led to
+the fatal field of Flodden, in which Admiral Sir Thomas Howard and his
+brother took part under the command of their father, the Earl of Surrey.
+
+The wide sweep of grassy common beyond the sands in Embleton Bay is, in
+summer time, covered with a profusion of wild flowers, chief amongst
+them being the wild geranium, or meadow cranes-bill, whose
+reddish-purple blossoms grow in such abundance as to arrest the
+attention of every visitor. A little way back from the sea-shore, in the
+middle of this wide space, lies the village of Embleton, which possesses
+an ancient and interesting church, and a vicarage, part of which is
+formed by an old pele-tower. Embleton would seem to have a reputation to
+keep up in the way of famous churchmen. Duns Scotus has been already
+mentioned; and one of the vicars here was a cousin of Richard Steele,
+the essayist and friend of Addison; and he described the country squires
+of his day in a paper which he contributed to the "Spectator" of that
+date, 1712.
+
+Another Vicar of Embleton, who lived here from 1874 to 1884, was Dr.
+Mandell Creighton, the learned historian, who became Bishop of London.
+
+The well-known journalist, W.T. Stead, was born in the parish of
+Embleton, though his childhood was passed in very different
+surroundings, in the narrow streets and grimy atmosphere of
+Howdon-on-Tyne. His recent death on the ill-fated _Titanic_ will be
+fresh in the minds of all.
+
+Newton-by-the-Sea is reached by a pleasant walk along the sea-shore. (It
+is to be understood that in this journey along the coast we are moving
+northward always). There is here a cheery-looking white-washed
+coastguard station standing on the bold headland of Newton Point.
+
+Past this point is Beadnell Bay, with green and grassy Beadnell just
+beyond Little Rock. The small fishing harbour at Beadnell has the unique
+distinction of being the only harbour on the east coast whose mouth
+faces west, and the short pier, running _inland_ from rocks to shore,
+acts as a breakwater against the heavy easterly or southeasterly seas
+and makes the harbour a safe anchorage for fishing craft or small
+yachts. The rocks around this bay are very interesting, showing the
+various strata very plainly, and containing many fossils. The striking
+cliff called Ebbe's Nook is supposed to have been named after the Saxon
+princess Ebba, sister to King Oswald, and the ruins which were
+discovered on the headland, to be all that is left of a chapel erected
+to her memory.
+
+At Seahouses is an extensive fish-curing establishment, a fact which
+proclaims itself unmistakably as you near the village, especially if the
+day chance to be at all warm. A little distance from the shore is
+another fishing village, North Sunderland, and northward from Seahouses
+is the inn called The Monkshouse, from the fact that it once belonged to
+the community on Lindisfarne.
+
+Bamburgh Castle, magnificently placed on a lofty crag rising
+perpendicularly from the greensward on the west or landward side, and
+almost as steeply from the sea which washes the north and east sides,
+lies like a majestic lion on its mighty rock "brooding on ancient
+fame." The voices of children at play on the sands below sound faint and
+far in the still air; the sea birds, with the summer sunshine flashing
+on their outspread wings, sweep round and round; in the far distance a
+trail of smoke low down on the horizon marks the track of a passing
+steamer; and near at hand, southward a little way from the castle cliff,
+the rocky islets of the Farne group lie drowsily asleep on the
+gently-heaving swell of the grey-blue waters. Behind the castle lies the
+pretty old-fashioned village with its quaint hostelries and grove of
+trees; and from the higher parts of the new golf-links the player may
+look round on a view which would be difficult to match, comprising as it
+does, the Farne Islands and Dunstanborough to the south, and northward,
+Holy Island, with its castle and abbey and the bluish haze of smoke
+lying over Berwick; while, on the western skyline, on a clear day, may
+be seen the rounded caps of the Cheviots.
+
+The beginnings of Bamburgh take us back more than a thousand years, to
+that long-ago summer of 547, when the _cyuls_ (keels) of the marauding
+Bernician chieftain Ida and his followers grounded on the shore of our
+Northland, and the work of conquest began. Ida was not slow to grasp the
+importance of such a commanding site as this isolated mass of basaltic
+crag, and the rude stronghold which crowned it. It became in time a
+formidable fortress, and remained for centuries the headquarters of the
+kings of the North.
+
+Here reigned Ida and his sons--six of them--for more or less short and
+stormy periods, and Ethelric of Bernicia, who vanquished the
+neighbouring prince of Deira, and thus reigned as the first king of
+Northumbria as Northumbria. The Celtic name of the fortress was
+Dinguardi, or Dinguvardy; and tradition has it that this was Sir
+Lancelot's castle of Joyeuse Garde, where he had often feasted the
+Knights of the Round Table, and where he, at last, came home to die. The
+fact that Bamburgh is the only pre-Conquest castle in Northumberland
+disposes of the claim of Alnwick.
+
+"My fair lords," said sir Launcelot, "wit ye well, my careful body will
+into the earth; I have warning more than I will now say; therefore, I
+pray you, give me my rights." So when he was houseled and eneled, and
+had all that a Christian man ought to have, he prayed the bishop that
+his fellows might bear his body unto Joyous Gard.
+
+Some men say Anwick, and some men say to Bamborow; "how-beit," said sir
+Launcelot, "me repenteth sore; but I made mine avow aforetime, that in
+Joyous Gard I would be buried; and because of breaking of mine vow, I
+pray you all lead me thither." Then was there weeping and wringing of
+hands among all his fellows.
+
+And so, within fifteen days, they came to Joyous Gard, and there they
+laid his corpse in the body of the quire, and read many psalters and
+prayers over him and about him.... And right thus, as they were at their
+service, there came sir Ector de Maris, that had sought seven years all
+England, Scotland and Wales, seeking his brother sir Launcelot.... Then
+went sir Bors unto sir Ector, and told him how there lay his brother sir
+Launcelot dead.
+
+And then sir Ector threw his shield, his sword, and his helm from him;
+and when he beheld sir Launcelot's visage, he fell down in a swoon; and
+when he awoke, it were hard for any tongue to tell the doleful
+complaints that he made for his brother. "Ah! sir Launcelot," said he,
+"thou wert head of all Christian knights!" "And now, I dare say," said
+sir Bors, "that sir Launcelot, there thou liest, thou wert never matched
+of none earthly knight's hands; and thou wert the courtliest knight that
+ever bare a shield; and thou wert the truest friend to thy lover that
+ever bestrod horse; and thou wert the truest lover of a sinful man that
+ever loved woman; and thou wert the kindest man that ever stroke with
+sword; and thou wert the goodliest person that ever came among press of
+knights; and thou wert the meekest man, and the gentlest, that ever eat
+in hall among ladies; and thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal
+foe, that ever put spear in the rest."
+
+Then there was weeping and dolor out of measure.
+
+  --_Malory's Morte d'Arthur_.
+
+Ethelfrith, who succeeded Ethelric, gave the fort to his second wife,
+Bebba, after whom it was named Bebbanburgh, which soon became Bamburgh.
+
+In the days of King Edwin, who succeeded Ethelfrith, Bamburgh was the
+centre of a kingdom which extended from the Humber to the Forth, and as
+Northumbria was at that time the most important division of England, the
+royal city of Bernicia was practically the capital of the country. The
+reign of King Oswald, though shorter than that of Edwin, was equally
+noteworthy from the fact that in his days the gentle Aidan settled in
+Northumbria, and king and monk worked together for the good of their
+people, and Bamburgh became not only the seat of temporal power but the
+safeguard and bulwark of the spiritual movement centred on the little
+isle of Lindisfarne. On the accession of Edwin, Oswald, son of
+Ethelfrith, had fled from Bernicia and taken refuge with the monks of
+Iona, living with them till the time came for him to rule Northumbria in
+his turn. As soon as possible after the inevitable fighting for his
+political existence was over, he sent to Iona for a teacher to come and
+instruct his people in the truths he had learned; and a monk named
+Corman was sent. He, however, was unable to make any impression on the
+wild and warlike Saxons of the northern kingdom, and he soon returned to
+Iona with the report that it was useless to try to teach such obstinate
+and barbarous people. One of the brethren, listening to his account,
+ventured to ask him if he were sure that all the fault lay with the
+people. "Did you remember," said he, "that we are commanded to give them
+the milk first? Did you not rather try them with the strong meat?" With
+one accord the brethren declared that he who had spoken such wise words
+was the man best fitted for the task, and the gentle Aidan was sent to
+Oswald's help. In such a fashion came the Gospel to Northumbria, and
+Aidan became the first of the long roll of saints whose deeds and lives
+had such incalculable influence on Northumbrian history. From Aidan's
+arrival in 635 until the death of Oswald the relations between the king
+and the monk who had settled on Medcaud or Medcaut, soon to be known as
+Lindisfarne, and later as Holy Island, were those of friend to friend
+and fellow-worker, rather than those of king and subject.
+
+After the death of Oswald, his conqueror Penda, the fierce King of the
+Mercians, harried Northumbria, and appearing before the walls of
+Bamburgh prepared to burn it down. Piles of logs and brushwood were laid
+against the city and the fire was applied. Aidan, in his little cell on
+Farne Island, to which he had retired, saw the clouds of flame and smoke
+rolling over the home of his beloved patron. Raising his hands to
+Heaven, he exclaimed, "See, Lord, what ill Penda is doing!" Scarcely had
+he uttered the words, when the wind changed, and drove the flames away
+from Bamburgh, blowing them against Penda's host, who thereupon ceased
+all further attempts against the city.
+
+Not long after this, Aidan was at Bamburgh, when he was seized with
+sudden illness, and died with his head resting against one of the wooden
+stays of the little church. Penda came again the next year, and this
+time both village and church were burnt, all except, says tradition, the
+beam of wood against which Aidan had rested in his last moments.
+
+When the Danish ships appeared off our shores, in the two centuries
+following, Bamburgh was attacked and plundered several times. In the
+days of William Rufus, as we have seen, Robert de Mowbray, Earl of
+Northumberland, rebelled against the Red King, in company with his
+uncle the Bishop of Coutances, Robert of Normandy, and William of St.
+Carileph, Bishop of Durham. Rufus marched into Northumberland, but the
+quarrel was adjusted for the time; though private strife between the two
+Bishops led to Mowbray's driving the monks of Durham from the Priory at
+Tynemouth and replacing them by monks from St. Albans.
+
+Later, however, Mowbray disobeyed a summons from the Red King, who once
+more marched into Northumberland. He reached Bamburgh, and invested it,
+but failed to make any impression on that impregnable stronghold, within
+whose walls were Mowbray and his young wife, the Countess Matilda, and
+his nephew, who was Sheriff of Northumberland. Rufus, finding all
+attempts to carry the fortress useless, began to build a wooden fort,
+called a _Malvoisin_, or "Bad neighbour"; and so anxious was he to have
+it speedily erected that he made knights and nobles as well as his
+men-at-arms take part in the work.
+
+Mowbray, from the battlements, called out to many of these by name,
+openly taunting those who had secretly promised to join him, or had
+expressed themselves as in sympathy with his disobedience. His words
+gave great amusement to Rufus and the nobles who were truly loyal, and
+much mortification and vexation to those whom he so ruthlessly exposed.
+Rufus left the "Bad neighbour" to continue the siege and went southward.
+
+Mowbray, led to believe that Newcastle would receive him, and take his
+part, stole away from Bamburgh by sea, and reached Tynemouth. On
+proceeding to Newcastle, however, he found he had been mistaken, and
+hurriedly fled hack to Tynemouth, pursued by his enemies. He held out
+against them for a day or two, but was then captured and taken to
+Durham. Meanwhile the high-spirited Countess held Bamburgh against all
+assailants; but Mowbray's capture gave Rufus an advantage he was not
+slow to use. Returning to the North, he ordered Mowbray to be brought
+before the walls of Bamburgh, and threatened to put his eyes out if the
+Countess did not immediately surrender. Needless to say, she preferred
+to give up the castle, and Mowbray's reign as Earl of Northumberland was
+over.
+
+Thereafter Bamburgh was visited by various sovereigns in turn, when
+their affairs brought them to the northerly parts of their kingdom. When
+Balliol, tired of long years of conflict, surrendered most of his rights
+to Edward III., it was at Bamburgh that the convention was concluded. In
+this reign the castle was greatly strengthened.
+
+In the Wars of the Roses, Bamburgh was held for the queen by the
+Lancastrian nobles of the north country--Percy and Ros--with the Earl of
+Pembroke and Duke of Somerset; but was obliged on Christmas Eve, 1462,
+to capitulate to a superior force. The next year the Scots and the
+queen's French allies surprised it, and re-captured it for Henry VI. and
+his courageous queen; but Warwick, "the King-maker," came upon the
+scene, and after a stout resistance the garrison surrendered.
+
+When the Union of the Crowns took place in 1603, Bamburgh was no longer
+necessary as a defence against the Scots, and its defences were
+neglected. The Forsters, into whose hands it passed in the days of James
+I., were a spendthrift family, and gradually wasted their rich estate,
+until in 1704 it had to be sold, and was bought by Lord Crewe. He was
+Bishop of Durham at the time, having been promoted to that position by
+Charles II., who liked his handsome figure and pleasing manners. When at
+the age of fifty-eight, he wished to marry Dorothea Forster, daughter of
+Sir William Forster, of Bamburgh, the lady, who was many years younger,
+refused him at first; but some years later he renewed his suit, and this
+time was accepted. When the Forster estates were sold and their debts
+paid, there was scarcely anything left for the heirs--Lady Crewe and her
+nephew, Thomas Forster, who afterwards became the General of the
+ill-fated Jacobite rising in 1715, and whose escape after his capture
+was contrived by his high-spirited sister, Dorothy Forster the second.
+
+Lord Crewe, in his will, left a great part of his fortune to found the
+Bamburgh Trust, for which his name will ever be remembered. The most
+notable of the trustees, Archdeacon Sharp, administered the moneys in so
+wise and beneficent a manner that to him most of the credit is due for
+the real usefulness of the Crewe charities. These include a surgery and
+dispensary; schools; the relief of persons in distress; the clothing and
+educating of a certain number of girls; the maintenance of a lifeboat,
+life-saving apparatus, and everything necessary for the relief of
+ship-wrecked persons. A lifeboat, kept in the harbour at Holy Island, is
+always ready to go out on a signal from Bamburgh Castle.
+
+The castle was extensively restored and repaired by the late Lord
+Armstrong; but, sad to say, since his death it has been stripped of many
+of its treasures. The church, dedicated to St. Aidan, stands at the west
+end of the village; but there is no vestige remaining of the one built
+in Saxon times, the present building having been erected when Henry II.
+was king. In the churchyard is the grave of Grace Darling, and many
+hundreds come to look on the last resting place of the gentle girl who
+was yet so heroic, when her compassionate heart nerved her girlish frame
+to the gallant effort on behalf of her fellow-creatures in dire peril,
+when she
+
+  ".... rode the waves none else durst ride,
+                 None save her sire."
+
+The beautiful monument over her grave is by Raymond Smith, and is an
+exact duplicate of the original one, also by him, which was being
+injured so much by the weather that it was removed to a position inside
+the church. The duplicate was commissioned by Lord (then Sir William)
+Armstrong.
+
+The island on which yet stands the lighthouse which was Grace's home is
+the Longstone, almost the farthest seaward of the rocky group of the
+Farnes, lying almost opposite Bamburgh. The Longstone is only about four
+feet above high-water mark, so that in stormy weather the lighthouse is
+fiercely assailed by the heavy seas, and the keepers are often driven
+for refuge to the upper chambers. To the Longstone might with truth be
+attributed the opening lines of Kipling's poem, "The Coastwise
+Lights":--
+
+  "Our brows are bound with spindrift, and the weed is on our knees,
+  Our loins are battered 'neath us by the swinging, smoking seas;
+  From reef, and rock, and skerry, over headland, ness, and voe,
+  The coastwise lights of England watch the ships of England go."
+
+There are about twenty of these little islets to be seen at low tide,
+and very curious are some of their names--The Megstone, The Crumstone,
+The Navestone, The Harcars, The Wedums, The Noxes (Knokys), and The
+Wawmses. The largest, Farne Island, is the nearest to the coast, and is
+the one to which St. Aidan retired, and on which St. Cuthbert made
+himself a cell, and where he lived for some years, leaving Lindisfarne
+(Holy Island) very often for months together, to dwell alone on this
+almost bare rock and devote himself to holy meditation and prayer.
+
+To this island came King Ecgfrith of Northumbria with Archbishop
+Trumwine and other representatives of the Synod to beg the hermit to
+accept the Bishopric of Hexham; and it was on this island that St.
+Cuthbert died, the monks who had gone to look after him signalling the
+news of his death to his brethren at Lindisfarne by means of torches.
+The island is rocky and precipitous, with deep chasms between the high
+cliffs; and when a north wind blows, the columns of foam and spray, from
+the waters dashing into the chasms and over the tops of the cliffs, may
+be seen from the mainland rising high into the air.
+
+Before the first lighthouse was built on Farne Island, in 1766, a coal
+fire was kindled every night on the top of the tower-like building used
+as a fort. This method of warning passing vessels had been used
+continuously since the days of Charles II. In great contrast to this is
+the modern lighthouse, with its acetylene gas lights and its automatic
+flash apparatus.
+
+Close to Stapel Island are the three high basaltic pillars, of rock
+called the Pinnacles. On all these islands sea-birds breed, but
+especially on the Pinnacles, the Big and Little Harcar, and the islet
+called the Brownsman.
+
+Thousands and thousands of them perch and chatter on the rocks and fly
+screaming in the air, amongst them being guillemots, kittiwakes, gulls,
+terns, cormorants, puffins, and eider-ducks, for which latter St.
+Cuthbert is said to have had great affection; certainly they are the
+gentlest of these wild sea-fowl.
+
+Bidding farewell to the rocky Farnes, we sail past Budle Bay, into which
+runs the Warenburn and the Elwick burn, and underneath whose sandy flats
+is the buried town of Warnmouth, once a busy seaport, to which Henry
+III. granted a charter. Approaching Lindisfarne, "Our isle of Saints,
+low-lying on the blue breast of the curling waters, is hushed and silent
+in the lightly-purple mists of morning, like the wide aisles of a great
+cathedral at daybreak, before the feet and tongues of sightseers disturb
+the solemn stillness. The tideway is covered with water, and the
+footprints of the pilgrims who came yesterday to the shrine of St.
+Cuthbert have passed into oblivion like footmarks on the sands of time."
+(_Galloway Kyle_.) The modern pilgrim to Holy Island generally takes
+train to Beal station, and from there walks to the seashore, and crosses
+the long stretch of sand between Holy Island and the mainland. The
+governing factor in the possibility or otherwise of making the journey
+is the state of the tide, for these sands are entirely covered by the
+sea twice a day, so that Holy Island can only be said to be an island at
+high tide.
+
+  "For with the flow and ebb, its style
+  Varies from continent to isle;
+  Dry-shod, o'er sands, twice every day
+  The pilgrims to the shrine find way;
+  Twice every day the waves efface
+  Of staves and sandall'd feet the trace."
+
+There are dangerous quicksands on the way, too, and a row of stakes
+points out the proper course to be taken.
+
+We have already seen that St. Aidan settled on Lindisfarne and have
+treated of him in connection with Bamburgh. After his death another monk
+of Iona, Finan, succeeded him and carried on his work; and after Finan
+came Colman, who resigned after the Synod of Whitby had decided to keep
+Easter according to southern instead of northern usage. St. Cuthbert was
+Prior of Lindisfarne at this time. Later, the seat of the bishopric was
+removed from Lindisfarne to York, when it was held by that restless and
+able prelate, Wilfrid, for a time. Then the bishopric was divided and a
+see of Hexham formed, as well as that of Lindisfarne, which included
+Carlisle, out of the northern portion of the diocese of York.
+
+St. Cuthbert was bishop of Lindisfarne for two years, having exchanged
+sees with bishop Eata, who went to Hexham. The stone coffin in which St.
+Cuthbert's body was pieced, after his death on Farne Island, was buried
+on the right side of the altar in the Abbey of Lindisfarne, which by
+this time had arisen on the little island. A later bishop, Edfrid,
+executed a wonderful copy of the Gospels, which was illuminated by his
+successor, Ethelwald. Another bishop enclosed it in a cover of gold and
+silver, adorning it with jewels; and, later, a priest of Lindisfarne,
+Aldred, wrote between the lines a translation into the vernacular, and
+added marginal notes. This precious manuscript, a wonderful example of
+the beautiful work done in monastic houses in the north so many
+centuries ago, is now in the British Museum, where it is known as the
+"Durham Manuscript."
+
+When the pirate keels of the Danes appeared off our coasts about the end
+of the eighth century, Lindisfarne Abbey was one of the first points of
+attack; and in 793 it was plundered of most of its wealth, and many of
+the monks were slain. For nearly a century afterwards it was left in
+peace, but in 875 the Danish ships appeared again approaching from the
+south, where they had just sacked Tynemouth Priory. The bishop,
+Eardulph, last of the Lindisfarne prelates, and the brethren hastily
+collected their most treasured possessions, and with the body of St.
+Cuthbert, the bones of St. Aidan, and other precious relics, they fled
+from their island home, and journeyed north, west, and south for many
+years before they found a resting place at Chester-le-Street near
+Durham. For seven years they carried with them the body of St. Cuthbert;
+and it is said that the final choice of a resting place for the body of
+their beloved saint was indicated to them by supernatural means as they
+approached Durham.
+
+In 1069 William the Conqueror marched northward to visit with sternest
+punishment the hardy north-men, who were so long in submitting to his
+authority; and the monks of Durham fled before the advance of the
+relentless Norman, carrying with them, as before, the body of St.
+Cuthbert. They reached Lindisfarne in safety to find the Abbey in the
+ruinous state in which it had been left by the Danes two centuries
+earlier. Thus, once again, the body of St. Cuthbert rested on the little
+island where so many years of his life had been spent.
+
+In 1070 the brethren returned to Durham and in 1093 the building was
+begun, almost simultaneously, of the present glorious Cathedral of
+Durham and a new Priory and Church on Lindisfarne, and a strong
+resemblance may be traced between the two buildings The Abbey was
+deserted on the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII., and
+gradually fell into ruins.
+
+The Castle, which stands on a lofty whinstone rock at the south-east
+corner of the island, is a conspicuous object for many miles, whether
+viewed by land or sea. It is supposed to have been built in the reign of
+Henry VIII., at a time when defences were commanded to be made to all
+harbours. If the Castle has had any appreciable share of romantic
+incidents in its history, the records thereof seem to be unknown; but
+one which has come down to us is the account of its daring capture by an
+ardent North-country Jacobite, Lancelot Errington, in 1715. The
+garrison consisted of seven men, five of whom were absent. Errington,
+who was master of a small vessel lying in the harbour, discovered this,
+and immediately made his way to the Castle accompanied by his nephew,
+and overpowered the two men who were left in charge, turning them out of
+the Castle. He then signalled to the mainland for reinforcements, but
+none were forthcoming. A company of King's men came instead and
+re-occupied the place, Errington and his nephew escaping, to wander
+about in the neighbourhood for several days, hiding from pursuit, before
+they got clear away. The Castle was for many years the home of the
+coastguardsmen, who must have found it a most advantageous position for
+their purpose, as they had an uninterrupted view of miles of coast line.
+
+Northward from Holy Island, but on the mainland, lies Goswick, from
+whose red sandstone quarries came the material for building the Abbey of
+Lindisfarne. Further north we come in sight of the coal pits and smoke
+of Scremerston, while beyond it, Spittal and Tweedmouth bring us right
+up to Berwick-on-Tweed itself, that grey old Border town which has seen
+so many turns of fortune, and been harried again and again, only to draw
+breath after each wild and cruel interlude, and go calmly on its quiet
+way until it was once more called upon to fight for its very existence.
+
+Though definitely forming part of English soil since 1482, it is not
+included in any English county, but, with about eight square miles
+around it, forms a county by itself. Hence the addition, to any Royal
+proclamation, of the well-known words "And in our Town of
+Berwick-upon-Tweed."
+
+Sir Walter Scott's description of the Northumbrian coast, in his poem of
+Marmion may well be recalled here. It will be remembered that the
+Abbess of Whitby, with some of her nuns, was voyaging to Holy Island,
+and we take up the description when
+
+  ".... the vessel skirts the strand
+  Of mountainous Northumberland;
+  Towns, towers, and halls successive rise,
+  And catch the nuns' delighted eyes.
+  Monkwearmouth soon behind them lay,
+  And Tynemouth's Priory and bay. They
+  marked, amid her trees, the hall Of lofty Seaton Delaval;
+  They saw the Blyth and Wansbeck floods
+  Rush to the sea through sounding woods;
+  They passed the tower of Widdrington,
+  Mother of many a valiant son;
+  At Coquet-isle their beads they tell
+  To the good saint who owned the cell.
+  Then did the Alne attention claim,
+  And Warkworth, proud of Percy's name;
+  And next they crossed themselves, to hear
+  The whitening breakers sound so near,
+  Where, boiling through the rocks, they roar
+  On Dunstanborough's caverned shore.
+  Thy tower, proud Bamburgh, marked they there,
+  King Ida's castle, huge and square,
+  From its tall rock look grimly down
+  And on the swelling ocean frown.
+  Then from the coast they bore away
+  And reached the Holy Island's bay.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  As to the port the galley flew,
+  Higher and higher rose to view
+  The castle with its battled walls,
+  The ancient monastery's halls,
+  A solemn, huge, and dark-red pile
+  Placed on the margin of the isle.
+
+  In Saxon strength that abbey frowned,
+  With massive arches, broad and round.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  On the deep walls, the heathen Dane
+  Had poured his impious rage in vain;
+  And needful was such strength to these,
+  Exposed to the tempestuous seas,
+  Scourged by the winds' eternal sway,
+  Open to rovers fierce as they.
+  Which could twelve hundred years withstand
+  Winds, waves, and northern pirates' hand."
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+NORTH AND SOUTH TYNE.
+
+  "On Kielder-side the wind blaws wide;
+  There sounds nae hunting horn
+  That rings sae sweet as the winds that beat
+  Round banks where Tyne is born."
+   --_A.C. Swinburne_.
+
+Between Peel Fell and Mid Fell, almost the farthest western heights of
+the Cheviot Hills, a little mountain stream takes its rise, and flows to
+the south and east. This little burn is the North Tyne, the beginnings
+of that stream which, deep, dark, and swift at its mouth, bears the
+mighty battleships there built to carry the war-flags of the nations
+round the world. In the wild and lovely district where the North Tyne
+takes its rise, is Kielder Castle, a shooting box belonging to the Duke
+of Northumberland.
+
+This neighbourhood is the scene of two romantic ballads; that of the
+"Cowt (colt) of Kielder" and the Ettrick Shepherd's ballad of "Sir David
+Graeme." The deadly enemy of the young "Cowt," so called from his great
+strength, is Lord Soulis of Hermitage Castle, on the Scottish side of
+the border. The Cowt, with his followers, was enticed into the Castle,
+where Lord Soulis purposed his death; but the gigantic youth burst
+through the circle of his foes and escaped. The evil Brownie of the
+moorland, however, gave to Lord Soulis the secret which safeguarded the
+young Cowt. His coat of mail was sword-proof by a spell of enchantment,
+and he wore in his helmet rowan and holly leaves; but these would all be
+of no avail against the power of running water. The Cowt was pursued
+until, in crossing a burn, he stumbled and lost his helmet, and ere he
+recovered, his enemies were upon him, and they held him under water
+until he was drowned.
+
+Not far from the mouth of the Bell Burn, which here runs into the Tyne,
+a circle of stones outside an ancient burial ground is known as the
+Cowt's Grave.
+
+  "This is the bonny brae, the green,
+  Yet sacred to the brave,
+  Where still, of ancient size, is seen
+  Gigantic Kieldar's grave.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Where weeps the birch with branches green
+  Without the holy ground,
+  Between two old grey stones is seen
+  The warrior's ridgey mound.
+
+  And the hunters bold of Kieldar's train,
+  Within yon castle's wall,
+  In a deadly sleep must aye remain
+  Till the ruined towers down fall."
+
+In the ballad of "Sir David Graeme," by James Hogg, the lady of the
+story watched out of her window in vain for the coming of her "noble
+Graeme," who had vowed that the hate of her father and brothers would
+not keep him from coming to carry off his fair lady on St. Lambert's
+night.
+
+  "The sun had drunk frae Kieldar Fell
+  His beverage o' the morning dew;
+  The deer had crouched her in the dell,
+  The heather oped its bells o' blue.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  The lady to her window hied,
+  And it opened o'er the banks o' Tyne;
+  An' "O! alack," she said, and sighed,
+  "Sure ilka breast is blythe but mine?"
+
+Her forebodings prove only too true, for her lover's faithful hound
+seeks her out, and with mournful looks induces her to follow him over
+Deadwater Fell, and guides her to a lonely spot where the body of the
+gallant Graeme, slain by her brothers, is lying.
+
+In the neighbourhood of these desolate Fells are to be found many traces
+of ancient British Camps.
+
+The little mountain streams which here help to swell the stream of the
+North Tyne are, on the south side, the Lewis and Whickhope Burns, and on
+the north, the Plashetts and Hawkhope Burns. On both sides of the Tyne,
+near the Whickhope and the Hawkhope Burns are many remains of an ancient
+pre-historic forest, the largest being near the Whickhope Burn where the
+abnormally thick stems of trees may be seen.
+
+The little village of Falstone is set amongst trees, in the midst of
+pleasant meadows, a welcome relief from the bare fells and moorlands
+around it; yet this wild scenery has a distinct fascination of its own,
+and adds not a little to the charm of the varied landscape within the
+bounds of our northern county. At Falstone a fragment of an ancient
+cross was discovered, with an inscription carved upon it--in Roman
+letters on one side and in the Runes of the Anglo-Saxons on the other.
+The inscription states that a certain Eamer set up the cross in memory
+of his uncle Hroethbert, and asks for prayers for his soul. The
+existence of a similarly inscribed cross is not known, so that the
+Society of Antiquaries, in whose keeping this cross rests, has in it
+probably a unique treasure.
+
+The Tarset Burn, upon which stands the village of Thorneyburn, runs into
+the Tyne not far from Falstone, and reminds us of the old Border-riding
+days, when the rallying-cry of the men of the district in many a feud
+with neighbouring clans was--"Tarset and Tarret Burn, Hard and
+heather-bred, yet-yet-yet." Near the spot where the Tarset Burn joins the
+Tyne is a grassy hill on which once stood Tarset Castle, a stronghold of
+that Red Comyn whom Bruce slew in the little chapel at Dumfries, and of
+whose death Bruce's friend Kirkpatrick said he would "mak' siccar"!
+
+The village of Charlton, on the north bank of the Tyne, and the mansion
+of Hesleyside on the other, carry the mind back to the old reiving
+plundering days, for it was at Hesleyside that the incident of the
+ancient spur of the Charlton's took place, doubtless many a time and
+oft, when the good lady of Hesleyside served up the spur at dinner as a
+gentle hint that the larder was empty, and it behoved her lord to mount
+and away to replenish the same, preferably with stock from the Scottish
+side of the border, or if not, a neighbour's cattle would serve equally
+well.
+
+The Charltons, Robsons (possibly the lineal descendants of "Hroethbert"
+of the ancient cross) and Armstrongs, held almost undisputed sway over
+this region, and the district teems with reminders of their prowess and
+traditions of their exploits. The men of Tynedale (the North Tyne) and
+Redesdale were known as the fiercest and most lawless in all that wild
+district. Redesdale is a district of monotonous, almost dreary,
+moorlands, and wild, bare fells, where sheep graze on what scanty
+provender the bleak hills afford, finding better fare, however, in the
+valleys near the river banks, where the pasture is fresh and green.
+
+Bellingham is to-day the most considerable village of the neighbourhood;
+it stands conveniently at the foot of the hills where the little Belling
+Burn, or Hareshaw Burn, joins the main stream. In Hareshaw woods is the
+beautiful Hareshaw Linn, where the stream falls down through a break in
+the sandstone cliffs, and forms a picturesque waterfall, fringed with
+ferns and trees and cool mosses. It well repays one for the walk of a
+mile or so through tangled underwoods by the side of the burn.
+Bellingham gives its mime to the family of de Bellingham, whose chief
+seat, however, is now in Ireland and no longer in the little
+north-country town.
+
+The massive church here, with its roof of stone, bears eloquent
+testimony to the need for fireproof buildings in a village so near to
+Scotland in the days of Border warfare. Outside the churchyard wall is
+the well of St. Cuthbert, or "Cuddy's Well," which was greatly venerated
+in early days, and many stories are told of the miraculous power of its
+waters. Inside the churchyard a grave is pointed out as the burial place
+of the robber whose tragic end was told by James Hogg in his gruesome
+story of "The Long Pack."
+
+The village itself is plain and bare, as might be expected from a
+settlement which would probably find that unattractiveness in either
+wealth or appearance was a tolerable safeguard.
+
+Below Bellingham the North Tyne is joined by its longest and most noted
+tributary, the Rede Water, which also rises in the Cheviots. Rising in
+the hills north of Carter Fell, it flows south-east, through a wild
+region, passing, while still high up amongst the hills, the little
+village of Byrness, and the new reservoir at Catcleugh, where a supply
+of pure water is stored for the use of the dwellers in distant
+Newcastle. On its way to the Tyne, it passes many an old pele-tower, and
+the Roman stations of Bremenium (Rochester) and Habitancum, near
+Woodburn. The ancient Roman road of Watling Street crosses the Rede at
+Woodburn, leading from Habitancum to Bremenium.
+
+Many mountain streams, clear and sparkling, or peaty and brown, join the
+Rede Water on its way, amongst others the little Otter Burn, by whose
+banks took place that stirring episode in the constant quarrels between
+the Douglases and Percies known as "Chevy Chase," from which the fierce
+battle-cries ring down the five centuries that have passed since that
+time, with sounds that echo still.
+
+The pretty village of Redesmouth (or Reedsmouth) stands where the Rede
+Water enters the North Tyne, and a few miles further on the rapid little
+Houxty Burn pours its peaty waters into the main stream.
+
+On the right bank of the Tyne stands Wark, conveniently placed at one of
+the most important fords of the Tyne in former days. Like other towns
+and villages so placed on different streams throughout the country, the
+advantages of its situation have evidently been appreciated by the
+successive inhabitants of the land, for there are traces of its
+occupation by Celt, Roman, and Saxon; and, later, the town was the most
+considerable in Upper Tynedale. During the time that this part of
+England was ceded to the Scottish Kings, David and Alexander, it was at
+Wark that the Scottish law courts for Tynedale held their sittings. The
+mound called the Mote Hill, near the river, marks the spot where, in all
+probability, the ancient Celtic inhabitants met together to administer
+the rude justice of prehistoric times, and to make the laws of their
+little settlement, which grew to much greater proportions in later
+years. In fact, it is supposed that the Kirkfield marks the site of a
+church which stood in the midst of the once extensive town.
+
+A little way up the Wark Burn, above the bridge, there may be seen some
+upright stems of Sigillaria in the exposed face of the cliffs. On the
+opposite side of the river from Wark is Chipchase Castle, one of the
+finest mansions in Northumberland, standing in the midst of the
+beautifully wooded and picturesque scenery which, from this point
+onwards is characteristic of the North Tyne. Of the former village of
+Chipchase scarcely a trace remains, though its name, if nothing else,
+shows that here has been a village or small town, important enough to
+have its well-known, market; for "Chip," like the various "Chippings"
+throughout England is derived from the Anglo-Saxon _ciepan_--to buy and
+sell, to traffic. In the reign of Henry II., Chipchase was the property
+of the Umfravilles of Prudhoe; but later it passed into the hands of the
+well-known Northumbrian family of Heron.
+
+Not far from Chipchase Castle are the famous Gunnerton Crags, formed by
+an out-crop of the Great Whin Sill. These lofty cliffs have been the
+site of a considerable settlement of the ancient British tribes who
+dwelt in the district in such numbers, as is evident from the scores of
+camps, which may be traced all over this part of Northumberland. The
+naturally strong position on the Gunnerton Crags, would be certain to
+commend itself to a people, the first requisite of whose dwelling places
+was strength and consequent safety.
+
+At Barrasford the making of the railway cutting led to the opening up of
+a large barrow, or burial place, of the ancient Britons; and a single
+"menhir," supposed to be the solitary survivor of a large group of these
+huge stones, stood near the village school some years ago.
+
+Passing Chollerton and Humshaugh, embowered amongst spreading trees, we
+arrive at Chollerford, the prettiest village of North Tyne, lying near
+the river where it was crossed by the Roman Wall. From the bridge which
+spans the Tyne at Chollerford one of the finest views of the river, both
+up and down the stream, is to be seen; and to watch the swift brown
+stream, after a flood or a freshet, foaming through the arches is an
+exhilarating sight. The bridge itself is a modern one, for we know that
+all the bridges on the Tyne, except that of Corbridge, were swept away
+by the great flood of 1771.
+
+In 1394, that prince of bridge-builders, Bishop Walter de Skirlaw of
+Durham, granted thirteen days' indulgence to all who should assist in
+rebuilding the bridge at Chollerford; so that already there was one here
+which had evidently fallen into disrepair. Yet, in the ballad of "Jock
+o' the Side," the rescuers, with Jock in their midst, reach Chollerford,
+and, after some anxious questioning of an old man as to whether the
+"water will ride," are compelled to swim the Tyne in flood, which their
+pursuers, coming up, will not attempt to do. Now Bishop Skirlaw's
+bridges did not usually disappear; those of Yarm, Shincliffe, and
+Auckland have stood until to-day, with occasional repairs. Are we then
+reluctantly to question the truth of "Jock o' the Side"? Surely, if the
+choice remain of the accuracy of the ballad or the fact of the bridge,
+it is the duty of all leal North-country people to swear by the ballad.
+Perhaps the good Bishop did not personally oversee the rebuilding of
+Chollerford Bridge: more probably the Wear and Tees do not come down
+with the angry impetuosity of the Tyne in flood!
+
+The remains of the great Roman camp of Cilurnum (The Chesters) may be
+seen here within Mrs. Clayton's park. This was the largest military
+station in Northumberland, Corstopitum, which is very much larger, being
+more of a civil settlement. At some little distance below the present
+bridge some of the piers of the old Roman bridge are still to be seen
+when the river is low.
+
+Eastward from Chollerford is the little church of St. Oswald, standing
+where the battle of Heavenfield took place. When Penda of Mercia, and
+the British Prince Cadwallon, were warring against Northumbria, the
+greatest Northumbrian King, Edwin, was defeated and slain by them; and
+on their return to the attack, Ethelfrith's eldest son, called back from
+exile to take the vacant throne, and rule in his father's seat of
+Bamburgh, also fell before their fierce onslaught. His brother Oswald
+now took command of the Bernicians and prepared to lead them against the
+foe. Oswald posted his men in a strong position on the north side of the
+great Wall; and, setting up a huge cross of wood, called upon all his
+followers to bow before the God of whom he had learnt during his exile
+in Iona, and to pray to Him for victory. His army obeyed, and, in the
+battle which followed, Oswald's forces were completely victorious. The
+Mercians, and their allies, the western Britons, were routed, and driven
+out of Bernicia, and Cadwallon was pursued as far as the Denise Burn,
+and there slain. The Denise Burn is supposed to have been the Rowley
+Burn, which flows into the Devil's Water, on whose banks stands Dilsten
+Castle. Some time later, on the spot where Oswald's Cross had stood, a
+church was erected and dedicated to the royal Saint. It was served from
+Hexham Abbey.
+
+After passing Wall, which, however, is not quite so near the Roman Wall
+as Chollerford is, we come to the pretty village of Warden, nestling
+beneath the woods of Warden Hill; and here, just above Hexham, the North
+Tyne unites with its sister river in the rich meadow lands which lie
+near the old town.
+
+The South Tyne has journeyed from Cross Fell, where it takes its rise,
+northward through a corner of Cumberland, past Garrygill and Alston,
+until it enters Northumberland where the Ayle Burn on the one hand, and
+the Gilderdale Burn on the other, flow into it. Here is Whitley Castle,
+where was a small Roman station called Alio, and Kirkhaugh Church,
+charmingly placed on the bank of the river, which continues its course
+northward past Slaggyford, Knaresdale, Eals, and Lambley, till it flows
+past the fine Castle of Featherstone, and the ruins of Bellister, where
+it turns eastward to Haltwhistle.
+
+The little streams which enter the South Tyne up to this point flow
+through wild and romantic glens, two of them owning the Celtic names of
+_Glen Cune_ and _Glen Dhu_.
+
+The family of Featherstonehaugh is one of the oldest in the North; and
+it was concerning the death of one of this family--Sir Albany
+Featherstonehaugh, who was High Sheriff of Northumberland in the days of
+Henry VIII.--that Mr. Surtees, the antiquary, wrote the well-known
+ballad, which, when Surtees gave it him, deceived even Sir Walter Scott
+into thinking it genuinely ancient. The first verse of the ballad shows
+with what a verve and swing the lines go.
+
+  "Hoot awa', lads, hoot awa'
+  Ha' ye heard how the Ridleys, an' Thirlwalls, an' a'
+  Ha' set upon Albany Featherstonehaugh;
+  And taken his life at the Deadmanshaw?
+  There was Willimoteswick,
+  And Hard-riding Dick,
+  An' Hughie o' Hawdon, an' Will o' the Wa'
+  I canno' tell a', I canno' tell a'
+  And mony a mair that the de'il may knaw."
+
+The ruins of Bellister Castle stand against a sombre background of
+woods, only a little way from Haltwhistle. The Castle once belonged to
+the Blenkinsopp family, who also owned Blenkinsopp Castle, about two
+miles away. The name was formerly spelt Blencan's-hope--the hope being
+valley or hollow--and the Castle, like many other places, has its
+legendary "White Lady."
+
+Haltwhistle is a little straggling town lying on both sides of the main
+road above the South Tyne, where it is joined by the Haltwhistle Burn.
+By going up the valley of this pretty little stream we shall arrive near
+the Roman station of AEsica, on the Wall. The town of Haltwhistle is
+peaceful enough now, but it had a stirring existence in the days when
+Ridleys, Armstrongs, and Charltons, to say nothing of the men of
+Liddesdale and Teviotdale, had so strong a partiality for a neighbour's
+live-stock and so ready a hand with arrow and spear. In the old ballad
+of "The Fray of Hautwessel," we are told that
+
+  "The limmer thieves o' Liddesdale
+  Wadna leave a kye in the haill countrie,
+  But an[3] we gi'e them the cauld steel,
+  Our gear they'll reive it a' awaye,
+  Sae pert they stealis, I you saye.
+  O' late they came to Hautwessel,
+  And thowt they there wad drive a fray.
+  But Alec Ridley shot too well."
+  [Footnote 3: But an = unless.]
+
+The most notable feature of present-day Haltwhistle is the finely placed
+parish church, of which the chancel is the oldest part, having been
+built in the twelfth century, so that it was already an old church when
+Edward I. rested here for a night in 1306, on his way to Scotland for
+the last time. When William the Lion of Scotland returned from his
+captivity, after being taken prisoner at Alnwick in 1174, he founded the
+monastery of Arbroath in thanksgiving for his freedom, and bestowed on
+the monks the church of Haltwhistle.
+
+All that remains of the old Castle, or "Haut-wysill Tower," is the
+building standing near the Castle Hill, which latter has been fortified
+by earthworks. The Red Lion Hotel is a modernised pele-tower. The
+general aspect of the place is singularly bare and bleak; but from
+several points in the town, notably from the churchyard terrace, fine
+views of the river valley may be obtained.
+
+Henshaw (Hethinga's-haugh) is a little village which King David of
+Scotland, when he was Lord of Tynedale, gave to Richard Cumin and his
+wife, who afterwards bestowed it on the Cathedral of Durham. It lies by
+the side of the main road to Bardon Mill, which is the most convenient
+station for travellers to alight at who wish to visit the Roman Wall and
+the Roman city of Borcovicus, and the Northumberland lakes. Some little
+distance up the hill from Bardon Mill station is a very pretty little
+village whose name speaks eloquently of other invaders than the
+Romans--the village of Thorngrafton (the "ton" or settlement on Thor's
+"graf" or dyke). Near at hand there are quarries from which the Romans
+obtained much building material for the Wall; and in one of these old
+quarries some workmen discovered a bronze vessel full of Roman coins, a
+few of gold, but most of silver. This was known as the "Thorngrafton
+Find," and the interesting story of it is told by Dr. Bruce.
+
+On the opposite side of the South Tyne from Henshaw, Willimoteswick
+Castle stands on the level plains which are as characteristic of the
+south bank of the river as are the steep slopes of the north bank. One
+of the towers of this old Castle yet remains, and forms part of the more
+modern farm-house which stands there. Willimoteswick was long in the
+possession of the Ridleys, and it is generally accepted as having been
+the birthplace of Bishop Ridley, though Unthank Hall, nearer to
+Haltwhistle, and also a home of that family, disputes the honour. The
+Bishop, who suffered death at the stake in the troublous times of Queen
+Mary, in touching letters bids farewell to his Cousin at Willimoteswick
+and his sister and her children at Unthank.
+
+On the same side of the Tyne is Beltingham Church, with some wonderful
+old trees in the churchyard, and Ridley Hall, which takes its name from
+that family, although not now occupied by them. Here the Allen flows
+into the South Tyne, and nowhere in the whole of the county is there a
+more beautiful and romantic scene. By the side of the stream the Ridley
+woods stretch for a mile or two, and the delightful mingling of graceful
+ferns, overhanging trees, tall, rugged cliffs, flowering plants, and
+sparkling waters forms a succession of lovely scenes throughout their
+length, which, with the play of lights and shadows on the dimpled
+surface of the stream, and frequent glimpses of grassy glades and cool
+green alleys, make a walk through these enchanting woods an
+unforgettable delight.
+
+The Allen Burn, which gives its name to the beautiful district of
+Allendale, is, like the Tyne, formed by the junction of two streams, the
+East and West Allen, which rise near each other in hills on the border
+of Northumberland and Durham, down the opposite slopes of which run the
+little streams which feed the Wear. After flowing apart for some miles,
+the East and West Allen unite not far from Staward railway station. Both
+rivers flow, for the first part of their course, through a wild and
+hilly region, rich, however, in minerals. On the East Allen are the
+towns of Allenheads, formerly a busy centre of the lead-mining industry,
+and Allendale Town, which lies about 1,400 feet above the sea-level.
+
+As the lead-mining industry has decreased, Allendale has turned its
+attention to other methods of living, and now caters for the army of
+visitors who, each summer, climb its hills and wander through its woods
+and lanes, and by its riverside, as did the Allendale maid whose memory
+is perpetuated in the simple lines of the little poem, "Lucy Gray of
+Allendale."
+
+  "Say, have you seen the blushing rose,
+  The blooming pink, or lily pale?
+  Fairer than any flower that blows
+  Was Lucy Gray of Allendale.
+
+  Pensive at eve, down by the burn,
+  Where oft the maid they used to hail,
+  The shepherds now are heard to mourn
+  For Lucy Gray of Allendale."
+
+Not far from the village of Catton, the name of "Rebel Hill" reminds us
+that it was a vicar of Allendale, Mr. Patten, who joined young
+Derwentwater in the rising of "The Fifteen," and was appointed chaplain
+of the little army. He met some half-dozen men of the neighbourhood at
+this hill, when they set off together to join the rest of the forces at
+Wooler.
+
+On the West Allen is the lonely little hamlet of Ninebanks, with
+Ninebanks Tower, concerning which little is known with certainty; and on
+this stream also are two of the most strikingly beautiful places in
+Northumberland--the delightfully picturesque village of Whitfield, and
+the well-known Staward-le-Peel.
+
+The ruins of the "Pele" tower stand on a high grassy platform,
+safeguarded on three sides by tall cliffs and tumbled boulders; the
+remains of a ditch may also be traced. From this point a splendid view
+of the river valley, with its steep precipices, overhanging pinewoods
+intermingled with trees of less sombre hue, and the bright course of the
+river, may be obtained. At a point a little higher up the valley, where
+the waters of the stream are held back by some huge rocks, they form a
+deep pool, and then flow onwards through a narrow gorge called Cyper's
+Linn. Following the stream now until it has merged its waters in those
+of the South Tyne, we turn eastward with the main stream and come to
+Haydon Bridge.
+
+This considerable village, gradually growing to the proportions of a
+small town, lies on both sides of the river, which is here crossed by
+the substantial bridge from which the village takes its name; for the
+original village of Haydon stood at some distance up the hill on the
+north side of the stream. On the hillside may still be seen the ruins of
+the old church, in which services are occasionally held in the summer
+time. The chancel, apparently dating from the twelfth century, and a
+later little chapel to the south of it, are all that are left of the
+building. Some very quaint inscriptions are to be seen in the
+churchyard, and there are many sculptured grave-covers within the
+church. Many of the stones used in the building have evidently been
+brought from the great Wall, or probably from the Roman station of
+Borcovicus, some six or seven miles to the north; and what a rush of
+bewildering fancies crowds upon one's mind on first discovering that the
+font was originally a Roman altar!
+
+The old church must have looked down on many a wild and curious scene in
+the days when Scot and Englishman sought only opportunities to do each
+other an injury, and the river-valleys were the natural passes through
+which the tide of invasion, raid, and reprisal flowed.
+
+In the beginning of the reign of Edward III., about 24,000 Scots, under
+Douglas and Murray, crossed the Tyne near Haydon Bridge, and rode on to
+plunder the richer lands that lay to the south and west. They reached
+Stanhope and encamped there for a time. The young king set out
+northwards with a great army to punish these marauders, and he was told
+by his scouts that they had hastily left Stanhope on his approach. He
+and his army pushed on quickly until they reached Bardon Mill; and,
+crossing the Tyne, marched down to Haydon Bridge, expecting the Scots to
+return by the way they went. It was miserable weather, and the feeding
+of so many thousands of men was no little problem. They scoured all the
+country round for provisions, getting the most from the Hexham Abbey
+lands. Meanwhile it rained and rained, and no Scots appeared. After a
+week of waiting, Edward, in great disappointment, went to Haltwhistle,
+while his followers reconnoitered in all directions. Finally, he had the
+mortification of learning that the Scots were still at Stanhope, but
+before anything more could be done, they betook themselves back to
+Scotland by a different route, and there was nothing left for Edward but
+to give up the expedition in despair.
+
+The bridge at Haydon appears to have been the only one for some distance
+up and down the river in the sixteenth century, for we read of its being
+barred and chained, on various occasions of marauding troubles in
+Tynedale, to prevent the free-booters re-crossing the river.
+
+In the days of Charles I. Colonel Lilburn marched to Haydon Bridge in
+command of some troops of the Roundheads, on his way to join their
+comrades at Hexham as a counter-move to the operations of the Royalist
+troops in the North. Little more than thirty years after this, when the
+days of Cromwell's power had come and gone, and Charles II. ruled at
+Whitehall, the old Grammar School was founded at Haydon Bridge in 1685
+by a clergyman, the Rev. John Shafto. Various changes have taken place
+in the school from time to time, necessitated by the gradual changes and
+educational needs of the passing years; and now, like the Grammar School
+of Queen Elizabeth at Hexham, it has been entirely re-constituted to
+meet modern requirements. John Martin, the famous painter of "The Plains
+of Heaven," received the beginnings of his education at this school. He
+was born at East Land Ends farm in 1789. In after years the authorities
+of Haydon Bridge Reading Room, wishing no doubt to afford a perfect
+example to future generations of the truth of the proverb concerning a
+prophet and his own country, refused some of Martin's pictures, which
+the gifted painter himself offered to them--an act which their
+successors have doubtless regretted.
+
+At a little distance along the Langley Road, which leads past the
+school, a memorial cross is standing. It was erected in 1883 by the late
+Mr. C.J. Bates, the historian of Northumberland, to the memory of the
+last of the Derwentwater family, whose castle of Langley he purchased.
+The inscription on the cross reads:--"To the memory of James and
+Charles, Viscounts Langley, Earls of Derwentwater, beheaded on Tower
+Hill, London, 24th February, 1716, and 8th December, 1746, for loyalty
+to their lawful sovereign."
+
+A striking testimony, this, to the fact that freedom in England is a
+reality, and not merely a name. In what other land would an inscription
+such as this have been allowed to remain for more than twenty-four
+hours?
+
+A couple of miles or more down the South Tyne is Fourstones, so called
+because of four stones, said to have been Roman altars, having been used
+to mark its boundaries. A romantic use was made of one of these stones
+in the early days of "The Fifteen." Every evening, as dusk fell, a
+little figure, clad in green, stole up to the ancient altar, which had
+been slightly hollowed out, and, taking out a packet, laid another in
+its place. The mysterious packets, placed there so secretly, were
+letters from the Jacobites of the neighbourhood to each other; and the
+little figure in green was a boy who acted as messenger for them. No
+wonder that the people of the district gave this altar the name of the
+"Fairy Stone."
+
+Between Haydon Bridge and Fourstones are both freestone and limestone
+quarries, which latter have supplied many fossils to visitors of
+geological tastes. Halfway between Fourstones and Hexham, the two
+streams of North and South Tyne unite, and flow together down to the old
+town of Hexham, with its quaintly irregular buildings clustering in
+picturesque confusion round its ancient Abbey, which dominates the
+landscape from whatever point we approach.
+
+Warden Village, already mentioned, lies in the angle formed by the
+meeting of the two streams, and has an ancient church which, however,
+has been largely rebuilt. From High Warden, near at hand, a delightful
+view may be obtained for a long distance up the valleys of North and
+South Tyne. On the summit of this hill there are the remains of a
+considerable British camp, showing that they had seized upon this point
+of vantage, and though the ancient British name has not come down to us,
+it is evident from the Saxon name of Warden (_weardian_) that Saxons as
+well as Britons were fully alive to the merits of the situation,
+"guarding" the valley at such a commanding point.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+DOWN THE TYNE.
+
+
+The town of Hexham, standing on hilly ground overlooking the Tyne,
+immediately below the point at which the North and South Tyne unite, and
+spreading from thence down to the levels all round, is one of the most
+ancient in the kingdom. To write of Hexham with any measure of fulness
+would require much more space than can be given to it within the limits
+of a small book; only a mere summary can be offered here. Britons,
+Romans, and Saxons, in turn, have dwelt on and around the hill which, in
+Saxon days, was to be crowned with Wilfrid's beautiful Abbey, which, we
+read, surpassed all others in England at that time for beauty and
+excellence of design and workmanship; nor was there another to equal it
+anywhere on this side of the Alps.
+
+The name of Hexham is generally understood to be derived from the names
+of two little streams, the Hextol and the Halgut, now the Cowgarth and
+the Cockshaw Burns, which here flow into the Tyne; or, as Mr. Bates
+suggests, it may have been the "ham" of "some forgotten Hagustald,"
+which the name perpetuates. In any case its name was Hagustaldesham when
+King Ecgfrith (or Egfrid) of Northumbria gave it to his queen,
+Etheldreda, who wished to take the veil. Queen Etheldreda, however,
+preferred to go to East Anglia, which was her home; she retired to a
+convent at Ely, and bestowed the land at Hagustaldesham on Wilfrid, a
+monk of Lindisfarne, clever, ambitious and hardworking, who had become
+Bishop of York, which meant Bishop of all Northumbria.
+
+Wilfrid had been to Rome, and seen the churches of that city and of the
+lands through which he travelled; and, on his appointment to power, he
+set himself to make the churches of his diocese worthy to compare with
+those of older civilizations. He did much to the cathedral of York, and
+built that of Ripon; but the Abbey of Hexham was his masterpiece. He
+built a monastery and church, dedicating the latter to St. Andrew, for
+it was in the church of St. Andrew at Rome that, kneeling, he felt
+himself fired with enthusiasm for his work, in the same church from
+which Augustine had set out on his journey to Britain some fifty years
+before. The year 674 is generally accepted as the date on which this
+noble Abbey was founded.
+
+Wilfrid lived in great splendour at York, and ruled his immense diocese
+with a firm hand; in fact, he was the first of that line of great
+ecclesiastics who have moved with such proud, and oft-times turbulent,
+progress through the pages of English history. King Ecgfrith's second
+wife, Ermenburga, was jealous of the great power and magnificence of the
+Northumbrian prelate, and through her influence, Archbishop Theodore was
+induced to divide the huge diocese of Northumbria into four
+portions--York, Hexham, Ripon and Withern in Galloway. Wilfrid,
+naturally indignant, found all his protests disregarded, and immediately
+set out for Rome, to obtain a decree of restitution from the Pope. It
+was given to him, but little cared the Northumbrians for that. Wilfrid
+was imprisoned for nine months, and then banished from Northumbria.
+
+He went southwards and dwelt in Sussex, where his genius for hard work
+found scope in a mission to the Saxons of the south lands, and where he
+built and founded more churches and monasteries. Readers of "Rewards
+and Fairies" will have made acquaintance with Wilfrid in his Sussex
+wanderings and hardships. On his recall to the North by King Aldfrith,
+he returned to Hexham. On the death of Aldfrith, the new King, Edwulf,
+banished Wilfrid once more, ordering him to leave the kingdom within six
+days; but the friends of Aldfrith's young son, whom Edwulf had
+dispossessed, obtained the ascendancy, and Wilfrid was re-instated in
+his Abbeys of Hexham and Ripon.
+
+While on his way back from Rome, on his last visit, Wilfrid had a severe
+illness, but was granted a vision in which he was told that he had four
+years more to live, and that he must build a church to the honour of the
+Blessed Virgin. The little church of St. Mary, which stood close to the
+walls of the great Abbey of Hexham, was erected in fulfilment of this
+command.
+
+In the Abbey church itself, all that was known for centuries of the
+original work of Wilfrid was the famous crypt, which is almost unique,
+that of Ripon, also the work of Wilfrid, being the only one like it; but
+recent excavations have brought much more of the ancient cathedral to
+light, and laid bare, not only its original plan, but some of the walls,
+and part of the very pavement trodden by the feet of Wilfrid and his
+fellows so many centuries ago. The tomb of Wilfrid, however, is not at
+Hexham, but at his other foundation of Ripon.
+
+The ancient Abbey suffered much at the hands of the Danes, and in later
+years from the ravages of the Scots, having been burnt several times,
+notably in 1296, when 40,000 Scots ravaged the North of England,
+plundering, burning, and laying waste wherever they went, exactly as the
+Danes had done four hundred years before. Some of the stones of the old
+Abbey yet bear traces of the fires by which the ancient building was so
+often nearly destroyed, and in these frequent conflagrations all
+records, charters, etc., of the Abbey, from which might have been
+compiled a complete history, not only of the Abbey but of much of the
+provincial and national history of the times, were lost.
+
+The Abbey was restored and rebuilt again and again, but for varying
+reasons was without a nave for some hundreds of years. Within the last
+ten years, however, a complete restoration has been carried out, under
+the loving, and, what is more to the point, the capable superintendence
+of Canon Savage and his colleagues, in the spirit and manner, as nearly
+as possible, of the beautiful portions already standing; and several
+disfiguring so-called "restorations" of nineteenth century work, which
+could only detract from the beauty and dignity of the noble building,
+have been removed entirely. This work was completed in 1908, and all who
+have the honour of our famous county at heart must rejoice that its
+noblest church is at last more worthy of its own high rank and glorious
+past.
+
+Among the many deeply interesting objects to be seen in the Abbey is the
+stone Sanctuary seat--the Frid Stool, or seat of peace--at which
+fugitives, fleeing from their enemies, might find refuge. It is believed
+that this was the "Cathedra" of St. Wilfrid himself. The arms and back
+of the chair are ornamented with a twisted knot-work pattern. The right
+of Sanctuary extended for a mile round the Abbey, the boundaries being
+marked by crosses, one at each point of the compass at that distance.
+
+
+[Illustration: HEXHAM ABBEY FROM NORTH WEST]
+
+Other treasures of the Abbey are the beautiful Old Rood Screen, dating
+from the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century;
+some wonderful old paintings, especially the portraits of the early
+Bishops of Hexham, Alcmund, Wilfrid, Acca, Eata, Frithbert, Cuthbert,
+and John, which date from the fifteenth century; the mediaeval carved
+and painted pulpit, and the tomb of good King Alfwald of Northumbria.
+Many of the stones used by Wilfrid's builders were of Roman workmanship,
+and seem to have come from the Roman city of Corstopitum, at Corbridge.
+An inscription on one of these old stones in the crypt takes us back
+some centuries before even Wilfrid's time, for it commemorates the
+Emperor Severus and his two sons, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Caracalla)
+and Publius Septimius Geta, and has the name of the latter erased, as
+was done on all similar inscriptions throughout the Empire, by order of
+the inhuman Caracalla, after his murder of his brother.
+
+A very interesting feature of the building is the stone stairway in the
+South transept, by which the monks ascended to their dormitories above.
+
+Quite near to the Abbey, at the other side of the Market Place, the
+ancient Moot Hall claims attention. The modern visitor to the old town
+walks beneath the gloomy archway, with its time-worn stones, which forms
+the basement over which the Moot Hall stands. Another building, grim and
+dark, near at hand, is the Old Manor House, in which the business
+connected with the ancient Manor of Hexham was transacted.
+
+An old foundation in the town was the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School,
+which, after having fallen into desuetude for many years, has been
+revived in a form appropriate to modern needs, and housed in a worthy
+building, formally opened by Sir Francis Blake on November 2nd, 1910.
+The site on which the new Grammar School of Queen Elizabeth stands is
+one of the finest in the county, commanding, as it does, an
+uninterrupted view of the river valley for some distance, and of the
+rising ground beyond.
+
+At the beginning of last century, Hexham was famed for its
+glove-making: but that industry has forsaken the town for many years.
+Now, Hexham is surrounded by acres of market-gardens, from which the
+produce of Tynedale is carried far and wide.
+
+The spacious stretch of level meadow-land below Hexham, rising gradually
+up to the swelling ridges beyond, is said to have been the scene which
+John Martin had in mind when he painted the "Plains of Heaven"; though
+the level reaches above Newburn, unencumbered with buildings in John
+Martin's time, and then a scene of quiet pastoral beauty, also claim
+that honour.
+
+Flowing now between well ordered gardens, green meadows, and ferny
+banks, brawling musically over shingly shallows, or crooning gently
+between fringing woods, the Tyne rolls onward to Corbridge, receiving on
+its way the Devil's Water, a sparkling stream which flows through scenes
+of enchanting beauty, whether between rugged cliffs and heather clad
+hills as in its upper course, through the graceful overhanging trees and
+cool green recesses of Dipton woods or between rich meadows and green
+pasture-land where it loses itself in the bosom of the Tyne.
+
+There is no more delightful experience than to wander through the woods
+of Deepdene (Dipton) on a summer's day, when it requires no stretch of
+the imagination to believe oneself in an enchanted forest, or, on
+hearing a crackle of twigs, or faint sounds of the outside world
+filtering through the green solitudes, to turn round expecting to see a
+maiden on a "milk-white steed," or one of the Knights of the Round Table
+come riding by, in bravery of glistening armour and gay surtout, and to
+find oneself murmuring, "Now, Sir Gawain rode apace, and came unto a
+right fair wood, and findeth the stream of a spring that ran with a
+great rushing, and nigh thereunto was a way that was much haunted. He
+abandoneth his high-way, and goeth all along the stream from the spring
+that lasteth a long league plenary, until that he espieth a right fair
+house and right fair chapel enclosed within a hedge of wood."
+
+On the green meadows of Hexham Levels and near Dilston Castle--two spots
+of more than ordinary historical interest--the Lancastrian cause
+received, in 1464, a blow from which it never rallied, though the
+courageous Queen fought gallantly till the final disasters at Barnet and
+Tewkesbury. The general of her forces, the Duke of Somerset, was
+beheaded in Hexham market-place, and, together with several others of
+rank and station, buried at Hexham. The well-known incident of Queen
+Margaret's escape into Dipton, or Deepdene woods, where she and young
+Prince Edward met with robbers, and afterwards escaped by the aid of
+another member of that fraternity, took place a year before this, after
+the first battle of Hexham in 1463. The year had been one of constant
+warfare between York and Lancaster in the north, the Castles of Alnwick
+and Bamburgh having fallen into the hands of Queen Margaret's friends
+once more, after having been raptured by Edward of York the year before;
+the Scots with Margaret and King Henry VI., had besieged Norham, but
+were put to flight by the Earl of Warwick and hid brother, Lord
+Montague; the royal fugitives sought safety at Bamburgh, whence the
+Queen, with Prince Edward, sailed for Flanders, leaving King Henry in
+the Castle where he was in no immediate danger; Warwick, with his
+forces, retired southward again, and the gentle King remained in his
+rocky stronghold, and enjoyed there nine months of unwonted peace.
+Shortly after this, the Duke of Somerset deserted the cause of York for
+that of Lancaster, and became the leader of the Queen's forces. In
+April, 1464, he and Sir Ralph Percy opposed, at Hedgeley Moor, the
+troops of Lord Montague journeying northward to escort the Scottish
+delegates who were coming to York to make terms with Edward of York. Sir
+Ralph Percy was slain, exclaiming as he fell "I have saved the bird in
+my bosom"--that enigmatic sentence which has given rise to so much
+conjecture, but which is generally held to mean that he had saved his
+honour, by dying at last, after so many changes of front, in the service
+of that King and Queen to whom he originally owed allegiance. "Percy's
+Cross," marking the site of his death, may be seen by the side of the
+railway near Hedgeley Station, on the Alnwick and Wooler line.
+
+The rest of the force dispersed, and made their way to Hexham; and Lord
+Montague marching upon them from Newcastle, a sharp engagement took
+place on the Levels, near the Linnels Bridge, with the result, as we
+have seen, of the defeat and death of Somerset, and the overthrow of
+Queen Margaret's hopes in the north, where she had had a strong
+following.
+
+The historical interest centred on Dilston Castle brings us to much
+later times, and enshrines a story which possesses a pathetic interest
+beyond that of any other place in Northumberland. Originally the home of
+the family of D'Eivill, later Dyvelstone (which explains the name
+"Devil's Water") Dilston Castle came into the possession of the
+Radcliffes by marriage, and in the days of the Commonwealth the
+Radcliffe of the day forfeited his estates on account of his loyalty to
+the house of Stuart. Charles II. restored them, and the close attachment
+between the houses of Stuart and Radcliffe continued until the fortunes
+of both were quenched in disaster and gloom. The figure of the young
+and gallant James Radcliffe, last Earl of Derwentwater, holds the
+imagination no less than the heart as it moves across the page of
+history for a brief space to its tragic end. Though born in London, in
+June 1689, young Radcliffe passed his childhood and youth in France in
+the closest companionship with James Stuart, son of the exiled James II.
+At the age of twenty-one he returned to his home in Northumbria, and
+took up his residence there, his charming manners, kind heart, and
+openhanded hospitality speedily endearing him to all classes. His
+servants and tenants, in particular, were passionately devoted to him.
+In the words of the old ballad of "Derwentwater"--
+
+  "O, Derwentwater's a bonnie lord,
+  And golden is his hair,
+  And glintin' is his hawkin' e'e
+  Wi' kind love dwelling there."
+
+On his marriage in 1712, the young bride and bridegroom remained for two
+years at the home of the bride's father, and preparations were made for
+restoring the glories of Dilston on an extensive scale. On
+Derwentwater's return to his beautiful Northumbrian seat in 1714, the
+death of Queen Anne had excited the hopes of all the friends of the
+house of Stuart, and plots and secret meetings were being planned
+throughout Scotland and the north of England, the objective being the
+restoration of the exiled Stuarts to the throne. Derwentwater took
+little part in these attempts to organise rebellion for some time, but
+at length was drawn into the dangerous game, as he was too valuable an
+asset to be passed over by the Jacobite party.
+
+At last rumours of the projected rising reached London, and a warrant
+was issued for the arrest of Derwentwater, even before it was known
+whether he had actually joined the plotters, his well-known friendship
+with the exiled Prince making it almost certain that he would be an
+important figure in any movement on their behalf. For the next few weeks
+the young Earl found himself obliged to remain in hiding, finding safety
+in the cottages of his tenants, and in the houses of friends and
+neighbours. Finally, though his good sense warned him that he was
+embarking on an almost hopeless enterprise, he decided to throw in his
+lot with the Jacobites.
+
+Tradition has it that his decision was brought about by the taunts of
+his Countess, who, like the rest of the Jacobite ladies, was more
+enthusiastic than the men. Throwing down her fan, she scornfully offered
+that to her husband as a weapon, and demanded his sword in exchange. The
+immediate result was seen on that October morning when Derwentwater and
+his little band of followers rode over the bridge at Corbridge with
+drawn swords, on their way to Beaufront, which was their first
+rendezvous; and from there proceeded to Greenrigg, near the great Wall,
+which had been appointed as a general meeting-place.
+
+There they were joined by Mr. Forster, of Bamburgh, with his contingent,
+and a few from the surrounding district. Rothbury next saw the little
+army, which was joined on Felton Bridge by seventy Scots; and thereafter
+Warkworth, Alnwick, and Morpeth heard James Stuart proclaimed King under
+the title of James III.
+
+Newcastle was to have been their next objective, but, hearing that the
+city had closed its gates, and intended to hold out for King George, the
+Jacobite force, after some indecision, returned northward to Rothbury,
+where they were joined by a large company of Scottish Jacobites under
+Lord Kenmure. Northward again they marched to Kelso, where more than a
+thousand Scots joined forces with them.
+
+The little army numbered now almost 2,000, and a council was held to
+determine what their next step should be. On its being resolved to enter
+England, some hundreds of the Highlanders returned home, leaving an army
+of about 1,500 to march southwards to Lancashire. On their way they put
+to flight at Penrith a motley force which was raised to oppose them;
+and, elated with a first success, moved forward to Preston, grievously
+disappointed on the way at the failure of the people of Lancashire to
+rise with them, for they had been given to understand that thousands in
+that county were only awaiting an opportunity to declare for "King
+James."
+
+At Preston they barricaded the principal streets, and repulsed General
+Willis; but the arrival of General Carpenter from Newcastle changed the
+face of affairs. Young Derwentwater had fought valiantly and worked
+arduously at the barricades, but Forster--whose appointment as General
+had been made in the hope of attracting other Protestant gentry to the
+Jacobite cause--offered to submit to General Carpenter under certain
+conditions. Carpenter's reply was a demand for unconditional surrender,
+and the hopeless little tragi-comedy was played out. The last scene took
+place on Tower Hill three months later, when the gallant young Earl,
+then only twenty-six years old, laid down the life which, after all, had
+been spent in the service of others, with no selfish purpose in view,
+and which was offered him, together with wealth and freedom, if he would
+forsake his faith and throw aside his allegiance to the house of Stuart.
+Refusing to purchase life at such a price, he was condemned, and
+executed on Tower Hill on February 24th, 1716.
+
+His brother Charles, who had been by his side throughout the rising,
+had the good fortune to escape from Newgate Prison, and passed most of
+his life abroad. Thirty years later, on his return to take up arms on
+behalf of James' son Charles--"bonnie Prince Charlie"--when he also drew
+the sword in an attempt to regain the throne of his fathers, Radcliffe
+was captured and beheaded. (For account of a monument to the memory of
+these two brothers see in previous chapter paragraph relating to Haydon
+Bridge.)
+
+The story of General Forster's escape from Newgate is told by Sir Walter
+Besant, as all readers of his novel, "Dorothy Forster" know, though the
+author has taken those minor liberties with unimportant facts which are
+by common consent allowable in fiction.
+
+James Radcliffe's friends were allowed to have his body, though they
+were forbidden to carry it home for burial; for such were the love and
+esteem borne for the young Earl in the hearts of all his North-country
+friends and dependents, that the authorities feared a disturbance of the
+peace should his body be brought amongst them while their rage and grief
+were still at their height. Notwithstanding the prohibition, however,
+the body was brought secretly to Dilston, and buried in the vault of the
+chapel, which, with the ruined tower, are all that remain of the home of
+the Radcliffes. Standing amidst luxuriant foliage, and overlooking a
+romantic dell, the ruins of tower and chapel remain as they fell into
+decay on the death of their luckless owners. The confiscated estates
+were bestowed on Greenwich Hospital, whose agents administer them still,
+with the exception of certain portions purchased from time to time by
+various landowners. No other family took the place of the Radcliffes in
+the deserted halls; but tradition holds that the unfortunate Earl and
+his sorrowful lady still revisit their ancient home. The Earl's body is
+now at Thorndon, in Essex. Below is Surtees' beautiful ballad, "Lord
+Derwentwater's Farewell."
+
+
+
+
+  LORD DERWENTWATER'S FAREWELL
+
+  "Farewell to pleasant Dilston Hall,
+  My father's ancient seat;
+  A stranger now must call thee his,
+  Which gars my heart to greet.
+  Farewell each kindly well-known face
+  My heart has held so dear;
+  My tenants now must leave their lord
+  Or hold their lives in fear.
+
+  No more along the banks of Tyne
+  I'll rove in autumn grey;
+  No more I'll hear, at early dawn,
+  The lav'rocks wake the day;
+  Then fare thee well, brave Witherington,
+  And Forster ever true;
+  Dear Shaftsbury and Errington,
+  Receive my last adieu.
+
+  And fare thee well, George Collingwood,
+  Since fate has put us down;
+  If thou and I have lost our lives,
+  Our king has lost his crown.
+  Farewell, farewell, my lady dear,
+  Ill, ill thou counsell'dst me;
+  I never more may see the babe
+  That smiles upon thy knee.
+
+  And fare thee well, my bonny gray steed,
+  That carried me aye so free;
+  I wish I had been asleep in my bed
+  The last time I mounted thee;
+  The warning bell now bids me cease,
+  My trouble's nearly o'er;
+  Yon sun that rises from the sea
+  Shall rise on me no more.
+
+  Albeit that here in London Town
+  It is my fate to die;
+  O carry me to Northumberland,
+  In my father's grave to lie.
+  There chant my solemn requiem
+  In Hexham's holy towers;
+  And let six maids of fair Tynedale
+  Scatter my grave with flowers.
+
+  And when the head that wears the crown
+  Shall be laid low like mine;
+  Some honest hearts may then lament
+  For Radcliffe's fallen line.
+  Farewell to pleasant Dilston Hall,
+  My father's ancient seat;
+  A stranger now must call thee his,
+  Which gars my heart to greet."
+
+Near to Corbridge the waters of the Tyne lave the ancient piers of the
+old Roman bridge which led to Corstopitum, the most considerable of the
+Roman stations in this region. The recent careful excavations have laid
+bare the evidence of what must have been a most imposing city, and many
+treasures of pottery, coins and ancient jewellery and ornaments,
+together with large quantities of the bones of animals, some of them
+identical with the wild cattle of Chillingham, have been brought to
+light. The famous silver dish known as the Corbridge Lanx, which was
+found at the riverside by a little girl in 1734, had evidently been
+washed down from Corstopitum. It is now preserved at Alnwick Castle.
+The antiquity of Corbridge is thus superior to that of Hexham, as far as
+may be known; but on the other hand, while Hexham in Saxon times grew to
+power, Corbridge declined. Yet, in its time, it was more than the home
+of a famous Abbey; it was a royal city, albeit the date of its elevation
+to royal rank coincided with the decline of the kingdom of which it was
+the final capital. When the fierce and ruthless internal quarrels, which
+rent Northumbria after Edbert's glorious reign, had weakened it so that
+it fell a prey to the gradual encroachments of its northern neighbours,
+the once royal city of Bamburgh was left in the hands of a noble Saxon
+family, and the court was removed to Corbridge, which remained the abode
+of the kings of Northumbria until Northumbria possessed royal rank no
+longer. The tale of the two hundred years during which Corbridge was the
+capital city is a tale of red slaughter and ruin, murder and bitter
+feud, not against outside foes, but between one family and another,
+noble against king, king against relatives of other noble houses,
+amongst which might possibly be found the thegn to succeed him, or to
+murder him in order to bring about his own more speedy elevation to a
+precarious throne.
+
+So much was this the case, that Charles the Great, at whose court the
+learned Northumbrian, Alcuin, was secretary, said that the Northumbrians
+were worse than the invading heathen Danes, who, by this time, had begun
+their ravages in the land. Amongst the rulers of Northumbria in those
+days, the name of Alfwald the Just, who was called "the Friend of God,"
+shines out with enduring light across the stormy darkness of that
+terrible period; yet even his just and merciful rule and noble life
+could not save him from the hand of the assassin. He was buried with
+much mourning and great pomp in the Abbey at Hexham; and during the
+recent excavations the fact of a Saxon interment was verified as having
+taken place beneath the beautiful tomb which tradition has always held
+to be that of King Alfwald the Just. This fact also helped to
+demonstrate the extent of the original Abbey.
+
+There was a monastery at Corbridge in the year 771, which is supposed to
+have been founded by St. Wilfrid. Of the four churches which were
+erected in later times, only one survives--the parish church of St.
+Andrew, which occupies the site of the early monastery. In this ancient
+church may be seen part of the original Saxon work, and many stones of
+Roman workmanship are built up in the structure.
+
+Like most other old churches in the north, it suffered severely at the
+hands of the Scots, and, as at Hexham Abbey, traces of fire may be seen
+on some of the stones.
+
+King David of Scotland, on his invasion of England in 1138, which was to
+end at the "Battle of the Standard," at Northallerton, encamped at
+Corbridge for a time, and terrible cruelties were committed in the
+district by his followers. In the next century, King John turned the
+little town upside down in his efforts to find treasure which he was
+convinced must be concealed somewhere in the houses; but his search was
+fruitless. In the days of the three Edwards, during the long wars with
+Scotland, Corbridge suffered terribly, being fired again and again; on
+one occasion, in 1296, the destruction included the burning of the
+school with some two hundred hapless boys within its walls.[4] [Footnote
+4: _See_ Bates, p. 149.]
+
+Those heroes of our childhood's days, William Wallace and Robert Bruce,
+were far from guiltless in these cruelties, though in justice to them
+personally, the wild and lawless character of the men who formed their
+undisciplined hosts must be remembered; and we know that Wallace tried
+to save the holy vessels in Hexham Abbey, but, as soon as his back was
+turned, they were swept away in the very presence of the officiating
+priest.
+
+During these terrible years most of Northumberland was a desolate waste;
+and divine service had almost ceased to be performed between Newcastle
+and Carlisle, even Hexham being deserted for a time. After the battle of
+Bannockburn, matters were worse, if possible, and all the north lay in
+fear of the Scots, but from time to time spasmodic efforts at
+retaliation were made by the boldest of the Northumbrian landowners. In
+the reign of Edward III., however, many of these great landowners
+thwarted the King's designs by making a traitorous peace with their
+turbulent neighbours.
+
+David II. of Scotland encamped at Corbridge for a time during his second
+attempt to invade England but this expedition ended in his defeat and
+capture at Neville's Cross. Thereafter the north had rest for some
+years, and Corbridge seems to have been left in peace. The Wars of the
+Roses passed it by; and the Civil Wars in Stuart days also, except for
+an unimportant skirmish; and the only part Corbridge saw of the Jacobite
+rising of "The Fifteen" was the little cavalcade from Dilston which
+clattered over the old bridge on its way to Beaufront. That bridge is
+the same which we cross to-day; the date of its erection, 1674, may be
+seen on one of its stones, and it was the only one on the Tyne which
+withstood the great flood of 1771, when even the old Tyne Bridge at
+Newcastle was swept away.
+
+Quite close to the church there is an old pele-tower, which is in an
+excellent state of preservation, little of it having disappeared except
+the various floors. The vicars of Corbridge must have been often
+thankful for such a refuge at hand, where they could bid defiance to
+marauding bands, whether of Scottish or English nationality. In the
+Register of the parish church may be seen a most interesting entry,
+showing the Earl of Derwentwater's signature as churchwarden.
+
+At a little distance from Corbridge, to the northward, is the fortified
+manor-house of Aydon Castle, standing embowered in trees where the Cor
+burn runs through a little rocky ravine, down whose steep sides Sir
+Robert Clavering threw most of a marauding band of Scotsmen who had
+attacked the grange; the place known as "Jock's Leap" obtained its name
+from one of the Scots who escaped the fate of his comrades by his leap
+for life across the ravine. The Castle, or hall, as it is variously
+called, has not suffered such destruction as might have been expected,
+seeing that it dates from the thirteenth century; but the thickness of
+its walls, and the arrow-slits and narrow windows are obvious proof of
+the necessity for defence which existed when it was first erected in the
+days of Edward I. Many features of great interest, notably the ancient
+fireplaces, remain in the interior of the building.
+
+Returning down the Cor burn to the Tyne, our way lies eastward by the
+side of the river, which here, after splashing and sparkling over the
+shallows below Corbridge, narrows again to a deeper stream of swifter
+current, and flows between green meadows and leafy woods, fern-clad
+steeps and level haughs, all the way down to Ryton, where the
+picturesque aspect of the river ceases, and it becomes an industrial
+waterway. On this reach of the river are several places of considerable
+interest.
+
+Riding Mill, a pretty village in a well-wooded hollow, enclosed by steep
+hills which rise ever higher and higher to the moors by Minsteracres and
+Blanchland, stands where Watling Street, or Dere Street, leading down
+the long slope of the country from Whittonstall, on reaching the Tyne
+turned westward to Corstopitum. Further down the stream is Stocksfield,
+where the aged King Edward I. halted on his last journey into Scotland,
+on that expedition which was to have executed a summary vengeance upon
+the Scots; he journeyed forward by slow stages, but was taken ill at
+Newbrough, where he stayed for some time, before continuing his journey
+by Blenkinsopp, Thirlwall, and Lanercost to Carlisle.
+
+On the opposite side of the stream from Stocksfield is the lovely
+village of Bywell, a "haunt of ancient peace," "sleeping soft on the
+banks of the murmuring Tyne." This little peaceful spot was at one time
+a very busy centre of life and industry on a small scale; in the Middle
+Ages the inhabitants drove a thriving trade in all the necessities for a
+people who spent a great part of their lives upon horseback, especially
+in the making of the ironwork required--"bits, stirrups, buckles, and
+the like, wherein they are very expert and cunning." The Nevilles, lords
+of Raby and earls of Westmoreland, held Bywell at this time; before that
+it was in the hands of the Balliols, of Scottish fame, who, like the
+Bruces, were Norman knights high in favour with their kings, Norman and
+Plantagenet, though they afterwards became their most determined foes.
+
+Long before the advent of the Normans, a church was built here by St.
+Wilfrid, and in it--St. Andrew's or the "White" Church--Egbert, twelfth
+bishop of Lindisfarne, was consecrated by Archbishop Eanbald in the year
+803. More than a thousand years afterwards, in 1896, an Ordination
+service was again held at Bywell, in St. Peter's church, when five
+deacons were ordained by Bishop Jacob. And in times yet more remote
+than Wilfrid's age, Roman legionaries crossed the Tyne at this point
+over a bridge of their own construction, of which the piers might be
+seen until our own day. Bywell, too, had its "find" of Roman silver; in
+1760 a silver cup was found in the Tyne, bearing the inscription
+"Desidere vivas" around the neck of the vessel.
+
+When the Nevilles were lords of the manor of Bywell, they began to build
+a castle here, which, however, was left unfinished; the ancient tower
+still standing, with its picturesque draping of ivy, was the gate-house
+of the intended fortress. On the rebellion of the northern earls in
+1569, Westmoreland's forfeited lands passed to the crown, so that Bywell
+was held by Queen Elizabeth for a year or two, until she sold the estate
+to a branch of the Fenwick family.
+
+Bywell is unique in Northumberland in possessing two churches side by
+side yet in different parishes. The town of Bywell, we are told by the
+same authority before quoted, lay in a long line by the north bank of
+the Tyne, and was "divided into two separate parishes" even then, so
+that there ought to be traces of former buildings westward from the
+present village. In connection with the two churches which adjoin each
+other so closely, tradition tells the well-known story of the two
+quarrelsome sisters who could not agree on the building of a church and
+therefore each built one. One might have imagined, with some show of
+reason, that there being two parishes, the two churches were placed
+there in sheltering proximity to the castle, were it not for the fact
+that the churches were in existence long before the stronghold of the
+Nevilles was contemplated.
+
+St. Andrew's, called the "White" church from the fact of its being
+served in later days by the White friars, is the more ancient of the
+two. As we have seen, a church erected by St. Wilfrid stood on this
+site, and a goodly portion of the Saxon work remains in the tower. The
+hagioscope, or "squint" in this church, and the "leper" window in St.
+Peter's are interesting relics of the Middle Ages.
+
+St. Peter's, or the "Black" church which once belonged to the
+Benedictines or Black friars, is of much later date than its neighbour,
+though still an ancient building, being supposed to date from the
+eleventh century. Its most interesting possessions are two very old
+bells, bearing Latin inscriptions, one announcing "I proclaim the hour
+for people rising, and call to those still lying down," and the other
+reading "Thou art Peter."
+
+Bywell suffered greatly in the flood of 1771, when the bridge was swept
+away, many houses destroyed, several people drowned, and both churches
+greatly damaged.
+
+It is not surprising that this tranquil little village--"the retreat of
+the old doomed divinities of wood and fountain, banished from their
+native haunts," to quote Mr. Tomlinson's happy phrase--has always been
+beloved of artists, many of whom have transferred to their canvasses the
+beauties of its mingled scenery of graceful woods and sparkling waters,
+ancient fortress, peaceful meadows, and gray old towers. Many noteworthy
+and fine old trees are to be found in and around this artists' haunt.
+
+On the opposite side of the river, Bywell's younger sister, Stocksfield,
+grows apace, reaching out towards the lulls and along the eastward
+lanes, though not as yet in such measure as to cover the hillsides with
+any semblance of a town, being still almost hidden amongst the profusion
+of trees that clothe most of the district in their leafy greenery. On
+the north bank of the stream the village of Ovingham now rises into
+view, its name telling us plainly that there was a settlement here in
+Saxon times "the home of the sons of Offa"; and the slope above the
+river is fittingly crowned by the ancient church of St. Mary, whose
+tower, with its curiously irregular windows, is the work of the Saxon
+builders of the original church. The rest of the building, except some
+Saxon work at the west end of the nave, dates from early Norman days.
+Here is the burial place of the famous brothers John and Thomas Bewick,
+who were born at Cherryburn House, just across the river. In this
+delightful spot the boy Thomas Bewick grew up, absorbing unconsciously
+the natural beauties that are to be found here by the Tyne and in the
+little ravine through which the Cherry Burn flows, which beauties he so
+lovingly reproduced on his engraving blocks later in life.
+
+At the fords of Ovingham, Eltringham, and Bywell, the Scots under
+General Leslie crossed the Tyne in 1644, and made their way into Durham,
+leaving six regiments to watch Newcastle.
+
+The picturesque ruins of Prudhoe Castle, whose lofty towers dominate the
+valley for some distance up and down the stream, stand on a commanding
+rocky ridge above the Tyne. The lands of Prudhoe were given, soon after
+the Norman Conquest, to one of Duke William's immediate followers,
+Robert de Umfraville; and it was Odinel de Umfraville who built the
+present castle in the twelfth century. Its strength was soon put to the
+test, for a few years after it was built William the Lion of Scotland
+found that the place baffled all his attempts to capture it. In his
+anger he determined to reduce the fortress of Odinel, who had spent much
+time at the Scottish court in his youth, the Kings of Scotland being at
+that time lords of Tynedale. The attempt ended in total failure, the
+greatest harm the Scots did on that occasion being to destroy the
+cornfields and strip the bark from the apple trees near the Castle;
+while, a day or two afterwards, Odinel de Umfraville, with Glanvile and
+Balliol, captured the Scottish monarch himself at Alnwick.
+
+Another Umfraville, Richard, quarrelled with his neighbour of Nafferton,
+on the opposite side of the river, for having begun to erect a fortress
+much too near Umfraville's own. He sent a petition to the King on the
+subject and King John commanded Philip de Ulecote's building operations
+to cease. The unfinished castle, known as Nafferton Tower, remains to
+this day as Philip's masons left it so many centuries ago.
+
+Sir Ingram de Umfraville was by the side of Edward II. at Bannockburn,
+when, before the battle, Bruce ordered his men to kneel in prayer.
+Edward looked on the kneeling host, and turning to Umfraville, exclaimed
+"See! Yon men kneel to ask mercy." "You say truth, sire," answered the
+knight of Prudhoe; "they ask mercy--but not of you."
+
+The last Umfraville, who died in 1381, left a widow, the Countess Maud,
+who married a Percy of Alnwick, and so the castle passed into the hands
+of that family, in whose possession it still remains.
+
+When Odinel de Umfraville was building the keep of his castle, every one
+in the neighbourhood was pressed into the service, and all lent their
+aid except the men of Wylam. Wylam had been given to the church of St.
+Oswyn at Tynemouth, and, as was customary, was freed by charter from the
+duty of castle building, or any other feudal service excepting such as
+were rendered to the Prior of Tynemouth as occasion arose. So, in spite
+of the angry surprise of the lord of Prudhoe, the Wylam men quietly held
+to their charter, and not all Odinel's threats or persuasions moved them
+one whit.
+
+The Stanley Burn, which enters the Tyne close to Wylam railway station,
+divides this part of the county of Durham from Northumberland, so that
+from Wylam to the sea the south side of the Tyne is in the county of
+Durham. The most noteworthy object at Wylam, or, to be precise, a little
+way along the old post-road, leading to Newcastle from Hexham, is the
+red-tiled cottage in which George Stephenson was born in 1781. It stands
+on the north bank of the Tyne, where it can be distinctly seen from
+passing trains. Its neighbour cottage has been repaired and re-roofed,
+but Stephenson's cottage remains unaltered.
+
+Mr. Blackett, who owned Wylam Colliery at the beginning of the
+nineteenth century, took the keenest interest in the question of
+locomotives, and had tried more than one on his estate before George
+Stephenson brought them to the point of practical use. At Newburn, just
+four miles down the Tyne, George Stephenson passed many years of his
+youth; here he learned to read and write, when he was old enough to earn
+a man's wage and could afford the few pence necessary; and here, in the
+parish church, may be seen, with an interval of twenty years between
+them, the entries of his two marriages.
+
+Newburn is important nowadays for its steel works, within whose
+workshops is incorporated an old building formerly known as Newburn
+Hall; but in days long past its importance arose from its being on the
+ford of the Tyne nearest to Newcastle. This ford was frequently made use
+of, notably by the Scots in the reign of Charles I. Their chief camping
+ground is pointed out to us by the name of Scotswood, which also
+describes what Scotswood was like in those days--a great contrast to its
+present appearance, when the lines of brick and mortar stretching out
+uninterruptedly from Newcastle make it practically one with that town.
+In 1640, the Scottish army, under General Leslie, faced the Royalist
+troops, under Lord Conway, on the south side of the river. The Scots
+mounted their rude cannon on Newburn Church tower, and the English
+raised earthworks along the bank of the river, which was here fordable
+in two places. The two armies calmly watered their horses on opposite
+banks of the stream all the next morning, but a shot at a Scottish
+officer from the English ranks precipitated the battle; and the Scottish
+army, having made a breach in both earthworks with their artillery,
+waded across the fords and drove the Royalist troops up the bank, after
+one spasmodic rally, which, however, failed to check the Scottish
+advance. The way was now open for the Scottish army to continue down the
+south bank of the Tyne and attack Newcastle from Gateshead. It had been
+Lord Conway's task to prevent this, but owing to his incapacity or want
+of whole-hearted enthusiasm for his cause, he failed entirely.
+
+Not until 1644, however, was a Scottish attack on Newcastle actually
+made, for on this occasion Leslie, as we have already seen, led his men
+across the fords higher up the river and marched southwards. The
+earthworks thrown up by Conway's troops may still be seen on Stella
+Haughs.
+
+It is supposed that the Romans had a fort here, commanding the passage
+of the river; indeed it would have been strange had this not been the
+case, for the Romans were not the people to disregard any point of
+strategical importance, especially one so near their stations of Pons
+Aelii and Condercum. Many stones of Roman workmanship have been used in
+the building of the Newburn church.
+
+From this point to its mouth, nearly fifteen miles away, both banks of
+the Tyne present an unbroken scene of industry. Between the steel works
+of Newburn and the iron and chemical works, the brick and tile works of
+Blaydon and past the famous yards of Elswick, down to the wharves and
+shipyards of North and South Shields, the Tyne rolls its swift dark
+waters through a scene of stirring activity; the air is dusky with soot
+and smoke, and reverberant with the clang of hammers and the pulsing
+beat of machinery. Some old and world-famed works have been closed or
+removed, like Hawks' and Stephenson's, but others, many others, have
+opened; and the map of the positions of Tyne industries, published under
+the auspices of the Newcastle and Gateshead Chamber of Commerce, is a
+record of resolute toil and brilliant achievement in the many aspects of
+industrial life represented on the river.
+
+And, apart from the mere prosperity and commercial supremacy of the
+district, there is another cause for pride in the many notable
+inventions which hail from Tyneside; from the locomotive and the
+"Geordie" lamp of Stephenson, the hydraulic machinery and the big guns
+of Armstrong, to the wonderful turbine engines of Parsons; the invention
+of water-ballast, too, belongs to the Tyne, for it was the idea of a
+Gateshead man, and first used at Jarrow.
+
+And, in connection with ships and seafarers, though not in any
+commercial sense, we may proudly recall the fact that the first Lifeboat
+was launched on the Tyne and named after the river; and the first
+Volunteer Life Brigade was formed at Tynemouth. The Worth Eastern
+Railway is carried across the Tyne by the Scotswood Bridge; and it was
+on this part of the river that the boat-races, for which the Tyne was
+once famous, were rowed. At Newcastle, the river is bridged by four huge
+structures--The Redheugh Bridge, the new King Edward VII. bridge, the
+High Level, and Swing Bridges,--all connecting Newcastle with the sister
+town of Gateshead. An interesting sight it is to see the Swing Bridge
+gradually turning on its central pivot, until it lies in a straight line
+up and down the stream, allowing some huge liner to pass, or some new
+battleship, fresh from Elswick, to sail down the river, on its way to
+make its trial trip over the "measured mile" in the open sea at the
+mouth of the river, and thereafter to take its place among the armaments
+of the nations.
+
+The High Level Bridge allows ships of any height to pass under its lofty
+and graceful arches, which look so light, but are yet so strong. This
+splendid bridge is an enduring monument of Robert Stephenson, whose work
+it was; and the story of its erection, at the cost of nearly half a
+million of money, makes most interesting reading. It took nearly two and
+a half years to build, and was opened for traffic in 1849--little more
+than three years after the first pile was driven in. A few months later,
+in 1850, the newly built Central Station, with its imposing portico, was
+opened by Queen Victoria.
+
+Passing down the Tyne from Newcastle, which requires separate notice,
+and Walker, with its reminiscences of "Walker Pit's deun weel for me,"
+we arrive at Wallsend, which in twenty-five years has grown from a
+colliery village with a population of 4,000 to a town of 23,000
+inhabitants. Here are great shipbuilding and repairing yards, chemical
+works and cement works; here, too, are Parsons' Steam Turbine Works,
+where was designed and built the little "Turbinia," on which tiny vessel
+the early experiments were made with the new engines; and here are the
+famous mines which have made "Best Wallsend" a synonym for best
+household coal all over the land. These mines, after having been closed
+for many years, were reopened at the beginning of the century, and now
+turn out upwards of one thousand tons of coal per day.
+
+The church of St. Peter, at Wallsend, is little more than a hundred
+years old; the old Church of Holy Cross, now long disused, was built
+towards the end of the twelfth century. But Wallsend itself, as all the
+world knows, is of much greater antiquity, for was it not, as its name
+proclaims, situated at the end of the Great Wall? Its name then,
+however, was not Wallsend but Segedunum.
+
+Willington Quay, further down the river, was, for a time, the home of
+George Stephenson, and here his son, Robert, was born. At Howdon, which
+used to be known as Howdon Pans, from the salt-pans there, the painter
+John Martin and his brothers once worked when boys, being employed in
+some rope-works. Here, too, the Henzells, a family of refugees who
+settled in the district in the days of Elizabeth, founded some glass
+works, for which industry the Tyne has been famous from that day to
+this.
+
+[Illustration: THE RIVER TYNE AT NEWCASTLE (showing Swing Bridge open).]
+
+Before the railway on the south side of the river was laid down,
+passengers who wished to reach Jarrow had to alight at Howdon and cross
+the river; and a racy dialect song--"Howdon for Jarrow" with its refrain
+of "Howdon for Jarra--ma hinnies, loup oot"--commemorates the fact.
+Willington Quay and Howdon carry on the line of shipbuilding yards to
+Northumberland Dock and the staithes of the Tyne Commissioners, where
+the waggon ways from various collieries bring the coal to the water's
+edge. Tyne Dock, just opposite, and the Albert Edward Dock near North.
+Shields, provide abundance of shipping accommodation, besides what is
+afforded by the river itself; and now the river flows between the steep
+banks of North and South Shields. As the names declare, these two
+growing and prosperous towns once consisted of a few fishermen's huts,
+or "shielings"; but that was long ago, when the north shore of the Tyne
+was owned by the Prior of Tynemouth, and the southern shore by the
+Bishop of Durham, and the citizens of Newcastle complained to King
+Edward I. that these two ecclesiastics had raised towns, "where no town
+ought to be," and that "fishermen sold fish there which ought to be sold
+at Newcastle, to the great injury of the whole borough, and in detriment
+to the tolls of our Lord the King." These quarrels between Newcastle and
+the other settlements on the Tyne continued with varying results, until
+in the days of Cromwell, Ralph Gardiner of Chirton, a little village
+close to North Shields, took up the cudgels for the growing towns; and
+by dint of great perseverance, and in spite of much persecution and
+ill-will, succeeded in getting most of the unjust privileges of their
+stronger neighbour abolished.
+
+There were salt-pans, too, on both sides of the mouth of the Tyne, which
+were worked in connection with the monasteries from very early days; and
+Daniel Defoe, when he visited the north in 1726, declared that he could
+see from the top of the Cheviot "the smoke of the salt-pans at Sheals,
+at the mouth of the Tyne, which was about forty miles south of this."
+
+North Shields clings haphazard to the steep bank of the Tyne, and
+spreads away up and beyond it, reaching out towards Wallsend on the
+river shore and Tynemouth along by the sea, the older parts by the
+river looking black and grimy to the last degree; but there is a silver
+lining to this very black cloud--not visible, it is true, but distinctly
+audible--in the great shipbuilding and repairing works known as Smith's
+Dock, one of the largest concerns of the kind in Great Britain, where so
+many hundreds of men earn their daily bread; and in the fishing
+industry, which was the foundation of the town's prosperity, and bids
+fair to be so for many years to come, as it is increasing year by year.
+The Fish Quay at North Shields is a sight worth seeing; and, in the
+herring season, it is increasingly frequented by Continental buyers.
+
+The fortunes of South Shields and Jarrow, though these towns are not in
+Northumberland, are yet so bound up with the story of the Tyne that no
+one would ever think of that river without them. Especially is this the
+case with Jarrow, which "Palmer's" has raised from a small colliery
+village to a large and flourishing town. In those famous yards,
+everything that is necessary for the building of the largest ironclad,
+from the first smelting of the ore until the last rivet is in place, can
+be done. All Northumbria--Northumbria in the ancient and widest sense
+of the word--owes a debt of gratitude to Jarrow, for was it not the home
+of Bede? The monk of Jarrow, who spent all his long life in the same
+monastery by the Don, coming to it when he was a child of ten, made that
+spot of Northumbrian ground famed to the farthest limits of the
+civilized Europe of his day; and scholars from all over the Continent
+came to learn at the feet of the Northumbrian teacher. Beloved and
+revered by all, and in harness to the last hour of his busy life, he
+died in the year 735, just one hundred years after the coming of Aidan
+to Lindisfarne. "First among English scholars, first among English
+theologians, first among English historians, it is in the monk of
+Jarrow that English literature strikes its roots."--_J.R. Green_.
+
+The Jarrow of to-day, and all its neighbours of industrial Tyneside,
+possess no beauty of aspect such as the towns that are more fortunately
+situated on the upper reaches of the river; they are muffled in clouds
+of smoke and soot, and darkened by the necessities of their toil in
+grimy ores and the ever-present coal. But no one who has ever looked on
+these smoky reaches of the Tyne with a seeing eye, or steamed down the
+river on a day either of gloom or sunshine, can refuse to acknowledge
+that it has a certain grandeur, a stern beauty of its own, that can stir
+the heart and the imagination more deeply than any mere prettiness.
+
+From the numberless hives of activity on both sides of the river clouds
+of smoke roll heavily upward, and jets of steam from panting machinery
+leap up in momentary whiteness on the dark background; the white wings
+of flocks of wheeling gulls flash in the occasional sunshine which
+lights up the scene, and between the clouds there are glimpses of blue
+sky. Towards sunset, the evening mists drape the darkening banks and
+crowded shipping in a soft robe of gray, which, together with the
+glowing sky behind, produces most wonderful Turneresque effects; and the
+fall of night on the river only changes the aspect without diminishing
+the interest of the scene. The blaze from a myriad workshops and forges
+glows against the darkness, the lamps twinkle overhead on the steep
+banks, and the lights from wharf and steamer are reflected in a thousand
+shimmering lines on the dark water, which flows on soundlessly, like the
+river of a dream.
+
+On a day of wind and sun all these beauties are intensified a
+thousandfold; the smoke is blown hither and thither in flying clouds,
+the current seems to rush more swiftly, and a sense of vigorous life
+permeates the whole scene, giving to the beholder a feeling of keen
+exhilaration, as of new life rushing through his veins. Especially is
+this the case on reaching the mouth of the river and meeting the dancing
+waters of the open harbour, where the twin piers of South Shields and
+Tynemouth reach out sheltering arms. Within the wide bay they enclose,
+the storm-driven vessel may always find comparatively smooth water, how
+wildly soever the waves may rage and roar outside.
+
+It is difficult to believe that so lately as the years 1858-60, the
+"bar" at the mouth of the Tyne was an insuperable obstacle to all but
+vessels of very moderate draught; and that ships might lie for days, and
+sometimes weeks, after being loaded, before there came a tide high
+enough to carry them out to sea. The river was full of sand-banks, and
+little islands stood here and there--one in mid-stream, where the
+ironclads are now launched at Elswick. Three or four vessels might be
+seen at once bumping and grounding on the "bar" unable to make their way
+over. Well might the old song say--
+
+  "The ships are all at the bar,
+  They canna get up to Newcastle!"
+
+An old map of the Tyne shows a number of sand-banks down the lower
+reaches of the river, with ships aground on each, of them.
+
+But the River Tyne Commissioners have changed all that, and their
+implement of warfare has been the hideous but necessary dredger. No
+longer need vessels of heavy tonnage desert the Tyne for the Wear, as
+they were perforce driven to do during the first half of the nineteenth
+century, for the Wearsiders had set about deepening and widening their
+river long before the Tynesiders did the same by theirs. Considerable
+and continuous pressure had to be brought to bear on the civic
+authorities at Newcastle before they finally took action; but having
+once done so, the future of the Tyne was assured. Now it ranks second
+only to the Thames in the actual number of vessels entering and leaving,
+and owns only the Mersey its superior in the matter of tonnage.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.
+
+  "Her dusky hair in many a tangle clings
+  About her, and her looks, though stern and cold,
+  Grow tender with the dreams of by-gone days."
+
+  --_W.W. Tomlinson_.
+
+The outward signs of "by-gone days," in the Newcastle of to-day, with
+the one notable exception of the Castle, must be diligently sought out
+amongst the overwhelming mass of what is often called "rampant
+modernity," of which the town to-day chiefly consists. The modernity,
+however, is not all bad, as this favourite phrase would imply; much of
+it is doubtless regrettable and a very little of it perhaps inevitable;
+but no one will deny either the modernity or the beauty of Grey Street,
+one of the finest streets in any English town; or the fine appearance of
+Grainger Street, Blackett Street, Eldon Square, or any other of the
+stately thoroughfares with which Grainger and Dobson enriched the town
+within the last eighty years--no one, that is, who has learned to "lift
+his eyes to the sky-line in passing along a thoroughfare" instead of
+keeping them firmly fixed at the level of shop windows.
+
+The grim old building which, when it was new, gave its name to the town,
+is one for which no search needs to be made; its blackened and time worn
+walls are seen from the train windows by every traveller who enters the
+city from the south. So near is it to the railway, that in the
+ultra-utilitarian days of sixty or seventy years ago, it narrowly
+escaped the ignoble fate of being used as a signal-cabin. It was
+rescued, however, by the Society of Antiquaries, and carefully preserved
+by them--more fortunate in this respect than the castle of Berwick, for
+the platform of Berwick railway station actually stands on the spot once
+occupied by the Great Hall of the Castle.
+
+The site of the New Castle, on a part of the river bank which slopes
+steeply down to the Tyne, had been occupied centuries before by a Roman
+fort, constructed by order of the Emperor Hadrian, who visited Britain
+A.D. 120. He also constructed a bridge over the Tyne at this spot, fort
+and bridge receiving the name of Pons Aelii, after the Emperor (Publius
+AElius Hadrianus). This became the second station on the Great Wall
+erected by Hadrian's orders along the line of forts which Agricola had
+raised forty years before. This station shared the fate of others on the
+abandonment of Britain by its powerful conquerors, who had now for more
+than two hundred years been its no less powerful friends and protectors.
+Pons Aelii fell into ruins; but so advantageous a site could not long be
+overlooked, and we read of a Saxon settlement there, apparently that of
+a religious community, from which fact it was known as Monkchester. All
+the records of this period seem to have perished, for we hear nothing of
+the settlement during the Danish invasions; but a Saxon town of some
+kind was evidently in existence at the time of the Conquest, though in
+1073 three monks from the south who came to York, and, obtaining a guide
+to "Muneche-cester," sought for some religious house in that settlement,
+could find none, and were prevailed upon by the first Norman Bishop of
+Durham, Walcher, to stay at Jarrow. The years from 1069 to 1080 were
+evil years for Northumberland, for at the first-named date the Conqueror
+devastated the North, and left neither village nor farm unscathed; and,
+as the desolated land was beginning to recover again, Odo of Bayeux and
+Robert of Normandy relentlessly laid it waste once more, partly in
+revenge for the murder of Bishop Walcher at Gateshead, and partly to
+punish Malcolm of Scotland for his invasion of Norman territory.
+
+It was on his return from this expedition, which had penetrated as far
+north as Falkirk, that Robert, by his father's orders, raised a
+stronghold on the Tyne on the site of the old Roman fort, in the year
+1080. His brother, William Rufus, erected a much stronger and better
+one, the Keep of which, re-built by Henry II., stands to-day dark and
+grim, looking out over river and town, as it has stood since the Red
+King ruled the land, and, like his father, the Conqueror, found it
+desirable to have a stronghold at this northern point of his turbulent
+realm, around which a town might grow up in safety.
+
+The roof and battlements of the Keep are modern, but the rest of it--the
+walls, 12 to 18 feet thick; the dismal dungeon, or guard chamber, with
+iron rings and fetters still fastened to the walls and central pillar;
+the beautiful little chapel, with its finely-ornamented arches; the
+little chambers in the thickness of the walls; the well, 94 feet deep,
+sunk through the solid masonry into the rock beneath; the arrow slits in
+the walls; the stones in the roof scored with frequent bolts from the
+besiegers' crossbows, one of which bolts is firmly embedded in the wall
+opposite one of the narrow windows; the ancient weapons and armour--all
+these breathe of the days when the Red King's castle took its part in
+the doings of our hardy ancestors in those stormy times in which they
+lived and fought.
+
+The last time the old Keep was called upon to act as fortress and refuge
+in time of war was in Stuart days, after the ten weeks siege of
+Newcastle by the Scottish General Leslie, Earl of Leven, in 1644, when
+brave "Governor Marley" and his friends held out in the castle for a few
+days longer, after the town was taken. In memory of this stout defence
+and long resistance King Charles gave to the town its motto--_Fortiter
+defendit triumphans_, which Bates gives as having originally been
+_Fortiter defendendo triumphat_--"She glories in her brave defence."
+
+Two of the original fireplaces still remain in the Castle, and there are
+besides many objects of great interest which have been bestowed there
+from time to time for safe keeping; and many more are to be seen at the
+Black Gate, formerly the chief entrance to the Castle Hall and its
+surroundings. The Great Hall of the Castle, in which John Baliol did
+homage to Edward I. for the crown of Scotland, stood on the spot now
+covered by the Moot Hall. The Black Gate, the lower part of which is the
+oldest part of the building, which has many times been altered and
+repaired, is now used as a museum. There were nearly a dozen rooms in
+it, and not so many years ago the Corporation of Newcastle let these out
+in tenements, until this building also was rescued from degradation by
+the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries, who took down most of the dividing
+walls, and converted it into a museum. Here may be seen stored many
+sculptured stones, altars, and statues, which have been brought from the
+various Roman stations in the north.
+
+Around the walls of one room are to be seen facsimiles of the famous
+Bayeux tapestry; there is also a model of the Castle as originally
+built, and there are many more exhibits and loans of the very greatest
+interest.
+
+Of the walls of Newcastle only fragments remain, the most considerable
+portion being found between Westgate Road and St. Andrew's Churchyard;
+here are also remains of several of the watch-towers that stood at
+intervals around the walls--the Heber Tower, the Mordaunt or Morden
+Tower, and the Ever Tower. Between the two first named towers may be
+seen a little doorway, walled up, once used by the Friars, who obtained
+from Edward II. permission to make the doorway in order that they might
+the more easily reach their gardens and orchards outside; but they had
+to be ready to build it up at a moment's notice on the approach of an
+enemy. One of the towers--the Carliol or Weaver's Tower--was pulled down
+to make room for the Central Free Library, opened in 1881. Many little
+fragments of the Castle wall are to be seen near the High Level Bridge,
+incorporated in other walls, as far as the South Postern of the Castle,
+which is said to be the only remaining Norman postern in England and is
+the oldest remaining part of the Castle.
+
+The old streets of Newcastle are fast disappearing to make room for the
+ever-increasing needs of commerce; at the moment of writing it is being
+proposed to pull down more of the historic street called the Side, to
+make room for new printing offices. At the head of this curious old
+street, which curves downward from the Cathedral to the river, stood the
+birthplace of Cuthbert Collingwood, who was to become Admiral Lord
+Collingwood, and second in fame only to Nelson himself. Both this house
+and the one where Thomas Bewick had his workshop, near the Cathedral,
+have gone to make room for new buildings.
+
+At the foot of this street, where it curves to the river front, is the
+Sandhill, facing the Swing Bridge. Here are several old houses
+remaining, with many-windowed fronts, looking out on the river. One of
+these was the house of Aubone Surtees, the banker, whose daughter
+Bessie, in 1772, stole out of one of those little windows, and gave
+herself into the keeping of young Jack Scott, who was waiting for her
+below. The adventurous youth became Lord Chancellor of England, and is
+best known as Lord Eldon; his brother William became Lord Stowell, and
+was for many years Judge of the High Court of Admiralty.
+
+Opposite the old houses of the Sandhill, close to the river bank, is the
+old Guildhall, greatly altered in appearance from the time when John
+Wesley preached from its steps to the keelmen and fishermen of the town.
+It was here that a sturdy fishwife put her arms round him, when some
+boisterous spirits in the crowd threatened him with ill-usage, and,
+shaking her fist in their faces, swore to "floor them" if they touched
+her "canny man."
+
+This spot, where the Swing Bridge unites the lower banks of the stream,
+seems always to have been the most convenient point for crossing the
+river, for the present bridge is the fifth that has spanned the Tyne at
+this point: Hadrian's bridge, Pons Aelii; a mediaeval bridge destroyed
+by fire in 1248; the Old Tyne Bridge, swept away in the flood of 1771;
+the successor of this, which was found too low to allow of the passage
+of such large vessels as were able to sail up the Tyne after the
+deepening of the river bed; and the present Swing Bridge, which is
+worked by hydraulic machinery, the invention of Lord Armstrong. We do
+not know how long Hadrian's bridge lasted, but William the Conqueror,
+when returning from his expedition into Scotland in 1071, was obliged to
+camp for a time at "Monec-cestre," as the Tyne was in flood, and there
+was no bridge.
+
+Some ancient houses are to be found in Low Friar Street, one of which,
+with winged heads and dolphins carved on it, is said to be the oldest
+house in Newcastle. Turning up an opening on the west side of this
+street, all that is left of the ancient Blackfriars' Monastery may be
+seen; some of its rooms are used as the meeting places of various Trade
+Guilds, and the rest form low tenement houses, in the walls of which are
+many Gothic archways and ancient window-openings built up. Over the door
+of the Smith's Hall is a carving of three hammers, and the
+inscription:--
+
+  "By hammer and hand
+  All artes do stand."
+
+This Hall was formerly the Great Hall of the monastery; and here Edward
+Baliol did homage to Edward III. for his crown of Scotland. Nun Street,
+leading out of Grainger Street, reminds us of the days when the Nunnery
+of St. Bartholomew stood in this part of the town, and the Nun's Moor
+was part of the grounds belonging to the establishment. In High Friar
+Street, which was not then the dilapidated lane it now appears, Richard
+Grainger was born.
+
+Another part of the town which has fallen from its former high estate is
+the Close, which lies along the river front, westward from the Sandhill.
+Here, at one time, lived many of the principal inhabitants of
+Newcastle--Sir John Marley, Sir William Blackett, Sir Ralph Millbank,
+and others equally important; and here, too, was the former Mansion
+House of the city, where the Mayors resided, and where they could
+receive distinguished visitors to the town. Amongst those who have been
+entertained there were the Duke of Wellington and the first King of the
+Belgians. But in 1836 the Corporation of Newcastle sold the house, with
+the furniture, books, pictures, plate, and everything else it contained.
+
+Eastward from the Sandhill is Sandgate, immortalised in the "Newcastle
+Anthem"--The Keel Row. Its present appearance is very different from the
+green slope and sandy shore of former days; the keelmen, too, have
+vanished, and their place in the commercial economy of the Tyne is taken
+by waggon-ways and coal-shoots. The old narrow alleys of the town,
+called "chares," are fast disappearing; the best known is Pudding Chare,
+leading from Bigg Market to Westgate Road. Many and various are the
+explanations that have been offered to account for its curious name, but
+the true one does not seem yet to have appeared.
+
+Pilgrim Street owes its name to the fact that it was the route of the
+pilgrims who came in great numbers to visit the little chapel or shrine
+of Our Lady of Jesmond, and St. Mary's Well. In Pilgrim Street was the
+gateway of a stately mansion, surrounded by beautiful gardens, called
+Anderson Place, from a Mr. Anderson who bought it from Sir Thomas
+Blackett in 1783. It had been built by another Mr. Anderson in the reign
+of Queen Elizabeth, on the site where once stood the monastery of the
+Grey Friars; he, however, had named his mansion "The Newe House." In
+this house Charles I. lived when a prisoner in Newcastle. Anderson Place
+no longer exists, but the Newcastle of to-day has a constant reminder of
+its last owners, for Major George Anderson, son of the Mr. Anderson who
+purchased it in 1783, gave to the Cathedral of St. Nicholas the great
+bell--known on that account as "The Major"--whose deep reverberant
+"boom" can be heard for a distance of ten miles. The bell was re-cast in
+1891, and in 1892 a new peal of bells was consecrated by Canon Gough.
+
+Westgate Road is another interesting street; the old West Gate stood
+near the site of the present Tyne Theatre, and from this point onward
+the street follows, almost exactly, the line of the Roman Wall.
+
+Some noteworthy houses in Newcastle are--No. 17, Eldon Place, where
+George and Robert Stephenson lived in the years 1824-25; No. 4, St.
+Thomas' Crescent, where the celebrated artist, Wm. Bell Scott lived when
+he was headmaster of the School of Art, and to whom Swinburne wrote a
+fine memorial poem; the Academy of Arts, in Blackett Street, built for
+the exhibition of pictures by those well-known painters T.M. Richardson
+and H.T. Parker, and for a short period the home of the Pen and Palette
+Club, which, both here and in its new home at Higham Place, has
+entertained many people distinguished in letters, art, and travel who
+have visited the town of late years; and No. 9, Pleasant Row, the
+birthplace of Lord Armstrong, which has only recently been destroyed to
+make way for the N.E.R. Company's new ferro-concrete Goods Station in
+New Bridge Street.
+
+The list of important buildings in Newcastle, exclusive of the churches,
+is a long one; one of the most prominent is the Library of the Literary
+and Philosophical Society, familiarly known as the "Lit. and Phil.,"
+which stands at the lower end of Westgate Road, a little way back from
+the roadway. It is built on the site of the town house of the Earls of
+Westmoreland; and its fine Lecture Theatre was a gift to the Society
+from Lord Armstrong. It is the centre of the intellectual life of the
+city as a whole, apart from the work of the justly famed Armstrong
+College, a teaching institute of University rank. This was formerly
+known as the Durham College of Science, and, with the Durham College of
+Medicine, forms part of the University of Durham.
+
+Other seats of learning in the town are the Rutherford College, in Bath
+Lane, and the Royal Grammar School, which dates from the reign of Henry
+VIII. It was reconstituted by Queen Elizabeth, and has had many changes
+of abode. At one time it occupied the buildings of the Convent of St.
+Mary, which covered the space where Stephenson's monument now stands.
+While the Grammar School was located there, the boys Cuthbert
+Collingwood, William Scott, and John Scott, who afterwards became so
+famous, attended it; and other distinguished scholars were John Horsley,
+author of _Britannia Romana_, and John Brand and Henry Bourne, the
+historians of Newcastle. The school is now situated in Eskdale Terrace
+and its splendid playing fields stretch across to the North Road.
+
+One of the most interesting buildings in Newcastle is the Hancock Museum
+of Natural History, at Barras Bridge. It contains a matchless collection
+of birds, and some unique specimens of extinct species; also the
+original drawings of Bewick's _British Birds_, and other works of his.
+The famous Newcastle naturalist, John Hancock, presented his wonderful
+collection, prepared by himself, to the museum. Here, too, is a complete
+set of fossils from the coal measures, including some fine specimens of
+Sigillaria. These are only a few of the treasures contained in the
+museum, which was built chiefly through the generosity of the late Lord
+and Lady Armstrong, Colonel John Joicey of Newton Hall, Stocksfield, and
+Mr. Edward Joicey of Whinney House.
+
+The new Victoria Infirmary, on the Leazes, is a magnificent building,
+and was opened by King Edward VII. in 1906. It was erected by public
+subscription, and when L100,000 had been subscribed, the late Mr. John
+Hall generously offered a like sum on condition that the building should
+be erected either on the Leazes or the Town Moor. Arrangements were made
+to do so, and another L100,000 given by the present Lord and Lady
+Armstrong.
+
+But fine as all these buildings are, the pride of Newcastle is one much
+older than any of them--the Cathedral church of St. Nicholas, with its
+exquisitely beautiful lantern steeple. This wonderful lantern was the
+work of Robert de Rhodes, who lived in the fifteenth century. The arms
+of this early benefactor of the church may yet be seen on the ancient
+font. The present church was finished in the year 1350, says Dr. Bruce;
+but there was a former one on this site to which the crypt is supposed
+to belong. It has undergone many alterations at different times, and has
+sheltered within its walls many and various great personages.
+
+[Illustration: NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.]
+
+In 1451, a treaty between England and Scotland was ratified in the
+vestry. In the reign of Henry VII., his daughter, Princess Margaret,
+attended mass here, with all her retinue, when she stayed in the town on
+her way to Scotland to be married to the gallant young king James IV.
+She was entertained at the house of the Austin Friars, which stood where
+now stands the Holy Jesus Hospital at the Manors, near to the Sallyport
+Tower. When James I. became king of England, he attended service here,
+as he passed through Newcastle on his way to his southern capital. In
+the reign of his ill-fated son, Charles I., Newcastle was occupied by
+the Scots, under General Leslie, for a year after the battle of Newburn in
+1640; and again in 1644 was besieged by them for ten weeks. On this
+occasion the town nearly lost its chief ornament and pride--the lantern
+of the church; for "There is a traditional story," says Bourne, "of this
+building I am now treating of, which may not be improper to be here
+taken notice of. In the time of the Civil Wars, when the Scots had
+besieged the town for several weeks, and were still as far as at first
+from taking it, the General sent a messenger to the Mayor of the town,
+and demanded the keys and the delivery up of the town, or he would
+immediately demolish the steeple of St. Nicholas.
+
+"The Mayor and Aldermen, upon hearing this, immediately ordered a
+certain number of the chiefest Scottish prisoners to be carried up to
+the top of the old tower, the place below the lantern, and there
+confined. After this, they returned the General an answer to this
+purpose, that they would upon no terms deliver up the town, but would to
+the last moment defend it; that the steeple of St. Nicholas was indeed a
+beautiful and magnificent piece of architecture, and one of the great
+ornaments of the town, but yet should be blown to atoms before ransomed
+at such a rate; that, however, if it was to fall it should not fall
+alone; that at the same moment he destroyed the beautiful structure he
+should bathe his hands in the blood of his countrymen, who were placed
+there on purpose, either to preserve it from ruin or to die along with
+it. This message had the desired effect. The men were kept prisoners
+during the whole time of the siege, and not so much as one gun was fired
+against it."
+
+In 1646, when Charles I. was a prisoner in Newcastle for nearly a year
+(from May, 1646, to February 3rd, 1647), this was the church he
+attended; and we may picture him listening perforce to the
+"admonishing" of the stern Covenanters. In this connection occurs the
+oft-told story of his ready wit, when one of the preachers wound up his
+discourse by giving out the metrical version of the fifty-second Psalm,
+with an obvious allusion to his royal hearer:--
+
+  "Why dost thou, tyrant, boast abroad,
+  Thy wicked works to praise?"
+
+Charles quickly stood up and asked for the fifty-sixth Psalm instead:--
+
+  "Have mercy, Lord, on me, I pray,
+  For man would me devour."
+
+The good folk of Newcastle with willing voice rendered the latter Psalm,
+doubtless to the discomfiture of the preacher.
+
+Gray, who published his _Chorographia_, or Survey of
+Newcastle-upon-Tyne, just three years after this, describes St.
+Nicholas' as having "a stately, high, stone steeple, with many pinakles,
+a stately stone lantherne, standing upon foure stone arches, builded by
+Robert de Rhodes.... It lifteth up a head of Majesty, as high above the
+rest as the Cypresse Tree above the low Shrubs."
+
+The church underwent a terrible despoliation at the hands of the Scots
+in 1644; but more terrible still were the injuries it received, a little
+more than a century later, from those who ought to have been its
+friends. In the years 1784-7 there were many alterations made in the
+building, during which almost all the old memorials and monuments
+perished, or were removed; those which were not claimed by the living
+representatives of the persons commemorated being ruthlessly sold, or
+destroyed; and the brasses were disposed of as old metal. The modern
+alterations and restorations have been more happy in their effect, and
+one of the notable additions to the church is the beautiful carved oak
+screen in the chancel, the work of Mr. Ralph Hedley.
+
+There are many beautiful memorial windows in the church, and many
+memorials in other forms to the various eminent North-country folk who
+have been connected with Newcastle and its chief place of worship. The
+Collingwood cenotaph is the most interesting of all; the brave Admiral's
+body, as is well known, lies beside that of his friend and commander,
+Nelson, in St. Paul's Cathedral, but this memorial of him is fittingly
+placed in the Cathedral of his native town, within whose walls he
+worshipped as a boy. There are two monuments by Flaxman--one of the Rev.
+Hugh Moises, the famous master of the Grammar School when Collingwood
+was a boy; and the other of Sir Matthew White Ridley, who died in 1813.
+Of the newer monuments, those of Dr. Bruce, of Roman Wall fame, and of
+the beloved and lamented Bishop Lloyd, are particularly fine.
+
+Near the east end of the church, which was raised to the rank of a
+Cathedral in 1881, is hung a large painting by Tintoretto, "Christ
+washing the feet of the Disciples"; this was presented to the church by
+Sir Matthew White Ridley in 1818. There are many more things of interest
+in the Cathedral, but mention must be made of a wonderful MS. Bible,
+incomplete, it is true, but beautifully written and illuminated by the
+monks of Hexham, and other manuscript treasures carefully kept in the
+care of the authorities.
+
+The oldest church in the town is St. Andrew's, supposed to have been
+built by King David of Scotland at the time when that monarch was Lord
+of Tynedale, in the reign of King Stephen. It suffered greatly in the
+struggle with the Scots, whose cannon, planted on the Leazes, did it
+great damage, and some of the fiercest fighting, at the final capture
+of the town, took place close by, where a breach was made in the walls.
+In such a battered condition was it left that the parish Registers tell
+us that no baptism nor "sarmon" took place within its walls for a year
+(1645). But a marriage took place, the persons wedded being Scots, who,
+we learn from the same authority, "would pay nothing to the Church."
+
+In the church is buried Sir Adam de Athol, Lord of Jesmond, and Mary,
+his wife. It is supposed that this Sir Adam gave the Town Moor to the
+people of Newcastle, though this has been disputed. A fine picture of
+the "Last Supper," by Giordano, presented by Major Anderson in 1804,
+hangs in the church.
+
+St. John's Church ranks next to St. Andrew's in point of age; there are
+fragments of Norman work in the building, and it is known to have been
+standing in 1297. To-day the venerable pile, with its age worn stones,
+stands out in sharper contrast to its environment than does any other
+building in the town, surrounded as it is by modern shops and offices.
+The memories it evokes, and the past for which it stands, are such as
+the citizens of Newcastle will not willingly let die; and when, a few
+years ago, a proposal was made for its removal, the proposition aroused
+such a storm of popular feeling against it that it was incontinently
+abandoned.
+
+All Saints' Church was built in 1789, on the site of an older building
+which was in existence in 1296, and which became very unsafe. Here is
+kept one of the most interesting monuments in the city--the monumental
+brass which once covered the tomb of Roger Thornton, a wealthy merchant
+of Newcastle, and a great benefactor to all the churches. He died in
+1429. He gave to St. Nicholas' Church its great east window; but, on its
+needing repair in 1860, it was removed entirely, and the present one,
+in memory of Dr. Ions, inserted; and the only fragment left of
+Thornton's window is a small circular piece inset in a plain glass
+window in the Cathedral. He gave much money to Hexham Abbey also.
+
+Besides the famous men already mentioned in connection with the town,
+Newcastle possesses other well-known names not a few. In the Middle
+Ages, Duns Scotus, the man whose skill in argument earned for him the
+title of "Doctor Subtilis," owned Northumberland as his home, and
+received his education in the monastery of the Grey Friars, which stood
+near the head of the present Grey Street. He returned to this monastery
+after some years of study at Oxford; in 1304 he was teaching divinity in
+Paris.
+
+Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London in the reign of Edward VI., whose
+Northumbrian birthplace at Willimoteswick has already been noted,
+received his early education at the Grammar School in Newcastle, and on
+going to Cambridge was a student at Pembroke. We are told he was the
+ablest man among the Reformers for piety, learning and judgment. As is
+well known, he died at the stake in 1555.
+
+William and Elizabeth Elstob, who lived in Newcastle at the end of the
+seventeenth century, were learned Saxon scholars, but were so greatly in
+advance of the education of their times that they met with little
+encouragement or sympathy in their labours.
+
+Charles Avison, the musician and composer, was organist of St. John's in
+1736, and afterwards of St. Nicholas'.
+
+It was he to whom Browning referred in the lines--
+
+                               "On the list
+  Of worthies, who by help of pipe or wire,
+  Expressed in sound rough rage or soft desire,
+  Thou, whilom of Newcastle, organist."
+
+These lines have been carved on his tombstone in St. Andrew's
+churchyard. He is best known as the composer of the anthem "Sound the
+loud timbrel."
+
+Mark Akenside, the poet, was born in Butcher Bank, now called after him
+Akenside Hill. His chief work "The Pleasures of Imagination," is not
+often read now, but it enjoyed a considerable reputation in an age when
+a stilted and formal style was looked upon as a true excellence in
+poetry.
+
+Charles Hutton, the mathematician, was born in Newcastle in 1737. He
+began life as a pitman; but, receiving an injury to his arm, he turned
+his attention to books, and taught in his native town for some years,
+becoming later Professor of Mathematics in the Royal Military Academy at
+Woolwich.
+
+John Brand, the antiquary and historian of Newcastle, was born at
+Washington, County Durham, but came to Newcastle as a child. After
+attending the Grammar School, he went to Oxford, by the aid of his
+master, the Rev. Hugh Moises. He was afterwards curate at the church of
+St. Andrew.
+
+Robert Morrison, the celebrated Chinese scholar, was born near Morpeth,
+but his parents came to Newcastle when the boy was three years of age.
+He died in China in 1834.
+
+Thomas Miles Richardson, the well-known artist, was born in Newcastle in
+1784, and was at first a cabinetmaker, then master of St. Andrew's Free
+School, but finally gave up all other work to devote himself to his art.
+
+Robert Stephenson went to school at Percy Street Academy, which for long
+has ceased to exist. There he was taught by Mr. Bruce, and had for one
+of his fellow-pupils the master's son, John Collingwood Bruce, who
+afterwards became so famous a teacher and antiquary.
+
+Newcastle is not, as most southerners imagine, a dark and gloomy town of
+unrelieved bricks and mortar, for, besides possessing many wide and
+handsome streets, it has also several pretty parks, the most noteworthy
+being the beautiful Jesmond Dene, one of the late Lord Armstrong's
+magnificent gifts to his native town. The Dene, together with the
+Armstrong Park near it, lies on the course of the Ouseburn, which is
+here a bright and sparkling stream, very different from the appearance
+it presents by the time it empties its murky waters into the Tyne.
+Besides these there are Heaton Park, the Leazes Park, with its lakes and
+boats, Brandling Park, and others smaller than these; and last, but most
+important of all, the Town Moor, a fine breezy space to the north of the
+town, of more than 900 acres in extent.
+
+Of statues and monuments Newcastle possesses some half-dozen, the finest
+being "Grey's Monument"--a household word in the town and familiarly
+known as "The Monument." It was erected at the junction of Grey Street
+and Grainger Street in memory of Earl Grey of Howick, who was Prime
+Minister at the passing of the Reform Bill. The figure of the Earl, by
+Bailey, stands at the top of a lofty column, the height being 135 feet
+to the top of the figure. There is a stairway within the column, by
+which it can be ascended, and a magnificent view enjoyed from the top.
+
+In an open space near the Central Station, between the _Chronicle_
+Office and the Lit. and Phil., there is a fine statue of George
+Stephenson, by the Northumbrian sculptor, Lough. It is a full length
+representation of the great engineer, in bronze, with the figures of
+four workmen, representing the chief industries of Tyneside, around the
+pedestal--a miner, a smith, a navvy, and an engineer. At the head of
+Northumberland Street, on the open space of the Haymarket, stands a
+beautiful winged Victory on a tall column, crowning "Northumbria"
+typified as a female figure at the foot of the column. This graceful and
+striking memorial is the work of T. Eyre Macklin, and is in memory of
+the officers and men of the North who fell in the Boer War of 1899-1902.
+Two other noteworthy statues in the town are those of Lord Armstrong,
+near the entrance to the Natural History Museum at Barras Bridge, and of
+Joseph Cowen, in Westgate Road.
+
+
+THE KEEL ROW
+
+  As I came thro' Sandgate,
+  Thro' Sandgate, thro' Sandgate,
+  As I came thro' Sandgate,
+  I heard a lassie sing
+      "O weel may the keel row,
+      The keel row, the keel row,
+      Weel may the keel row
+      That my laddie's in
+
+  "O who is like my Johnnie,
+  Sae leish,[5] sae blithe, sae bonnie;
+  He's foremost 'mang the mony
+  Keel lads o' coaly Tyne
+      He'll set and row sae tightly,
+      And in the dance sae sprightly
+      He'll cut and shuffle lightly,
+      'Tis true, were he not mine!
+  [Footnote 5: Leish = lithe, nimble.]
+
+  "He has nae mair o' learnin'
+  Than tells his weekly earnin',
+  Yet, right frae wrang discernin',
+  Tho' brave, nae bruiser he!
+      Tho' he no worth a plack[6] is,
+      His ain coat on his back is;
+      And nane can say that black is
+      The white o' Johnnie's e'e
+  [Footnote 6: Plack = a small copper coin, worth about one-third of a
+  penny.]
+
+  He wears a blue bonnet,
+  Blue bonnet, blue bonnet,
+  He wears a blue bonnet,
+  And a dimple in his chin
+         O weel may the keel row,
+         The keel row, the keel row,
+         Weel may the keel row
+         That my laddie's in."
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+ELSWICK AND ITS FOUNDER.
+
+  Sailed from the North of old
+  The strong sons of Odin;
+  Sailed in the Serpent ships,
+  "By hammer and hand"
+              Skilfully builded.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Still in the North-country
+  Men keep their sea-cunning;
+  Still true the legend,
+  "By hammer and hand"
+              Elswick builds war-ships.
+
+  --(_Northumbriensis_).
+
+For a mile and a quarter, along the north bank of the Tyne, stretch the
+world-famed Elswick Works, which have grown to their present gigantic
+proportions from the small beginnings of five and a half acres in 1847.
+In that year two fields were purchased as a site for the new works about
+to be started to make the hydraulic machinery which had been invented by
+Mr. Armstrong.
+
+In this undertaking he was backed by the wealth of several prominent
+Newcastle citizens, who believed in the future of the new
+inventions--Messrs. Addison Potter, George Cruddas, Armourer Donkin, and
+Richard Lambert. At that time Elswick was a pretty country village some
+distance outside of Newcastle, and the walk along the riverside between
+the two places was a favourite one with the people of the town. In
+midstream there was an island, where stood a little inn called the
+"Countess of Coventry"; and on the island various sports were often
+held, including horse-racing.
+
+The price of the land for the new shops, which were soon built on the
+green slopes above the Tyne, was paid to Mr. Hodgson Hind and Mr.
+Richard Grainger; the latter of whom had intended, could he have carried
+out his plans for the rebuilding of Newcastle, not to stop until he made
+Elswick Hall the centre of the town.
+
+Until the new shops were ready to begin work, some of Mr. Armstrong's
+hydraulic cranes were made by Mr. Watson at his works in the High
+Bridge.
+
+All the summer of 1847, the building went briskly on; and in the autumn
+work was started. At first Mr. Armstrong had an office in Hood Street,
+as he was superintending his machinery construction in High Bridge, as
+well as the building operations at Elswick. On some of the early
+notepaper of the firm there is, as the heading, a picture of Elswick as
+it was then, showing the first shops, the little square building in
+which were the offices, the green banks sloping down to the waterside,
+and the island in the middle of the shallow stream, while the chimneys
+and smoke of Newcastle are indicated in the remote background. Along the
+riverside was the public footpath.
+
+The first work done in the new shops was the making of Crane No. 6; and
+amongst other early orders was one from the _Newcastle Chronicle_, for
+hydraulic machinery to drive the printing press. The new machinery
+rapidly grew in favour; and orders from mines, docks and railways poured
+in to the Elswick firm, which soon extended its works.
+
+In 1854, when the Crimean War broke out, Mr. Armstrong was requested to
+devise some submarine mines which would clear the harbour of Sebastopol
+of the Russian war-ships which had been sent there. He did so, but the
+machinery was never used.
+
+At the same time, in his leisure moments, he turned his attention to the
+question of artillery. The guns in use at that time were very little
+better than those which had been used during the Napoleonic wars; and
+Mr. Armstrong devised a new one, which was made at his workshops. It was
+a 3-pounder, complete with gun-carriage and mountings, and is still to
+be seen at Elswick.
+
+With the usual reluctance of Government departments to consider anything
+new, the War Office of the day was slow to believe in the superiority of
+the new field-piece; but when every fresh trial proved that superiority
+to be beyond doubt, the gun was adopted. And then Mr. Armstrong showed
+the large-minded generosity which was so marked a feature of his
+character. Holding in his hand--as every man must, who possesses the
+secret of a new and superior engine of destruction--the fate of nations,
+to be decided at his will, and with the knowledge that other powers were
+willing and eager to buy with any sum the skill of such an inventor, Mr.
+Armstrong presented to the British Government, as a free gift, the
+patents of his artillery; and he entered the Government service for a
+time, as Engineer to the War Department, in order to give them the
+benefit of his skill and special knowledge.
+
+A knighthood was bestowed upon him, and he took up his new duties as Sir
+William Armstrong. An Ordnance department was opened at Elswick, and the
+Government promised a continuance of orders above those that the Arsenal
+at Woolwich was able to fulfil. All went well for a time, but after some
+years the connection between the Government and Elswick ceased; the
+Ordnance and Engineering works were then amalgamated into one concern,
+and Mr. George Rendel and Captain Noble--now Sir Andrew Noble, and one
+of the greatest living authorities on explosives--were placed in charge
+of the former.
+
+Released from the agreement to make no guns except for the British
+Government, Elswick was open to receive other orders, which now began to
+roll in from all the world. Elswick prospered greatly, until suddenly
+there came a check, in the shape of a strike for a nine hours day, in
+1871. After the strike had lasted for four and a half months, work was
+resumed; but the old genial relationship between masters and men had
+received a rude strain, and was never the same as before.
+
+Shipbuilding had been taken up a year or two before this, but the
+earliest vessels were built to their order in Mr. Mitchell's yard at
+Walker. The first one was a small gunboat, the "Staunch," built for the
+Admiralty. In later years the Walker ship-yard was united to the Elswick
+enterprises, and a ship-yard at the latter place was also opened.
+
+Meantime, Captain Noble had been experimenting further in artillery, and
+in 1877 another and better type of gun was produced. It was adopted by
+the Government, and all guns since then have been modifications, more or
+less, of this type. In 1876 the famous hundred-ton gun for Italy was
+made, and was taken on board the "Europa" to be carried to her
+destination; this vessel being the first to pass the newly-finished
+Swing Bridge, another outcome of the inventive genius of the head of the
+Elswick firm. The gun, which was the largest in the world at that time,
+was lowered into the "Europa" by the largest pair of "sheer-legs" in
+existence, and was lifted out again at Spezzia by the largest hydraulic
+crane of that day, and all these were the work of the Elswick firm.
+
+Soon after this the firm became Sir W.G. Armstrong, Mitchell, and Co.;
+and in consequence of the continued increase of business, it became
+necessary to open Steel Works also. This is one of the most notable
+features of the Elswick works; the wonders of ancient magicians pale
+into insignificance before the marvels of this department, and no
+Eastern Genius could accomplish such seemingly impossible feats with
+greater ease than do the workmen of Elswick.
+
+The works continued to grow still further, and soon Elswick was building
+cruisers for China, for Italy (where works at Pozzuoli--the ancient
+Puteoli--were opened), for Russia, Chili, and Japan. Tynesiders took a
+special interest in the progress of the Japanese wars, for so many of
+that country's battleships had their birth on the banks of the river at
+Elswick, and Japanese sailors became a familiar sight in Newcastle
+streets. Groups of strange faces from alien lands are periodically seen
+in our midst, and met with again and again for some time; then one day
+there is a launch at Elswick, and shortly afterwards all the strange
+faces disappear. They have gathered together from their various quarters
+in the town, and manning their new cruiser, have sailed away to their
+own land, and Newcastle streets know them no more; but, later,
+Tynesiders read in their newspapers of the deeds done on the vessels
+which they have sent forth to the world.
+
+The ice-breaker "Ermack" is one of the firm's most notable achievements,
+the vessel having been built and designed in their Walker yard, to the
+order of the Czar of Russia, in 1898, for the purpose of breaking up
+ice-floes in the northern seas, and more especially for keeping open a
+route across the great lakes of Siberia.
+
+The Elswick firm became Armstrong, Whitworth and Co., Ltd., in 1897,
+which was also the year of another great strike; and two years later, a
+disastrous fire burned down three of their shops, throwing two thousand
+men temporarily out of employment. Still the works continued to grow,
+and business to increase, until, instead of the five and a half acres
+originally purchased, the Company's works, in 1900, covered two hundred
+and thirty acres, and the number of men on the pay-roll was over
+25,000--that is, sufficient with their families to people a town three
+times the size of Hexham. And the scope and extent of these works are
+extending, and yet extending; and now Elswick and Scotswood form an
+uninterrupted line of closely-packed dwellings, which stretch without a
+break from Newcastle, and make a background for the immense works on the
+river shore; and one would look in vain for any signs of the pretty
+country lanes and village of sixty years ago.
+
+The founder of this great enterprise, in the early days of the Company,
+built for his workpeople schools, library, and reading rooms, as well as
+dwellings, and met them personally at their social gatherings and
+entertainments--generally provided by himself; but the increasing size
+of the concern, the excellence and capability, amounting to genius, of
+the various heads of departments chosen by him, and his own increasing
+years and failing health, led to his gradual withdrawal from personal
+attendance at Elswick. The last time he appeared there officially was
+when the King of Siam visited the works in 1897.
+
+One who knew him well has written of him, "His mind was at the same time
+original and strictly practical; he noticed with a penetrating
+observation, and drew conclusions with intuitive genius. Abstract
+speculation had no charm for him; he never cherished wild dreams or
+extravagant ideas. But if his conception was thus wisely restricted, his
+execution of an idea was unrivalled in its thoroughness. Whether he was
+founding an industrial establishment, or building a house, or making a
+road, the hand of the man is quite unmistakable. There is the same solid
+basis, the same enduring superstructure. Every stone that is laid at
+Cragside or Bamburgh seems to be stamped as it were with the impression
+of his great personality, and the thoroughness of his work." All his
+life long, the thoroughness with which he was able to concentrate his
+mind on the one subject which occupied it at the time, was a marked
+feature of Lord Armstrong's character.
+
+In the early period of his career, while he was still in a solicitor's
+office, and when the study of hydraulics was absorbing all his leisure
+hours, he was quizzically said to have "water on the brain." Electrical
+problems also engaged his attention, and in 1844 he lectured at the Lit.
+and Phil. rooms on his hydro-electric machine, on which occasion the
+lecture room was so tightly packed that he had to get in through the
+window. In the following year he explained to the same society his
+hydraulic experiments and achievements; in 1846 he was elected a Fellow
+of the Royal Society; and the next summer, 1847, saw the Elswick Works
+begun.
+
+It is difficult to realize the fact, brought home to us on looking at
+dates like these, that Lord Armstrong and Robert Stephenson were
+contemporaries, and that both great engineers were engaged at the same
+time on the works which were to bring them lasting fame. The life and
+work of Robert Stephenson seem so remote, so much a part of bygone
+history, that it strikes the mind with an unexpected shock to realise
+that here is a life which began about the same time, yet has lasted
+until quite recent years; for Lord Armstrong's long and successful
+career only closed with the closing days of the nineteenth century.
+
+In the later years of his life he was greatly interested in repairing
+and partly re-building the historic castle of Bamburgh, which Mr.
+Freeman calls "the cradle of our race," and which Lord Armstrong
+purchased from Lord Crewe's Trustees. Of his personal character, the
+writer above quoted says, "Apart from his intellectual gifts, Lord
+Armstrong's character was that of a great man. His unaffected modesty
+was as attractive as his broad-minded charity. In business transactions,
+he was the soul of integrity and honour, while in private life his mind
+was far too large to regard accumulated wealth with any excessive
+affection. He both spent his money freely and gave it away freely. His
+benefactions to Newcastle were princely, and his public munificence was
+fit to rank with that of any philanthropist of his time."
+
+Princely, indeed, were his gifts to his native town, as the list of them
+will show; they embraced either large contributions to, or the entire
+gift of, Jesmond Dene, the Armstrong Park, the Lecture Theatre of the
+Literary and Philosophical Society, St. Cuthbert's Church, the
+Cathedral, St. Stephen's Church, the Infirmary, the Deaf and Dumb
+Institution, the Children's Hospital, the Elswick Schools, Elswick
+Mechanics' Institute, the Convalescent Home at Whitley Bay, the Hancock
+Museum--to which he and Lady Armstrong contributed a valuable collection
+of shells, and L11,500 in money--the Armstrong Bridge, the Armstrong
+College, and the Bishopric Endowment Fund.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+THE CHEVIOTS.
+
+From the crowded, bustling scenes of Tyneside to the solitude of the
+Cheviot Hills is a "far cry," even farther mentally than in actual tale
+of miles. Yet the two are linked by the same stream, which begins life
+as a brawling Cheviot burn, having for its fellows the head waters of
+the Rede, the Coquet, and the Till, with the scores of little dancing
+rills that feed them.
+
+Nowhere in this land of swelling hills and grassy fields can one get out
+of either sight or sound of running water. Every little dip in the hills
+has its watercourse, every vale its broader stream, and the pleasant
+sound of their murmurings and sweet babbling fills in the background of
+every remembrance of days spent upon the green slopes of the Cheviots.
+You may hear in their tones, if you listen, the shrill chatter and
+laughter of children, soft cooing voices, and the deeper notes of
+manhood, and might fancy, did not your sight contradict the fact, that
+you were close to a goodly company, whose words met your ear, but whose
+magic language you could not understand.
+
+One little burn of my acquaintance, which runs through field and dell to
+join the Till, I have hearkened to again and again for hours, unable to
+break away from the spell of its ever-varying, yet constant music--a
+sort of wilder, sweeter version of Mendelssohn's Duetto, with the voices
+of Knight and Lady alternating and intermingling amidst a rippling
+current of clear bell-like undertones.
+
+Down from Cheviot itself, the lovely little Colledge Water splashes its
+way, issuing from the wild ravine called the Henhole, where the cliffs
+on each side of the rocky gorge rise in some places to a height of more
+than two hundred feet. Concerning this ravine, there is a legend that a
+party of hunters, long ages ago, were deer-stalking in Cheviot Forest,
+when on reaching the Henhole their ears were greeted by the most
+ravishing music they had ever heard. Allured by the enchanting sounds,
+they followed the music into the ravine, where they disappeared, and
+were never again seen.
+
+The range of the Cheviot Hills stretches for about twenty-two miles
+along the north-west border of Northumberland; and as the width of the
+range is, roughly speaking, twenty-one miles, we have a tract of over
+three hundred square miles of rolling, grassy, and heath-clad hills, of
+which about one-third is over the Scottish border in Roxburghshire. The
+giants of the range, The Cheviot (2,676 feet high), Cairn Hill (2,545
+feet), and the striking cone of Hedgehope (2,348 feet), are all near to
+each other on Northumbrian soil, a few miles south-west of Wooler, which
+is a most convenient starting place for a visit to any part of the
+Cheviots, as the Alnwick and Cornhill Railway brings within easy reach
+the heights which lie still farther north.
+
+The quiet little market town lies pleasantly among green meadows almost
+at the foot of the Cheviots; its low substantial stone houses, with few
+gardens in front, give the place a somewhat monotonous appearance, but
+the newer streets try to make amends by blossoming out into brilliant
+flower-plots in summer-time. Still, one would not quarrel with the older
+buildings; solid and unpretentious, they must look much the same as in
+the days of Border turmoil, when the first requisite in house or town
+was strength, not beauty.
+
+Near to Wooler are many interesting places; within the limits of quite a
+short stroll one may visit the Pin Well, a wishing well of which there
+are so many examples to be found wherever one may travel; the King's
+Chair, a porphyry crag on the hill above the Pin Well; Maiden Castle,
+or, less euphoniously, Kettles Camp, an ancient British encampment on
+the same hill, the Kettles being pot-like cavities in the ravines
+surrounding it; and the Cup and Saucer Camp, just half a mile distant
+from Wooler. The Golf Course is now laid out on these same heights.
+
+To reach the Cheviots from Wooler, the most usual way is by the
+beautiful glen in which lies Langleeford. The bright streamlet known as
+the Wooler Water runs through it from Cheviot on its way to the town
+from which it has taken its present name; formerly it was known as
+Caldgate Burn. It was at Langleeford that Sir Walter Scott stayed, as a
+youth, in 1791, with his uncle, after they had vainly attempted to find
+accommodation in Wooler. Here they rode, fished, shot, walked, and drank
+the goat's whey for which the district was famous in those days and for
+long afterwards.
+
+Cheviot itself, or "The Muckle Cheviot," is a huge cumbrous-looking
+mass, with rounded sides and flat top, boggy and treacherous, where,
+nevertheless, many wild berries brighten the marshy flats in their
+season. The name "Cheviot" is said to mean "Snowy Ridge" and well does
+this highest summit of the range merit the name, for on its marshy top
+and in the rocky chasms of Henhole and Bazzle, the winter's snow often
+lies until far into the summer. Down through the weird and fairy-haunted
+cleft of Henhole, as we have seen, the little brown stream of Colledge
+Water splashes its way, breaking into golden foam between mossy banks as
+it reaches the outlet, and turns northward to join the Till.
+
+This little burn is one of the prettiest of mountain streams; and in the
+district surrounding it are perhaps more points of interest than any
+other stream of such inconsiderable dimensions can show, saving only its
+neighbour, the Till. The whole of the surrounding country, wild, lonely,
+and romantic, teems with memories and reminders of the past. Sir Walter
+Scott, while on the visit already referred to, found an additional
+pleasure in the presence of so many relics of ancient days in the
+neighbourhood. "Each hill," he wrote to a friend, "is crowned with a
+tower, or camp, or cairn, and in no situation can you be near more
+fields of battle."
+
+Indeed, the whole district of the Cheviots, and the lower lines of
+swelling hills into which the land subsides as it nears the sea, is
+crowded with the memorials of an earlier race; from every hill-top and
+rocky height they speak with tantalising half-revelations of that race
+which the Romans found here when their galleys brought them to the land
+which was to them Ultima Thule. No convincing explanation has yet been
+found of the concentric circular markings, with radiating grooves from
+the cup-shaped hollow in the middle, which are scored on the rocks
+wherever traces of an ancient camp are found; and the numbers of these
+traces are proof that this district was once a very thickly populated
+part of Britain.
+
+And when Angle and Saxon were driving the early inhabitants before them,
+westward and southward, these hills and valleys still sheltered a
+considerable population; and Bede tells us of a royal residence not far
+away, at the foot of the well known Yeavering Bell, one of the more
+important hills of the range. It rises to a height of more than 1,100
+feet, and then abruptly ends in a wide, almost level top, grass-grown
+and boulder-strewn, and crowned near the centre with a roughly-piled
+cairn. The ancient name of Yeavering Bell, as given by Bede in his
+account of the labours of St. Paulinus, was Ad-gefrin.
+
+To recall the days when King Edwin and his queen, Ethelburga, came here
+from the royal city of Bamburgh, we must go back to a time nearly forty
+years after the Bernician chieftain, Ida, established himself in that
+rocky fortress, from whence he ruled a district roughly corresponding to
+the present counties of Durham and Northumberland, and known as
+Bernicia. One of Ida's successors, Ethelric, overcame the tribe of
+Angles then established in the neighbouring district of Deira--the
+Yorkshire of to-day. His successor, Ethelfrith, ruled over the united
+district, and married the daughter of Ella, the vanquished chieftain.
+Her brother, Edwin, he drove into exile, and the young prince found
+refuge at the court of Redwald of East Anglia, where he remained for
+some years.
+
+Redwald's friendship, however, does not seem to have been above
+suspicion, for we find that Ethelfrith's bribe had on one occasion
+nearly induced him to give up his guest, whose life, however, was saved
+by Redwald's wife who turned her husband from his purpose. In his exile
+the thoughts of the young prince often turned towards his own land; and,
+once, as he sat brooding over his misfortunes, he saw in a vision one
+who came and spoke comforting words to him, saying that he should yet be
+king and that his reign should be long and glorious. "And if one should
+come to thee and repeat this sign," said the stranger, laying his right
+hand on Edwin's head "wouldst thou hearken to his rede?" Edwin gave his
+word, and the vision fled. Some little time after this, Ethelfrith of
+Northumbria, as the united districts were now called, fell in battle
+against Redwald, and Edwin, returning northward, became ruler of
+Northumbria, the sons of Ethelfrith fleeing in their turn before the new
+king. Edwin wedded, as his second wife, Ethelburga, daughter of that
+king of Kent in whose days Augustine came to England; and being a
+Christian princess, she brought with her a priest to her new home in the
+north. The priest's name was Paulinus; and one day he went to the King
+and, placing his right hand on Edwin's head, asked if he knew that sign.
+Edwin remembered, and redeemed his promise. He hearkened to the teaching
+of the earnest monk, with the result that before long he and his court
+were baptised by Paulinus, Edwin's little daughter, it is said, being
+the first to receive the sacred rite.
+
+This was at York; and when the king and queen went to the royal city of
+Bamburgh, or to their country dwelling at the foot of the Cheviots,
+Paulinus accompanied them; and wherever he went, he laboured to teach
+the North-country Angles and Saxons the gospel of Christ. This country
+dwelling, to which came Paulinus and his royal friends, was Ad-gefrin,
+or Yeavering; and though it is extremely unlikely that any traces of it
+could remain until our day, yet tradition points out a fragment of an
+old building still standing there, as a remnant of the royal residence.
+
+In the region of Kirknewton, a pretty little village to the north-west
+of Yeavering, where Colledge Water joins the Glen, which gives its name
+to the romantic district of Glendale, Paulinus baptised many hundreds of
+Edwin's people; and the name of Pallinsburn--which is now confined to a
+house at some little distance from the burn--enshrines the memory of
+yet another scene of the labours of the indefatigable monk.
+
+If we stand on the wind-swept top of Yeavering Bell, we are surrounded
+by the evidences of still more remote days, for the whole of the summit
+was once a fortified camp of the ancient Britons. A roughly-piled, but
+massive wall, now almost all broken down, surrounded it, and within its
+grass-grown oval are two additional walls, at the east and the west ends
+of the enclosure, and many hut-circles, evidences of the rude dwellings
+of our remote ancestors. Excavations here many years ago brought to
+light a jasper ball, some fragments of a coarse kind of pottery, and
+some oaken armlets. Evidently the enclosure on the summit was intended
+to be a last resort in time of danger, for traces of many huts are to be
+found outside its encircling wall, which is surrounded by a ditch and a
+low rampart of earth. At the east end, where the porphyry crag juts out
+from the hilltop to a height of about twenty feet, full advantage has
+been taken of this naturally strong position.
+
+Now, instead of advancing foes, the spreading heather climbs steadily up
+the sloping sides of this ancient stronghold, and invades the central
+enclosure at its will; a few hardy sheep that have wandered up here from
+the richer pastures below, and now and again a stray tourist, anxious to
+make acquaintance at first hand with one of the more famous of the
+Cheviot heights, and more than satisfied with the glorious view spread
+out before him, are all that disturb the brooding peace of its grassy
+solitudes. Up here the wind blows keenly around us with an exhilarating
+freshness in its breath, and we think regretfully of coats left behind
+at the shepherd's hospitable dwelling, which, with the rest of the
+cottages clustering round the old farm house, lies sunning itself in the
+warm glow of the September afternoon, in the green fields at the foot
+of the sheltering hills.
+
+Looking southward now, up the stream, there is stretching away to the
+left the long ridge of Newton Tor, and away behind it Great Hetha and
+Little Hetha; while half-way down the vale the Colledge Water tumbles
+over the rocks at Hethpoole Linn (or Heathpool, as the modern rendering
+has it), breaking into amber spray deep down beneath overhanging trees
+and boulders and golden bracken.
+
+This brings our thoughts to days comparatively modern, for when Admiral
+Collingwood was raised to the peerage of Great Britain, it was by the
+title of "Baron Collingwood of Caldburn and Hethpoole, in the county of
+Northumberland." The brave Admiral was fond of planting an oak tree
+whenever he found an opportunity, to secure the continuance of those
+wooden walls which in his hands, and in those of his life-long friend,
+Nelson, had proved such a sure defence to his country. In a letter dated
+March, 1806, he wrote to his wife, "I wish some parts of Hethpoole could
+be selected for plantations of larch, oak, and beech, where the ground
+could best be spared. Even the sides of a bleak hill would grow larch
+and fir." In another letter some months later he told her what
+"agreeable news" it was to hear that she was taking care of his oaks,
+and planting some at Hethpoole; and saying that if he ever returned he
+would plant a good deal there; adding, however, that he feared before
+that could take place both he and Lady Collingwood might themselves be
+planted in the churchyard beneath some old yew tree.
+
+Hethpoole presents us with a link not only with history, but with
+romance as well. An ivied ruin near at hand, with walls of enormous
+strength, is said to be the remains of the castle where the final
+tragedy in "The Hermit of Warkworth" took place. Here, it is said, the
+distracted lover came upon his lady and his brother, who had at that
+moment effected her escape, and not recognising the youth, rushed upon
+the pair with drawn sword, only to discover too late his terrible
+mistake, and lose both brother and bride--for the lady received a mortal
+wound in trying to save her rescuer.
+
+Turning our eyes now northward across the Glen from Yeavering Bell, we
+are looking towards Coupland Castle, and the fact that it was built so
+late as the reign of James I. bears eloquent testimony to the insecurity
+of life and property on the Borders even at that period. The barony
+either gave its name to, or took its name from, a well-known
+Northumbrian family, of which one of the most prominent members was that
+Sir John de Coupland who succeeded in capturing David of Scotland at the
+battle of Neville's Cross--not, however, before he had lost some of his
+teeth by a blow from the mailed fist of that doughty monarch!
+
+Beyond Coupland Castle we look across Milfield Plain lying in the angle
+formed by the meeting of the Glen with the deep and sullen Till, whose
+slow windings can be traced as it gleams at intervals between the
+undulations of the lower hills through which it flows northwestward to
+the Tweed. Though a brisk and sparkling stream in certain parts of its
+course, the general characteristics of the Till are well borne out by
+the lines--
+
+  Tweed says to Till
+  "What gars ye rin sae still?"
+  Till says to Tweed
+  "Though ye rin wi' speed
+  And I rin slaw;
+  Where ye droon ae man
+  I droon twa."
+
+There is yet more of historical and traditional interest to note in this
+view from the top of Yeavering Bell, which, as I saw it last, lay warm
+in the glow of a September afternoon. Nennius is our authority for
+stating that on Milfield Plain took place one of the great conflicts in
+which King Arthur
+
+
+  "Fought, and in twelve great battles overcame
+  The heathen hordes, and made a realm, and reigned"
+
+
+And, as we gazed, the level spaces seemed peopled once more with
+charging knights, flashing sword and swinging battle-axe, and the
+intervening centuries dropped away, and Arthur's call to battle for "our
+fair father Christ," seemed curiously befitting that romantic scene.
+But, as the shadows lengthened, and the streams took on a golden glow in
+the rays of the September sun, then slowly setting, "the tumult and the
+shouting of the captains" died away, and the figure of an earnest monk
+seemed to stand by the riverside, with prince and serf, peasant and
+warrior for his audience, and the cold bright waters of the Glen
+dripping from his hand, as he enrolled one after another into the ranks
+of an army mightier than the hosts of Arthur or Edwin.
+
+Milfield again emerges into notice out of the obscurity of those dark
+ages, in the days of the Bernician kings who succeeded Edwin; for Bede
+tells us that "This town (Ad-gefrin) under the following kings, was
+abandoned, and another was built instead of it at a place called
+Melmin," now Milfield. Nothing, however, remains here of the buildings
+which once sheltered the royal Saxons and their court. In later days,
+Milfield has a melancholy interest attaching to it from its connection
+with the battle of Flodden; for, on the heights above, King James fixed
+his camp, in the hope that Surrey would lead his troops across the plain
+below. Of the other considerable heights of the Cheviot range, Carter
+Fell and Peel Fell are the best known; they both lie right on the border
+line of England and Scotland, between the North Tyne and the Rede Water.
+As we have already seen, the men of Tynedale and Redesdale bore a
+reputation for lawlessness in the time of the Border "Moss-trooping"
+days, and until nearly the end of the eighteenth century the tradesmen
+and guilds of Newcastle would take no apprentice who hailed from either
+of these dales. The tracks and passes between the hills, once alive with
+frequent foray and wild pursuit, are now silent and solitary but for the
+occasional passing of a shepherd or farmer, and the flocks of sheep
+grazing as they move slowly up the hillsides. A quaint survival of the
+remembrances of those days was unexpectedly brought before me one day. A
+child presented me with a bunch of cotton-grass, gathered on the moors
+not far from the Roman-Wall. I asked if she knew what they were that she
+had brought. "Moss-troopers," she replied.
+
+Many of the Cheviot heights bear most suggestive and interesting names,
+such as Cushat [7] Law, Kelpie [8] Strand, Earl's Seat, Stot [9] Crags,
+Deer Play, Wether Lair, Bloodybushedge, Monkside, etc., etc.
+
+[Footnote 7: Cushat = a wood-pigeon.]
+[Footnote 8: Kelpie = a water-witch.]
+[Footnote 9: Stot = a bullock.]
+
+In these lonely wilds, which occupy all the northwest of the county, one
+may travel all day and meet with no living thing save the birds of the
+air, and a few shy, wild creatures of the moorlands; curve after curve,
+the rounded hills stretch away into the distance, grass-grown or
+heatherclad, with occasional peat-mosses; above is the "grey gleaming
+sky," and, all around, a stillness as of vast untrodden wastes, and a
+sense of solitude out of all proportion to the actual extent of this
+lonely region. The fascination of it, however, admits of no denial, even
+on the part of those newly making its acquaintance; while those who in
+childhood or youth roam over its wild fells, and feel the spell of its
+brooding mystery, retain in their hearts for all time an unfading
+remembrance of its magic charm.
+
+  COLLEDGE WATER.
+
+
+  My sire is the stooping Cheviot mist,
+  My mother the heath in her purple train;
+  And every flower on her gown I've kissed
+  Over and over and over again.
+
+  The secret ways of the hills are mine,
+  I know where the wandering moor-fowl nest;
+  And up where the wet grey glidders[10] shine
+  I know where the roving foxes rest.
+  [Footnote 10: Glidders = Patches of loose stones on the hillside.]
+
+  I know what the wind is wailing for
+  As it searches hollow and hag and peak;
+  And, riding restless on Newton Tor,
+  I know what the questing shadows seek.
+
+  I know the tale that the brown bees tell,
+  And they tell it to me with a raider's pride,
+  As, drunk with the cups of Yeavering Bell,
+  They stagger home from the English side.
+
+  I know the secrets of haugh and hill;
+  But sacred and safe they rest with me,
+  Till I hide them deep in the heart of Till,
+  To be taken to Tweed and the open sea.
+
+    --_Will. H. Ogilvie_.
+
+  BY PERMISSION OF MESSRS. W. AND R. CHAMBERS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+THE ROMAN WALL.
+
+
+  "Take these flowers, which, purple waving,
+  On the ruined rampart grew,
+  Where, the sons of Freedom braving,
+  Rome's imperial standard flew.
+  Warriors from the breach of danger
+  Pluck no longer laurels there;
+  They but yield the passing stranger
+  Wild-flower wreaths for Beauty's hair."
+    --_Sir Walter Scott._
+                (Lines written for a young lady's album.)
+
+
+
+Of all the abundance of treasure which Northumberland possesses, from a
+historical point of view--of all its wealth of interesting relics of
+bygone days--ancient abbey, grim fortress, menhir and monolith, camp and
+tumulus--none grips the imagination as does the sight of that unswerving
+line which pursues its way over hill and hollow, from the eastern to the
+western shores of the north-land, visible emblem, after more than a
+thousand years, of the far-flung arm of Imperial Rome.
+
+From Wallsend on the Tyne to Bowness on the Solway Firth it strode
+triumphantly across the land; even now in its decay it remains a
+splendid monument to that mighty nation's genius for having and holding
+the uttermost parts of the earth that came within their ken. As was
+inevitable, after the lapse of nearly eighteen centuries the great work
+is everywhere in a ruinous condition, and in many places, especially at
+its eastern end, has disappeared altogether; but not only can its course
+be traced by various evidences, but it was actually standing within
+comparatively recent years. As lately as the year 1800--lately, that is,
+compared with the date of its building--its existence at Byker was
+referred to in a magazine of the period. Now nothing is to be seen of it
+excepting a few stones here and there, for many miles from Wallsend; but
+the highroad westward from Newcastle, by Westgate Road, as is well
+known, follows the course of the Wall for nearly twenty miles. But
+farther west we may walk along the uneven, broken surface of the mighty
+rampart, or climb down into the broad and deep fosse which lies closely
+against it along its northern side, without troubling ourselves with the
+arguments and uncertainties of antiquaries, who have by no means decided
+on what was the original function of the Wall, who was its real builder,
+why and when the earthen walls and fosse which accompany it on the south
+were wrought, and many other smaller controversial points, which afford
+endless matter for speculation and discussion.
+
+Early references to the Wall show that our forefathers knew it as the
+Picts' Wall; it is now generally referred to as the Wall of Hadrian, the
+general concensus of opinion yielding to that indefatigable ruler the
+credit of having wrought the mighty work. Whether built originally as a
+frontier line of defence or not, opinions are not agreed; but it is very
+certain that the Wall afforded the only secure foothold in the North to
+the Romans for well-nigh two centuries of hostility from the restless
+Brigantes to the southward, and the Picts and Scots to the north; and
+for another century or so after their southern neighbours had become
+friendly and peaceful, it still remained a substantial bulwark against
+the northern barbarians.
+
+Throughout the whole of its length it steadily holds the line of the
+highest ridges in its course, climbing up slopes and dipping down into
+the intervening hollows with the least possible deviation from its
+onward course. The most interesting, because most complete, portion of
+the Wall, is that in the neighbourhood of the three loughs--Broomlee,
+Greenlee, and Crag Loughs, which, with Grindon Lough to the south of the
+Wall, boast the name of the Northumberland Lakes. On this portion of the
+wall is situated the large Roman station of Borcovicus, from which we
+have gained a great deal of our information as to what the life of the
+garrisons on this lonely outpost of Empire was like.
+
+The station is situated on hilly ground, which slopes gently to the
+south, and is nearly five acres in extent. On entering the eastern
+gateway one cannot but experience a sudden thrill on seeing the deep
+grooves worn in the stone by the passing and repassing of Roman cart and
+chariot wheels. That mute witness of the daily traffic of the soldiery
+in those long-past centuries speaks with a most intimate note to us who
+eighteen hundred years afterwards come to look upon the place of their
+habitation. The station itself is of the usual shape of the Roman towns
+on the course of the Wall--oblong, with rounded corners. The greatest
+length lies east and west, in a line with the Wall; and two broad
+streets crossing each other at right angles lead from the north to the
+south, and from the east to the western gateways. Each of the four was
+originally a double gateway; but in every case one half of it has been
+closed up, no doubt when the garrison was declining in numbers, and the
+attacks of the enemy were increasing in severity.
+
+[Illustration: NORTH GATEWAY, HOUSESTEADS AND ROMAN WALL.]
+
+Considerable portions of the guard-chambers, one at each side of each
+gateway, still remain; and near one of them was found a huge stone
+trough, its edges deeply worn by, apparently, the frequent
+sharpening of knives upon it. Its use has not been determined; Dr. Bruce
+tells us that one of the men engaged in the work of excavation gave it
+as his firm opinion that the Romans used it to wash their Scotch
+prisoners in! The buildings of the little town--a row of houses against
+the western wall, two large buildings near the centre of the camp, with
+smaller chambers to the east of them--in which the garrison lived,
+worked, and stored their supplies, are still quite plainly to be traced,
+although the walls are only three or four courses high in most places,
+and of the pillars the broken bases are almost all that remain.
+
+A considerable number of people dwelt outside the walls of this, as of
+all the stations, sheltering under its walls, and relying on the
+protection of its garrison; the slope to the southward of Borcovicus
+shows many traces of buildings scattered all over it. On the northern
+side, the steep hill, massive masonry, and deep fosse would seem to have
+offered well-nigh insuperable difficulties to an attacking force such as
+then could be brought against the camp; yet not only here, but in all
+the stations whose remains yet survive, there is unmistakable evidence
+that more than once has the garrison been driven out by a victorious
+foe, to re-enter and occupy it again at a later period. And when we
+consider that the Wall and its forts were garrisoned by the Romans for a
+period extending over nearly three centuries, a period corresponding to
+the time from the reign of James I. to the present day, it becomes a
+matter of wonder, not that such was the case, but that such occurrences
+were not more frequent than the evidences seem to declare.
+
+In spite of all the hard fighting, however, the recreations of lighter
+hours would seem not to have been forgotten; on the north of the wall is
+a circular hollow in the ground, evidently a little amphitheatre, in
+which doubtless many a captive Briton and Pict played his part. On a
+little rise to the southward, called Chapel Hill, stood the temple where
+the garrison paid its vows to the various deities of its worship. Many
+remarkably fine altars found on this and other sites have been
+preserved, either at the fine museum at The Chesters, or at the Black
+Gate in Newcastle. One of the most striking is the altar to Mithras, the
+Persian sun-god, found in a cave near the camp, evidently constructed
+for the celebration of the rites connected with the worship of Mithras.
+The altar shows the god coming out of an egg, and surrounded by an oval
+on which are carved the signs of the Zodiac.
+
+The Teutonic element in the garrison is represented by the altars to
+Mars Thingsus, the discovery of which caused great interest in Germany,
+and by the altars to the Deae Matres--the mother-goddesses, whose carved
+figures are shown seated, fully draped, and holding baskets of fruits on
+their knees. They are generally found in sets of three; but
+unfortunately they have been much mutilated, and all the examples
+remaining are headless. The Deae Matres would seem to correspond in some
+degree to the Roman Ceres and the Greek Demeter, the bountiful givers of
+the fruits of the earth. The majority of the altars found are, as was to
+be expected, dedicated to the deities of Rome; chiefly, as shown by the
+constantly recurring I.O.M.--_Jovi optimo maximo_--to "Jupiter, the best
+and greatest." The varying inscriptions which follow as reasons for
+their erection as votive offerings give us glimpses of the life in these
+communities clearer than those afforded by anything else. And as most,
+if not all, of our knowledge concerning the details of the Roman
+occupation of the north-country has to be obtained from the inscriptions
+which the garrisons left behind them, the inscribed stones as well as
+the altars are of the greatest possible interest and value. One such
+stone, found at the Borcovicus mile-castle, states that "the Second
+Legion, the August (erected this at the command of) Aulus Platorius
+Nepos, Legate and Propraetor, in honour of the Emperor Caesar Trajanus
+Hadrianus Augustus."
+
+At "Cuddy's" (Cuthbert's) Crag near Borcovicus is one of the most
+picturesque bits of scenery to be found on the whole course of the Wall.
+My first acquaintance with it was made on a day of grey mist and
+drizzling rain, which completely hid any view of the surrounding
+country, and of necessity confined our attention to the stones (and wet
+grass!) immediately beneath our feet. But another visit was on a day of
+wind and sunshine, and in the company of a group of light-hearted
+students. We explored the ruins of Borcovicus, walked along the broad
+and broken top of the Wall, and climbed up hill and down dale with it
+under the pleasantest conditions, if a trifle breezy on the heights.
+June was at her traditional best, which she does not often vouchsafe to
+show us; flowers waved all around, amongst the grass and in the crannies
+between the stones, and more than once the lines at the head of this
+chapter were quoted by one to another. Again and again our progress was
+stayed while we admired the glorious view spread out all around, but
+especially was this the case at Cuddy's Crag. We looked westward over
+Crag Lough, its usually dark waters flashing in the afternoon sun; the
+three Loughs were all within view; away to the southward, beyond
+Barcombe Hill, and the site of Vindolana, Langley Castle could be seen,
+"standing four-square to all the winds that blew"; and further away
+again, beyond the valley of the South Tyne, to the southwest the faint
+outlines of Crossfell and Skiddaw. Northward it was quite easy to
+imagine oneself looking out over the Picts' country still, so far do
+the moorlands stretch, and so few are the signs of habitation. Rolling
+ridges stretch northward, wave upon wave, clothed with grass and
+heather, amongst which Parnesius and Pertinax went hunting with little
+Allo the Pict; to the northeast the heights of Simonside showed; and far
+beyond them, though more to the westward, the rounded summits of the
+Cheviots lay on the horizon.
+
+A short distance westward from the Crag is Hot Bank farmhouse, a place
+which most visitors to the Wall remember with grateful feelings; for
+what is more refreshing, after a long tramp, than a farmhouse cup of tea
+accompanied by that most appetising of Northumbrian dainties, hot girdle
+cakes! The Visitors' Book at Hot Bank is a "civil list" of all the most
+learned and noted names in Great Britain, and many outside its shores,
+together with legions of humbler folk. In this it resembles the one at
+Cilurnum, which is the only other considerable station along the line of
+the Wall in Northumberland.
+
+This station of Cilurnum, or Chesters, is a little over five acres in
+extent, and is quite near to Chollerford station on the North British
+Railway. To describe Cilurnum in detail, and the interesting museum
+connected with it, filled with a wonderful collection of objects found
+on the line of the Wall, would require a book to deal with that alone.
+The general plan is the same as that which we have already seen at
+Borcovicus, with the same rounded corners, and double gateway with
+guard-chambers at each side; the western and eastern walls at Chesters,
+however, have each an additional single gateway to the south of the
+larger portals. We must content ourselves with a short survey of the
+camp, with its two wide streets at right angles to each other as at
+Borcovicus, and the rest of them very narrow--indeed, little more than
+two feet in width; the remains of its Forum and market, its barracks
+and houses, its open shops and colonnades, the bases of the pillars yet
+in position; its baths, with pipes, cistern, and flues; and a vaulted
+chamber which was thought, on its being first excavated, to lead to
+underground stables, for a local tradition held that such were in
+existence, and would be found, with a troop of five hundred horses. The
+vault, however, did not lead further, so that the tradition remained
+unproven. Notwithstanding this, there was a grain of fact in it; for
+Chesters was a cavalry station, and five hundred was the full complement
+of the _ala_, or troop (_ala_ being a "wing," and cavalry forming the
+"wing" of an army in position).
+
+Outside the walls of Cilurnum are traces of the usual suburban
+dwellings; and here, near the river, stood the villa of the officer in
+command of the station. The excavation of all these buildings and many
+others took place in the forties and fifties of last century, and were
+due to the energy of Mr. John Clayton, the learned and zealous
+antiquary, in the possession of whose family the estate still remains.
+To Mr. N.G. Clayton we owe the Museum at the Lodge gate, which he built
+for the reception of the notable collection it contains of antiquities
+gathered from all the various stations in Northumberland. A very fine
+altar brought from Vindolana at once strikes the eye, and may be taken
+as a type of many others, though not many are so perfect. The gravestone
+of a standard-bearer, from the neighbouring station of Procolitia, shows
+a full-length carving of the dead warrior. Other inscribed stones are of
+great interest, though unfortunately most of them are but fragments;
+still these fragments not infrequently contain a few words which enable
+students of them to confirm a date or a fact concerning the garrisons,
+which must otherwise have been a matter of pure conjecture. For
+instance, it might seem very improbable that the same regiments should
+have been quartered in certain stations for over two hundred years; yet
+one of the inscribed stones proves that such was the case at Cilurnum.
+The inscription states that the second _ala_ of the Asturians repaired
+the temple during the consulate of certain persons, which is found to be
+about the year 221. In the _Notitia_, which was not compiled until the
+beginning of the fifth century, the second _ala_ of the Asturians is
+given as the garrison of Cilurnum.
+
+Another thing which strikes the imagination is the sight, after the
+lapse of so many centuries, of the erasures on various inscribed
+stones--erasures of some emperor's or Caesar's name after his death by
+the chisel of a soldier in one of his legions on this far-away post of
+his empire. It is one thing to read one's Gibbon, and learn of the
+murder of Geta, son of Severus, by order of his brother Caracalla, and
+another to see the youth's name roughly scratched out on a stone in
+Hexham Abbey crypt; and to read of the assassination of Elagabalus does
+not move us one whit, but to see his name erased from a stone in
+Chesters museum brings the tumultuous happenings in ancient Rome very
+closely home to us.
+
+Here are also several Roman milestones, with their lengthy and sonorous
+inscriptions, from various points on the Wall; and a miscellaneous and
+deeply interesting collection of smaller articles, such as ornaments of
+bronze, jet, or gold, fibulae (brooches or clasps), coins of many
+reigns, Samian-ware, terra-cotta and glass, parts of harness, etc., etc.
+
+Of carven figures there are several besides the standard bearer already
+mentioned. The best is a figure of Cybele, with elaborate draperies,
+but unfortunately headless; another, of Victory, holds a palm branch in
+the left hand, but the right arm is missing. A soldier is shown with
+spear, shield, and ornate head-piece; and a representation of a
+river-god, the genius of the Tyne, is worthy of notice. He is a bearded
+figure, after the style of the figures of Nilus, or the representations
+in old prints of Father Thames. From Procolitia comes an altar to the
+goddess Coventina, a name not met with elsewhere, the presiding genius
+of the well in that station. She is shown reclining on a water-lily
+leaf, holding in one hand a water-plant, and in the other a goblet from
+which a stream of water runs. An elaborate carving of three water
+nymphs, most probably meant to be in attendance on the goddess, is one
+of the few pieces of sculpture that are not greatly mutilated.
+
+Centurial stones are numerous, having been put up at all parts of the
+Wall to record the building of such and such parts by various centurions
+and their companies. The mark >, which Dr. Hodgkin supposes to be a
+representation of the vine rod, a centurion's symbol of authority, and
+the sign C or Q, are used to signify a century. Thus a stone inscribed Q
+VAL. MAXI. states that the century of Valerius Maximus built that part
+of the Wall. Two or three small altars are inscribed DIBVS
+VETERIBVS--"To the Old Gods"; and Mars Thingsus is well represented.
+
+A very important relic of Roman times found at Cilurnum was a bronze
+tablet of citizenship, giving this coveted privilege to a number of
+soldiers who had served in twenty-five campaigns and received honourable
+discharge. There have been only three specimens of this diploma found in
+Britain, and all are preserved in the British Museum. There are many
+memorial tablets erected by wives to their husbands, and husbands to
+their wives, which leads to much speculation as to how these ladies,
+high-born Roman, native Briton, or freed-woman, liked their sojourn in a
+small garrison town on the breezy heights of a Northumbrian moorland.
+Those ladies who dwelt at Cilurnum, however, had not so much cause to
+complain, for such natural advantages as were to be had were certainly
+theirs, in that sheltered spot. The scenery round about Cilurnum is
+quiet, peaceful and pastoral, altogether different from the wild beauty
+of Cuddy's Crag, Limestone Corner, or Whinshields.
+
+Having now noticed the two chief stations on the line of the Wall, it
+will be interesting to follow the course of the rampart itself
+throughout its journey across Northumberland, though to do so in detail
+is impossible within the limits of so small a volume as the present one.
+Neither would it be necessary, or desirable, for the last word in
+detailed description has been said long ago in the two wonderfully
+exhaustive treatises on the subject by Dr. Bruce.
+
+A list of Roman officials, civil and military, throughout the empire has
+come down to us; in this list--_Notitia Dignitatem et Administratem, tam
+civilium quam militarium in partibus orientis et occidentis_--the
+portion which relates to the Wall is headed, _Item per lineam
+Valli_--"Also along the line of the Wall." The following is a copy of
+this portion, as given by Dr. Bruce in his _Handbook to the Roman Wall_.
+
+  The Tribune of the fourth cohort of the Lingones at Segedunum.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of Cornovii at Pons Aelii.
+
+  The Prefect of the first _ala_ of the Asturians at Condercum. The
+  Tribune of the first cohort of the Frixagi (Frisii) at Vindobala.
+
+  The Prefect of the Savinian _ala_ at Hunnum.
+
+  The Prefect of the second _ala_ of the Asturians at Cilurnum.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of the Batavians at Procolitia.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of the Tungrians at Borcovicus.
+
+  The Tribune of the fourth cohort of the Gauls at Vindolana.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of Asturians at Aesica.
+
+  The Tribune of the second cohort of Dalmatians at Magna.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of Dacians, styled Aelia, at Amboglanna.
+
+  The Prefect of the _ala_ called "Petriana," at Petriana.
+
+  The Prefect of a detachment of Moors, styled Aureliani, at Aballaba.
+
+  The Tribune of the second cohort of the Lingones at Congavata.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of Spaniards at Axelodunum.
+
+  The Tribune of the second cohort of the Thracians at Gabrosentum.
+
+  The Tribune of the first marine cohort, styled Aelia, at Tunnocelum.
+
+  The Tribune of the first cohort of the Morini at Glannibanta.
+
+  The Tribune of the third cohort of the Nervians at Alionis.
+
+  The Cuneus of men in armour at Bremetenracum.
+
+  The Prefect of the first _ala_, styled Herculean, at Olenacum.
+
+  The Tribune of the sixth cohort of the Nervians at Virosidum.
+
+Of these stations, with their officers and troops, only those as far as
+Magna are in Northumberland; the rest continue the chain of defences
+across Cumberland to the Solway Firth. Besides these stations, there
+were _castella_ at the distance of every Roman mile (seven furlongs)
+along the Wall, from which circumstance they are known as
+"mile-castles." They provided accommodation for the troops necessary
+between the stations, which were at some distance from each other; and
+between each two _castella_ there were also erected two turrets, so that
+communication from one end of the Wall to the other was speedy and
+certain.
+
+All traces of the station of Segedunum (Wallsend) have long since
+disappeared; the Wall from there, beginning actually in the bed of the
+river, ran almost parallel with the N.E.R. Tynemouth Branch, a little to
+the south of it, and climbing the hill to Byker, went down the slope to
+the Ouseburn parallel with Shields Road, crossing the burn just a little
+to the south of Byker Bridge. From there its course has been traced to
+Red Barns, where St. Dominic's now stands, to the Sallyport Gate, and
+over the Wall Knoll to Pilgrim Street; thence to the west door of the
+Cathedral, and on past St. John's Church, up Westgate Road.
+
+The station at Pons Aelii, it is generally agreed, occupied the ground
+between the Cathedral church of St. Nicholas and the premises of the
+Lit. and Phil. Society. Following the Wall up Westgate Road, we are now
+out upon the highway from Newcastle to Carlisle, which, as we have seen,
+is upon the very line of the Wall for nearly a score of miles. At
+Condercum (Benwell) the next station, garrisoned by a cavalry corps of
+Asturians from Spain, a small temple was uncovered in the course of
+excavating, and two altars found still standing in their original
+position. Both of these were to a deity unknown elsewhere, given as
+Antenociticus on one, and as Anociticus on the other. The former was
+erected by a centurion of the Twentieth Legion, the Valerian and
+Victorious, whose crest, the running boar, we shall meet with more than
+once in our journey.
+
+Westward from here, near West Denton Lodge, faint indications of the
+turf wall (generally called the Vallum, to distinguish it from the
+Murus, or stone wall), come into sight, and traces of a mile-castle to
+the left of the road. After this the Vallum and Murus accompany each
+other for the rest of their journey, with but little intermission. The
+next mile-castle was at Walbottle, from which point a delightful view of
+the Tyne valley and the surrounding country can be obtained. Passing
+Throckley and Heddon-on-the-Wall, where the fosse on the northern side
+of the Wall is well seen, and also the Vallum and its fosse, Vindolana
+(Rutchester) is reached; but there is little evidence here that it is
+the site of a once busy and bustling garrison station. Indeed, up to
+this point and for a considerable distance further, a few courses of
+stones here and there are all that is to be seen of the Roman Wall, its
+material having for the most part been swallowed up in the construction
+of the turnpike road on which we are travelling. This road was made in
+1745 because there was no road by which General Wade could convey his
+troops from Newcastle to Carlisle, when "Bonnie Prince Charlie" marched
+so gaily to that city on his way southward, and so sadly, in a month,
+returned again.
+
+The Wall now makes for the ridge of Harlow Hill, while the Vallum goes
+on in a perfectly straight line past the picturesque Whittle Dene and
+the waterworks, until the Wall joins it again near Welton, where the
+old pele-tower is entirely built of Roman stones. After Matfen Piers,
+where a road to the northward leads to the beautiful little village of
+Matfen, and one to the southward to Corbridge, the Wall passes Wall
+Houses and Halton Shields, where the various lines of the Wall, road,
+and earthworks, as well as the fosse of each, can be distinctly seen.
+Passing Carr Hill, the Wall leads up to the station of Hunnum (Halton
+Chesters), where Parnesius was stationed when Maximus gave him his
+commission on the Wall. It is not easy to recognise the site now, but as
+we follow the road we may comfort ourselves with the reflection that at
+least we have walked right across it from the eastern gate to the
+western.
+
+A short distance further on is Stagshawbank, famed for its fairs, the
+glory of which, however, has greatly departed since the days when Dandie
+Dinmont had such adventures on returning from "Staneshiebank." It stands
+just where the Wall crosses the Watling Street, which enters
+Northumberland at Ebchester, and crossing the moors to Whittonstall,
+leads down the long descent to Riding Mill; there turning westward to
+Corbridge, it comes straight on to Stagshawbank, leading thence
+northwestward past the Wall through Redesdale to the Borders, which it
+reaches at Ad Fines Camp, or Chew Green, where the solitudes of the
+Cheviots and the silence of the deserted camp are soon to be startled by
+the rifle-shots of Territorials at practice. West of Stagshawbank the
+earthen ramparts are to be seen in great perfection.
+
+As the Wall nears Chollerford, one may see, a little to the northward,
+the little chapel of St. Oswald, which, as we have seen in a former
+chapter, marks the site of the battle of Heavenfield. Just before
+reaching this point, there is a quarry to the south of the Wall from
+which the Romans obtained much building-stone, and one of them has left
+his name carved on one of the stones left lying there, thus--(P)ETRA
+FLAVI(I) CARANTINI--_The stone of Flavius Carantinus_.
+
+At Plane Trees Field and at Brunton there are larger pieces of the Wall
+standing than we have yet seen. The Wall now parts company with the
+highroad, which swerves a little to the north in order to cross the Tyne
+by Chollerford Bridge, while the course of the Wall is straight ahead,
+for the present bridge is not the one built and used by the Romans. That
+is in a line with the Wall, and therefore south of the present one; and
+as we have already noticed, its piers can be seen near the river banks
+when the river is low. A diagram of its position is given in Dr. Bruce's
+_Handbook_.
+
+The Wall now leads up to the gateway of Cilurnum, which we have already
+visited; and after leaving the park, it goes on up the hill to Walwick.
+Here it is rejoined by the road, which now for some little distance
+proceeds actually on the line of the Wall, the stones of which can
+sometimes be seen in the roadway. The tower a little further on, on the
+hill called Tower Tye, or Taye, was not built by the Romans, although
+Roman stones were used in its erection; it is only about two hundred
+years old.
+
+At Black Carts farm, which the Wall now passes, the first turret
+discovered on the line of the Wall after the excavations had begun, and
+interest in the subject was revived, was here laid bare by Mr. Clayton
+in 1873. At Limestone Bank, not much further on, the fosse north of the
+Wall, and also that of the Vallum, show a skill in engineering such as
+we are apt to fancy belongs only to these days of powerful machinery,
+and explosives for rending a way through the hardest rock. The ditches
+have both been cut through the solid basalt, and great boulders of it
+are strewn around; one huge mass, weighing many tons, has been hoisted
+out--by what means, we are left to wonder; and another, still in the
+ditch, has the holes, intended for the wedges still discernible.
+
+A mile or so further on is Procolitia (Carrawburgh), where is the famous
+well presided over by the goddess Coventina, whose acquaintance we have
+already made at Cilurnum. The remains of the station at Procolitia are
+by no means to be compared with those at Borcovicus or Cilurnum; very
+few of its stones are yet remaining. The well was the most interesting
+find at Procolitia. It was known to be there, for Horsley had mentioned
+it; but the waters which supplied it were diverted in consequence of
+some lead-mining operations. Then the stream formed by its overflow
+dried up, grass grew over its course and over the well, and it was lost
+sight of entirely. But the same thing which had led to its disappearance
+was the means of finding it again. Some lead miners, prospecting for
+another vein of ore in the neighbourhood, happened to dig in this very
+spot, and soon struck the stones round the mouth of the well. Mr.
+Clayton had it properly excavated, and was rewarded by coming not only
+upon the well, but a rich find of Roman relics of all kinds, which had
+either been thrown pell-mell into it for concealment in a moment of
+danger, or, what is more likely, been thrown in during the course of
+ages as votive offerings to the presiding goddess of the well. There
+were thousands of coins, mostly silver and copper, with four gold pieces
+among them; and a large collection of miscellaneous objects, including
+vases, shoes, pearls, ornaments, altars and inscribed stones, all of
+which were taken to Chesters. The next point of interest on the Wall is
+the farmhouse of Carraw, which the Priors of Hexham Abbey once used as a
+summer retreat. A little further on, at Shield-on-the-Wall, Wade's road
+crosses to the south of the earthen lines, and parts company with the
+Wall for a little while, for the latter bends northward to take the high
+ridge, as usual, while the road and Vallum continue in a straight line.
+The fragments of a mile-castle are standing just at the point where the
+Wall swerves northward; indeed, we have been passing the sites of these
+_castella_, with fragments more or less in evidence all along the route,
+but those which we shall now encounter are much more distinctly to be
+seen than their fellows on the eastern part of the journey, many of
+which have disappeared altogether.
+
+The high crags which here shoulder the Wall are part of the Great Whin
+Sill, an intrusive dyke of dolerite which stretches from Greenhead
+northeastward across the county nearly to Berwick. The military road
+here leaves the Wall, with which it does not again come into close
+contact until both are near Carlisle, though in several places the Roman
+road will be encountered near the Wall in a well-preserved condition.
+The Wall now climbs another ascent to the farmhouse of Sewingshields,
+which name is variously explained as "Seven Shields," and as "The shiels
+(shielings, or little huts) by the seugh" or hollow--the hollow being
+the fosse. Sewingshields Castle, long since disappeared, is the scene of
+the knight's adventures in Sir Walter Scott's "Harold the Dauntless."
+And tradition asserts that King Arthur, with Queen Guinevere and all the
+court, lies in an enchanted sleep beneath the castle, or at least its
+site. Not only is there no castle, but the Wall also has been despoiled
+to supply the material for building the farmhouse and other buildings in
+the neighbourhood. The Wall climbs unfalteringly over the crags, one
+after the other, until the wide opening of Busy Gap is reached. This
+being such a convenient pass from north to south, it was naturally used
+constantly by raiders and thieves; and such an unenviable notoriety did
+it possess, that to call a person a "Busy Gap rogue" was sufficient to
+lay oneself open to an action for libel. Climbing the next slope we look
+down on Broomlee Lough and reach the portion of the Wall we have already
+noted--Borcovicus (Housesteads), Cuddy's Crag, Hot Bank farmhouse, and
+Crag; Lough.
+
+The course of the Wall continues, past Milking Gap, along the rugged
+heights of Steel Rig, Cat's Stairs, and Peel Crag, till on reaching
+Winshields we are at the highest point on the line, 1,230 feet above the
+sea-level. Dipping down to Green Slack, the Wall crosses the valley
+called Lodham Slack, and begins to ascend once more. The local names of
+gaps and heights in this neighbourhood are highly descriptive, and
+sometimes weirdly suggestive; we have had Cat's Stairs, and now we come
+to Bogle Hole, Bloody Gap, and Thorny Doors. A little further west from
+here the very considerable remains of a mile-castle may be seen, in
+which a tombstone was found doing duty as a hearth-stone. The
+inscription recorded that it had been erected by Pusinna to the memory
+of her husband Dagvaldus, a soldier of Pannonia.
+
+Westward from this mile-castle the Wall climbs Burnhead Crag, on which
+the foundations of a building, similar to the turrets, were exposed a
+few years ago; then it dips down again to Haltwhistle Burn, which comes
+from Greenlee Lough, and is called, until it reaches the Wall, the Caw
+Burn. From the burn a winding watercourse supplied the Roman station of
+AEsica (Great Chesters) with water. Just here the Wall is in a very
+ruinous condition; and of the station of AEsica but little masonry
+remains, though the outlines of it can he clearly traced. Beyond AEsica,
+however, is a splendid portion of the Wall, standing some seven or eight
+courses high. Here it climbs again to the top of the crags which once
+more appear, bold and rugged, to culminate in the "Nine Nicks of
+Thirlwall," so called from the number of separate heights into which the
+crags divide, and over which the Wall takes its way.
+
+At Walltown, on this part of its course, is to be seen an old well, in
+which Paulinus is said to have baptised King Edwin; but the local name
+for it is King Arthur's Well. Now the Wall descends to a level and
+pastoral country, leaving behind it the wild moorland and craggy heights
+across which it has travelled so long; but unfortunately much of it has
+been destroyed by the quarrying operations at Greenhead. Of the station
+of Magna (Caervoran) little can be seen at the present day. This station
+and Aesica are nearer to each other than are any other two stations on
+the Wall, and a line of camps, five in number, stand south of the Wall
+and Vallum, from Magna to Amboglanna, showing that a third line of
+defence was deemed necessary where the natural defences of moorland
+ridge, lough or crag were absent.
+
+The Roman way called the Stanegate comes from the eastward almost up to
+the station of Magna, which stands a little to the south of both Wall
+and Vallum, between them and Wade's road, which here approaches nearer
+to the Wall than it has done for many miles.
+
+Another Roman road, the Maiden Way, comes from the South closely up to
+the Vallum, quite near to Thirlwall castle. The name "Thirlwall" was
+supposed to commemorate the "thirling" (drilling or piercing) of the
+Wall at this point by the barbarians, but this is extremely doubtful;
+though the difficulty of defending the wall on this level tract lends an
+air of likelihood to this supposition. Near here the little river Tipalt
+flows across the line of the Wall on its way southward to join the North
+Tyne.
+
+Passing Wallend, Gap, and Rose Hill, where Gilsland railway station now
+stands, we follow the Wall to the deep dene of the Poltross Burn, which
+forms the boundary between Northumberland and Cumberland. The railway
+just beyond the burn crosses the line of the Wall; and, further on, an
+interesting portion, several courses high, takes its way through the
+Vicarage garden. Here we will leave it to continue its way through
+Cumberland, and turn our attention to the chief Roman ways which cross
+Northumberland, with other stations standing upon them.
+
+The Watling Street or Dere Street, we have already noticed; and the
+chief station on it, which has also proved to be the largest in
+Northumberland, is Corstopitum, near Corbridge. The recent excavations
+since 1906 have resulted in the finding of many interesting relics,
+including some hundreds of coins, amongst which were forty-eight gold
+pieces, of later Roman date, ranging from those of Valentinian I. to
+those of Magnus Maximus. Pottery in large quantities has also been
+found, most of it, of course, in a fragmentary condition, but some
+pieces, notably bowls of Samian ware, almost perfect, and dating from
+the first century. Several interesting pieces of sculpture have been
+unearthed; one a finely sculptured lion standing over an animal which it
+has evidently just killed; this was, no doubt, used as an outlet for
+water at the fountain, judging by the projection of the lion's lower
+lip. Another piece of sculpture represents a sun-god, the rays
+surrounding his face; and several altars and many inscribed stones are
+also amongst the treasures lately revealed. A clay mould of a human
+figure was also found, which is supposed to represent some Keltic deity;
+but as the figure wears a short tunic not unlike a kilt, and carries a
+crooked club, the workmen promptly christened it Harry Lauder! The
+buildings in this town, for it is much more than a military station,
+have been large and imposing, as is shown by each successive revelation
+made by the excavators' spades. The portion of the Watling Street
+leading from Corstopitum to the river has also been laid bare.
+
+The Roman road called the Stanegate runs westward from the North Tyne at
+Cilurnum, a little to the north of Fourstones railway station, through
+Newbrough, on past Grindon Hill, Grindon Lough, which it passes on the
+south, and Grindon Dykes, to Vindolana (Chesterholm) another Roman town,
+which lies a mile due south from Hot Bank farmhouse on the Wall.
+Vindolana stood on a most favourable site, a high platform protected on
+three sides, and it covered three and a half acres of ground. Here no
+excavations have yet been made, and the site is grass grown and desolate
+although the outlines of the station may be distinctly traced. A ruinous
+building to the west of this station was popularly called the Fairies'
+Kitchen, a name given to it on account of the marks of fire and soot on
+the pillars. From the station several inscribed stones and altars have
+been taken to the museum at Chesters. One of them is dedicated to the
+Genius of the Camp by Pituanius Secundus, the Prefect of the fourth
+Cohort of the Gauls, which cohort, as we have already seen by the
+_Votitia_, was stationed here. In the valley below Vindolana a little
+cottage is standing. It is built entirely of Roman stones, and was
+erected by an enthusiastic antiquary, Mr. Anthony Hedley, for himself.
+Many of the stones used in its construction have inscriptions on them;
+and in the covered passage, leading from the cottage down to the burn,
+we come upon one of them inscribed with the name of our old friend the
+XXth Legion, and its crest, the running boar. The most interesting relic
+of all in the neighbourhood is a Roman mile-stone, standing in its
+original position on the Stanegate.
+
+Leaving Vindolana, this road goes on westward to Magna, where it joins
+the Maiden Way, another important Roman road, which runs from north to
+south. Coming from the neighbourhood of Bewcastle Fells, it enters
+Northumberland at Gilsland, and leading eastward as far as Magna, then
+turns directly southward past Greenhead.
+
+In concluding this chapter on the Roman remains in our county, _apropos_
+of the wholesale destruction of the Wall and larger stations which has
+taken place in the last century or two, I will quote the words of two
+historians on that subject. Dr. Thomas Hodgkin says: "In the reign of
+Queen Elizabeth, Camden, the enthusiastic antiquary, dared not traverse
+the line of the wall by reason of the gangs of brigands by whom it was
+infested. The union of the two countries brought peace, and peace
+brought prosperity; prosperity, alas! more fatal to the Wall than
+centuries of Border warfare. For now the prosperous farmers of
+Northumberland and Cumberland awoke to the building facilities which
+lurked in these square green enclosures on their farms, treated them as
+their best quarries, and robbed them unmercifully of their fine
+well-hewn stones. Happily that work of demolition is now in great
+measure stayed, and at this day we visit the camps for a nobler purpose,
+to learn all they can teach us as to the past history of our country."
+
+None, I think, will disagree with these words of the learned Doctor,
+whether or not they may go as far as Cadwallader J. Bates, who, in
+concluding his chapter on the Roman Wall, gave it as his opinion that
+"unless the island is conquered by some civilized nation, there will
+soon be no traces of the Wall left. Nay, even the splendid whinstone
+crags on which it stands will be all quarried away to mend the roads of
+our urban and rural authorities."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+SOME NORTHUMBRIAN STREAMS.
+
+
+  "Come, don't abuse our climate, and revile
+  The crowning county of England--yes, the best.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Have you and I, then, raced across its moors.
+  Till horse and boy were well-nigh mad with glee,
+  So often, summer and winter, home from school,
+  And not found that out? Take the streams away,
+  The country would be sweeter than the South
+  Anywhere; give the South our streams, would it
+  Be fit to match our Borders? Flower and crag,
+  Burnside and boulder, heather and whin,--you don't
+  Dream you can match them south of this? And then,
+  If all the unwatered country were as flat
+  As the Eton playing-fields, give it back our burns,
+  And set them singing through a sad South world,
+  And try to make them dismal as its fens--
+  They won't be! Bright and tawny, full of fun
+  And storm and sunlight, taking change and chance
+  With laugh on laugh of triumph--why, you know
+  How they plunge, pause, chafe, chide across the rocks,
+  And chuckle along the rapids, till they breathe
+  And rest and pant and build some bright deep bath
+  For happy boys to dive in, and swim up.
+  And match the water's laughter."
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Northumberland is fortunate in the number of rivers which, owing to the
+position of the Cheviot Hills, flow right across the county from west to
+east. These Northumbrian streams have a distinct character of their own,
+and are of a different breed from those of the southern; counties. They
+are neither mountain torrents nor placid leisurely rivers, such as are
+met elsewhere in Britain, but busy, bright, joyous, and sparkling,
+never sluggish, never silent, even when deep and full, as is the Tyne in
+its lower reaches. With the Tyne and its tributary streams we have
+already travelled; but there are others yet awaiting us, claiming our
+attention sometimes for the romantic scenery through which they run
+their bright course, sometimes for the historic sites they pass on their
+way, sometimes for both reasons. Wansbeck, Coquet, Aln, or Till--each
+has its own interest, as has also the Tweed in that score or so of miles
+along which it can he spoken of in connection with Northumberland.
+
+The source of the Wansbeck, the only "beck" the county possesses, is
+amongst the "Wild Hills o' Wannys" (Wanny's beck) a group of picturesque
+sandstone crags which surround Sweethope Lough, a sheet of water which
+covers 180 acres. The scenery of this upper course of the Wansbeck is
+very striking, from the Lough to Kirkwhelpington, flowing between bleak
+moorland and rich pasture, and on to Littleharle Tower, which stands
+secluded in deep woods.
+
+Another mansion near at hand, and most picturesquely situated, is
+Wallington Hall, lying a short distance away on the north bank of the
+Wansbeck. It is one of the most notable country houses in
+Northumberland, and especially so on account of its unique
+picture-gallery, roofed with dull glass, and containing several series
+of pictures connected with Northumbrian history. One of these is a
+series of frescoes by William Bell Scott, whose name was for so many
+years associated with all that was best in art in Newcastle, and whose
+picture of the "Building of the Castle" may be seen at the head of the
+staircase in the Lit. and Phil. building. His pictures at Wallington
+are:--1. The Building of the Roman Wall. 2. The visit of King Egfrid
+and Bishop Trumwine to St. Cuthbert on Fame. 3. A Descent of the Danes.
+4. Death of the Venerable Bede. 5. The Charlton Spur. 6. Bernard Gilpin
+taking down a challenge glove in Rothbury Church. 7. Grace Darling and
+her father on the way to the wreck. 8. The Nineteenth Century--showing
+the High Level Bridge, the Quayside, an Armstrong gun, etc., etc.
+Another series consists of medallions and portraits of famous men
+connected with Northumbrian events, from Hadrian and Severus down to
+George Stephenson and others of modern times; while yet another depicts
+all the incidents of "Chevy Chase."
+
+Some miles further eastward, the Wansbeck receives the Hart Burn--which,
+by the way, is larger than the parent stream at this point--and, a
+little later, the Font. The lovely little village of Mitford, once
+important enough to overshadow the Morpeth of that day, lies at the
+junction of Font and Wansbeck. The Mitfords of Mitford can boast, if
+ever family could, of being Northumbrian of the Northumbrians, as they
+were seated here before the days of the Conqueror, who made such a
+general upsetting amongst the Saxon landowners.
+
+The beauty of the two miles walk along the banks of the Wansbeck from
+here to Morpeth is not easy to surpass in all the county, though several
+parts of the Coquet valley may justly compete with it. William Howitt
+has left on record his admiration for this lovely region, and said
+Morpeth was "more like a town in a dream" than a reality. Especially is
+this so when looking at the town from the neighbourhood of the river.
+Before actually reaching Morpeth the Wansbeck waters the fair fields
+that once held Newminster Abbey in its pride; now, nothing remains but
+an arch or so and a few stones, to remind us of the noble abbey which
+Ralph de Merley built so long ago. When only half built it was
+demolished by the Scots under King David; but willing hands set to work
+again, and the abbey and monastery were completed.
+
+In the town of Morpeth, though newer buildings are stretching out
+towards the outskirts, many of the ancient buildings and streets remain,
+and the general aspect of this part of it is much the same as when the
+Jacobites of Northumberland gathered together here, and the clergyman,
+Mr. Buxton, proclaimed James III. in its Market Place. Of Morpeth
+Castle, built by a De Merley soon after the Conquest, only the gateway
+tower remains, but the outlines of the original boundary walls can be
+clearly traced. A company of five hundred Scots, whom Leslie had left as
+a garrison in 1644, held out here for three weeks against two thousand
+Royalists under Montrose. After the cannonading received during that
+siege, the walls were not repaired again, and the castle fell into
+decay. The inhabitants of Morpeth have a daily reminder of times yet
+more remote, for the Curfew Bell still rings out over the little town
+every evening at eight o'clock.
+
+Another walk of three miles along the still beautiful banks of the
+Wansbeck brings us to Bothal, another little village of great beauty,
+embowered and almost hidden amongst luxuriant woods. Its curious name is
+derived from the Anglo-Saxon _bottell_, a place of abode (as in
+Walbottle). The name conjures up memories of the knights of old, their
+loves and their fortunes, fair or disastrous; for the best-known version
+of "The Hermit of Warkworth" tells us that it was a Bertram of Bothal
+who was the luckless hero of that tale, though another version avers
+that he belonged to the house of Percy.
+
+Wansbeck's fellow stream, the Coquet, has its birth amongst some of the
+wildest scenery of the Cheviot Hills, where the heights of Deel's Hill
+and Woodbist Law look down on the now silent Watling Street and the
+deserted Ad Fines Camp. In its windings along the bases of the hills it
+is joined by the Usway Burn, said to be named after King Oswy, between
+which and the little river Alwine lies the famous Lordship of Kidland,
+once desolate on account of the thieving and raiding of its neighbours
+of Bedesdale and Scotland.
+
+Hodgson, in his "Northumberland," says of this region, "All the said
+Kydlande is full of lytle hilles or mountaynes, and between the saide
+hilles be dyvers valyes in which discende litle Ryvvelles or brokes of
+water, spryngynge out of the said hilles and all fallynge into a lytle
+Rever or broke callede Kidlande water, w'ch fallethe into the rever of
+cockette nere to the towne of alwynntonn, w'tin a myll of the castell of
+harbottell." The reasons for the desolation of Kidland are graphically
+set forth:--"In somer seasons when good peace ys betwene England and
+Scotland, th'inhabitantes of dyv'se townes thereaboutes repayres up with
+theyr cattall in som'ynge (summering) as ys aforesaid, and so have used
+to do of longe tyme. And for the pasture of theyr cattall, so long as
+they would tarye there they payed for a knoweledge two pens for a
+household, or a grote at the most, though they had nev' so many
+cattalles. And yet the poore men thoughte their fermes dere enoughe.
+There was but fewe yeres that they escaped w'thout a greatter losse of
+their goodes and cattalles, by spoyle or thefte of the Scottes or
+Ryddesdale men, then would have paide for the pasture of theyr cattail
+in a much better grounde. And ov' (over, besides) that, the saide valyes
+or hopes of Kidlande lyeth so distant and devyded by mounteynes one from
+an other, that such as Inhabyte in one of these hoopes, valeys, or
+graynes, can not heare the Fraye outcrye, or exclamac'on of such as
+dwell in an other hoope or valley upon the other side of the said
+mountayne, nor come or assemble to theyr assystance in tyme of
+necessytie. Wherefore we can not fynde anye of the neyghbours
+thereabouts wyllinge cotynnally to Inhabyte or plenyshe w'thin the saide
+grounde of Kydland, and especially in wynter tyme."
+
+These reasons were given by the people of "Cockdale" in the neighbouring
+valley, to account for the desolation of Kidland, which lay open on the
+northward to attacks from the Scots, and had no defence on the south
+from the rievers of Redesdale. The inhabitants of Coquetdale seem to
+have been a right valiant and hardy fraternity, honest and fearless,
+well able to give good blows in defence of their possessions, for it is
+left on record that "the people of the said Cock-dayle be best p'pared
+for defence and most defensyble people of themselfes, and of the truest
+and best sorte of anye that do Inhabyte, endlonge, the frounter or
+border of the said mydle m'ches of England." The traces of these days of
+raid and foray are to be found in abundance all over Coquetdale, as
+indeed all over Northumberland, in pele-tower and barmkyn, fortified
+dwelling and bastle house.
+
+Harbottle Castle would have a good deal to tell, could it only speak, of
+siege and assault from the day when, "with the aid of the whole county
+of Northumberland and the bishopric of Durham," it was built by Henry
+II., until, after the Union of the Crowns, it shared the fate of many of
+the Border strongholds, and fell into gradual decay, or was used as a
+quarry from which to draw building material for new and modern
+mansions. At Rothbury, a pele-tower has formed the dwelling of the
+Vicars of that town from the time that any mention of Whitton Tower is
+to be found, it being first noticed as "Turris de Whitton, iuxta
+Rothebery." Rothbury itself occupies quite the finest situation of any
+of the Northumbrian towns. Others, besides it, lie on the banks of a
+pretty river; others, too, possess fair meadows and rich pastures; but
+none other has the combination of these attractive features with the
+finer surroundings of hill, crag, and moorland as picturesquely
+beautiful as those of Rothbury. In the old church here Bernard Gilpin,
+"the Apostle of the North," often preached; and even the fierce rival
+factions of the Borderland were so influenced by the gentle, yet
+fearless preacher, that they consented to forego their usual pleasure of
+"drawing" whenever they met one of a rival family, at least so long as
+Gilpin dwelt among them, and especially to refrain from showing their
+hostility in church.
+
+There are in Coquetdale, as elsewhere, memorials of the ancient British
+days in the many camps to be found on the summits of the hills near the
+town, on Tosson Hill and the Simonside Hills; and not camps only, but
+barrows, cist-vaens, and flint weapons in considerable numbers. The
+magnificent view to be obtained, on a clear day, from Tosson Hill or the
+Simonsides is one to be remembered; to the west and north stretch the
+vales of Coquet and Alwin, with the rolling heights of the Cheviots
+bounding them; northward are the woods surrounding Biddlestone Hall, the
+"Osbaldistone Hall" of Scot's _Rob Roy_, awakening memories of Di
+Vernon; far to the eastward a faint blue haze denotes the distant
+coastline; while southward, over the dales of Rede and Tyne, the smoke
+of industrial Tyneside lies on the horizon, with the spires and towers
+of Newcastle showing faintly against the heights of the Durham side of
+the Tyne.
+
+One of the chief sights of Rothbury is the beautiful mansion of Cragside
+and the wonderful valley of Debdon and Crag Hill, as transformed by the
+first Lord Armstrong into a paradise of beauty, where art and nature are
+so blended as to make a romantically artistic whole. Another lovely spot
+on the banks of Coquet is at Brinkburn, where the famous Priory stands
+almost hidden at the foot of thickly wooded slopes. A very much larger
+portion of this fine Priory is still standing than is the case with many
+other religious houses of the same age, for it dates from the reign of
+Henry I. The story is told of Brinkburn as well as of Blanchland, that a
+party of marauding Scots on one of their forays passed by the Priory
+without discovering it in its leafy bower; and so overjoyed were the
+monks at their escape that they incautiously rang the bells by way of
+showing their delight. The Scots, who had passed out of sight but not
+out of hearing, immediately returned on their tracks, and, guided by the
+joyful peal, reached the Priory, sacked the buildings, and then set them
+on fire. It may well be that the tragedy occurred at both places, on
+different occasions.
+
+Farther eastward down the Coquet are two places pre-eminently noted as
+centres for the sport for which the river is famed above all other
+Northumbrian streams, though some of them are worthy rivals. These two
+places are Weldon Bridge and Felton; the old Angler's Inn at the
+first-named is a favourite rendezvous of the fraternity of rod and
+creel. Fishermen have long known the fascination of these two places,
+and I quote from the "Fisherman's Garland" two stanzas written by two
+enthusiastic anglers in praise of them. The writers are Robert Roxby
+and Thomas Doubleday.
+
+
+  "But we'll awa' to Coquetside,
+  For Coquet bangs them a';
+  Whose winding streams sae sweetly glide
+  By Brinkburn's bonny Ha'!"
+
+  _Written in 1821_
+
+  "The Coquet for ever, the Coquet for aye!
+  The _Woodhall_ and _Weldon_ and _Felton_ so gay,
+  And _Brinkburn_ and _Linden_, wi' a' their sweet pride,
+  For they add to the beauty of dear Coquetside."
+
+  _Written in 1826_
+
+Felton, a charmingly placed little village, on the banks of the river
+where they are overhung by graceful woods, and diversified by cliff and
+grassy slope, stands just where the great North Road crosses the Coquet.
+By reason of this position it has been the scene of one or two events of
+historical interest, notably those connected with the "Fifteen" and the
+"Forty-five." On the former occasion, the gallant young Earl of
+Derwentwater, with his followers, was joined here by a band of seventy
+gentlemen from the Borders, and they rode on to Morpeth to proclaim
+James III. And thirty years later, the soldiers of George II. passed
+over the bridge from the southward, led by the Duke of Cumberland, and
+pressed on towards the Scottish moor where they dealt the final blow to
+the Stuart cause at Culloden. The interesting old church at Felton,
+dating from the thirteenth century, is well worth a visit. After leaving
+Felton behind, the Coquet enters on the most marked windings of all its
+winding course, until, when it enters the sea at Warkworth Harbour, just
+opposite Coquet Island, it has contrived to lengthen out its journey to
+a distance of forty miles.
+
+The bright clear stream of the Aln also begins its short journey across
+Northumberland from the heights of Cheviot, but in the narrower
+northern portion of the county. Alnham, with its pele-tower Vicarage,
+ancient church, and memories of a castle, stands just at the foot of the
+hills, near the source of the river. Some three or four miles eastward
+along its banks, a walk through leafy woods brings us to
+Whittingham--the final syllable of which, by the way, one pronounces as
+"jam," as one does that of nearly all the other place-names ending in
+"ing-ham" in Northumberland, contrary though it be to etymological
+considerations--excepting, curiously enough, Chillingham, situated in
+the very midst of all the others. The "ing" and "ham" are in themselves
+a historical guide to the days in which the various villages received
+their names, these two syllables being a certain indication of a Saxon
+settlement, the "home of the sons, or descendants of" whatever person
+the first syllable indicates. Thus, Edlingham, only a few miles away, is
+the "home or settlement of the sons of Eadwulf"; Ellingham, the "home of
+the sons of Ella," and so on. How the "Whitt" syllable was spelled we do
+not know; most probably Hwitta or Hwitha--for all our _wh's_ were _hw_
+originally--_hwaet, hwa, hwaether_ and so forth.
+
+This ancient village is in these days a charming and peaceful place,
+lying in the midst of rich meadow lands, and surrounded by magnificent
+trees. It had its romances, too, in the course of years; so long ago as
+the days of the early Danish invasions a certain widow in Whittingham,
+in the reign of King Alfred, had no less a person than a Danish prince
+among her slaves; he was ransomed, however, and made king of the Danes
+in the North, in consequence of a vision in which St. Cuthbert had
+directed the Abbot of Carlisle to see this done. Young Prince Guthred's
+gratitude showed itself in a substantial grant of land to St. Cuthbert
+at Durham. Whittingham Church is supposed to have been founded by the
+Saxon king Ceolwulf, whose acquaintance we have already made at Holy
+Island, and he bestowed the lands of Whittingham on the church at
+Lindisfarne. It still shows some of the original Saxon work at the base
+of the tower, and much more was to be seen before the so-called
+"restoration" of the church in 1840. The pele-tower on the south side of
+the river, after its days of storm and stress are over, still serves as
+a shelter in time of need, for it is now used as an almshouse for the
+poor of the village, a former Lady Ravensworth having originated the
+quaint idea and seen it carried out.
+
+Whittingham Fair, now Whittingham Sports, a well-known rendezvous of the
+whole countryside, has lost some of its former splendour, but is still
+looked forward to with great enjoyment in the surrounding district. The
+old coaching road from Newcastle to Edinburgh passed through the
+village, crossing the Aln by the stone bridge, from whence it went on
+through Glanton and Wooler to Cornhill.
+
+In the vale of Whittingham, the little Aln flows placidly along, its
+waters murmuring a soothing refrain, a peaceful interlude between its
+busy bustling beginning and its ending. Before reaching Alnwick it flows
+past the ancient walls of Hulne Abbey, the monastery of Carmelite friars
+so romantically founded by the Northumbrian knight and monk after his
+visit to the monastery on Mount Carmel. A considerable portion of the
+ancient building is still standing, and few sites chosen by the old
+monks, who had an unerring eye for beauty as well as safety and
+convenience in their choice of abode, can surpass this one, surrounded
+by fair meadows, and standing on the green hill-side, with the rippling
+Aln flowing through the levels below. In Hulne Park is also the
+Brislee Tower, erected by the first Duke of Northumberland in 1781, on
+the top of Brislee Hill.
+
+[Illustration: ALNWICK CASTLE]
+
+Alnwick itself, with its quaint, uneven, narrow streets, and grey stone
+houses, looks the part of a Border town even in these days; and the grim
+old Hotspur tower, bestriding the main street like an ancient warrior
+still on guard, helps to give the illusion an air of reality. The tower,
+however, was not built by Hotspur, but by his son. The names of the
+streets, too, are redolent of the days when the only safety for the
+inhabitants of a town worth plundering lay in the strength of its walls
+and gateways. Bondgate, Bailiffgate, and Narrowgate, still speak of the
+days of siege and sortie, of fierce attack and stout defence.
+
+The magnificent castle which dominates the town stands majestically at
+the top of a green slope above the Aln, its vast array of walls and
+towers far along the ridge, fronting the North as though still looking,
+albeit with a seemingly languid interest, for the coming of the Scots
+who were such inveterate foes of its successive lords. The principal
+entrance, however, the Barbican, faces southwards to the town, and here
+the massive gateway, with portcullis complete, and crowned by quaint
+life-size figures of warriors in various attitudes of defence, conveys
+the impression that the huge giant is still alert and on guard. The
+history of Alnwick is the history of the castle and its lords, from the
+days of Gilbert Tyson, variously known as Tison, Tisson, and De Tesson,
+one of the Conqueror's standardbearers, upon whom this northern estate
+was bestowed, until the present time. After being held by the family of
+De Vesci (of which the modern rendering is Vasey--a name found all over
+south-east Northumberland) for over two hundred years, it passed into
+the hands of the house of Percy. The Percies, who hailed from the
+village of Perce in Normandy, had large estates in Yorkshire, bestowed
+by the Conqueror on the first of the name to arrive in England in his
+train. The family, however, was represented by an heiress only in the
+reign of Henry II., whose second wife, a daughter of the Duke of
+Brabant, thought this heiress, with her wide possessions, a suitable
+match for her own young half-brother Joceline of Louvain. The marriage
+took place; and thereafter followed the long line of Henry Percies
+(Henry being a favourite name of the Counts of Louvain) who played such
+a large part in the history of both England and Scotland; for, as nearly
+every Percy was a Warden of the Marches, Scottish doings concerned them
+more or less intimately--indeed, often more so than English affairs.
+
+It was the third Henry Percy who purchased Alnwick in 1309 from Antony
+Bec, Bishop of Durham and guardian of the last De Vesci, and from that
+time the fortunes of the Percies, though they still held their Yorkshire
+estates, were linked permanently with the little town on the Aln, and
+the fortress which alike commanded and defended it. The fourth Henry
+Percy began to build the castle as we see it now; but to call him "the
+fourth" is a little confusing, as he was the second Henry Percy, Lord of
+Alnwick. On the whole, it will be clearer to begin the enumerations of
+the various Henry Percies from the time they became Lords of Alnwick. It
+was, then, Henry Percy the second, Lord of Alnwick, who began the
+re-building of the castle; he also was jointly responsible for the
+safety of the realm during the absence of Edward III. in the French
+wars, and in this official capacity, no less than in that of a Border
+baron whose delight it was to exchange lusty blows with an ever-ready
+foe, he helped to win the battle of Neville's Cross. His son, Henry,
+married a sister of John of Gaunt, and their son, the next Henry Percy,
+was that friend who stood John Wycliffe in such good stead, when he was
+cited to appear before the Bishop of London. Henry Percy, who had been
+made Earl Marshal of England, and the Duke of Lancaster took their
+places one on each side of Wycliffe, and accompanied him to St. Paul's,
+clearing a way for him through the crowd. It does not belong to this
+story to tell how their private quarrels with the Bishop prevented
+Wycliffe's interrogation, and how he left the Cathedral without having
+uttered a word; we are concerned at the moment with his North-country
+friend, who, the same year, was created Earl of Northumberland, which
+title he was given after the coronation of Richard II. Nor was this all,
+for he was that Northumberland whose doings in the next reign fill so
+large a part of Shakespeare's Henry IV., and he was the father of the
+most famous Percy of all, the gallant Henry Percy the fifth, better
+known as "Harry Hotspur." Hotspur never became Earl of Northumberland,
+being slain at Shrewsbury in the lifetime of his father, whose estates
+were forfeited under attainder on account of the rebellion of himself
+and his son against King Henry IV.
+
+King Henry V. restored Hotspur's son, the second Earl, to his family
+honours, and the Percies were staunch Lancastrians during the Wars of
+the Roses which followed, the third Earl and three of his brothers
+losing their lives in the cause. The fifth Earl was a gorgeous person
+whose magnificence equalled, almost, that of royalty. Henry Percy, the
+sixth Earl of Northumberland, loved Ann Boleyn, and was her accepted
+suitor before King Henry VIII. unfortunately discovered the lady's
+charm, and interfered in a highhanded "bluff King Hal" fashion, and
+young Percy lost his prospective bride. He had no son, although married
+later to the daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and his nephew, Thomas
+Percy, became the seventh Earl.
+
+Thereafter, a succession of plots and counterplots--the Rising of the
+North, the plots to liberate Mary Queen of Scots, and the Gunpowder
+Plot--each claimed a Percy among their adherents. On this account the
+eighth and ninth Earls spent many years in the Tower, but the tenth
+Earl, Algernon, fought for King Charles in the Civil War, the male line
+of the Percy-Louvain house ending with Josceline, the eleventh Earl. The
+heiress to the vast Percy estates married the Duke of Somerset; and her
+grand-daughter married a Yorkshire knight, Sir Hugh Smithson, who in
+1766 was created the first Duke of Northumberland and Earl Percy, and it
+is their descendants who now represent the famous old house.
+
+At various points in the town are memorials of the constant wars between
+Percies and Scots in which so many Percies spent the greater part of
+their lives. At the side of the broad shady road called Rotten Row,
+leading from the West Lodge to Bailiffgate, a tablet of stone marks the
+spot where William the Lion of Scotland was captured as we have already
+seen, in 1174, by Odinel de Umfraville and his friends; and there are
+many others of similar interest.
+
+Within the park, approached by the gate at the foot of Canongate, is the
+fine gateway which is all that is left of Alnwick Abbey. No more
+peaceful spot could have been found than this, on the level greensward,
+surrounded by fine trees which shelter it on all sides save one, and
+near the brink of the little Aln, whose banks are thickly covered with
+wild flowers, while the steep slope on the opposite side of the river is
+overhung with shady woods. The extent of the parks may be judged from
+the fact that the enclosing wall is about five miles long. At the foot
+of Bailiffgate, on the edge of a steep ridge above the descent to
+Canongate and the banks of the river, the ancient parish church,
+dedicated to St. Mary and St. Michael stands in a commanding position.
+The present building dates from the fourteenth century, and occupies the
+site of an earlier one, whose few remaining stones have been built into
+the present structure. Two other reminders of long-past days are to be
+found in Alnwick; one is the large stone in the Market Place to which
+the bull ring used to be fixed in the days when bull-baiting and
+bear-baiting took place; and the other, a relic of days still further
+back in the distant years, is the sounding of the Curfew Bell, which is
+still rung here every evening at eight o'clock. Altogether there is the
+quaintest and most unexpected mingling of the ancient and modern in the
+little feudal town.
+
+Between Alnwick and the sea, the Aln winds its way past Alnmouth
+Station, formerly known as Bilton Junction, and past Lesbury, a pretty
+little tree-shaded village, to the sandy flats by Alnmouth where it ends
+its journey in the North Sea.
+
+The Till, by whose side we shall next wander, flows in the opposite
+direction, for that historic stream is a tributary of "Tweed's fair
+river, broad and deep," and curves from the Cheviots round to the
+North-west, where it enters the larger stream at Tillmouth. It begins
+life as the Breamish, tumbling down the slopes of Cushat Law within
+sight of all the giants of the Cheviot range. The Linhope Burn, a fellow
+traveller down these steep hillsides, forms in its course the Linhope
+Spout, one of the largest waterfalls to be found amongst the Cheviots,
+before it joins the Breamish, which then flows through a country of
+green slopes and grassy levels to Ingram. This village possesses an old
+church with massive square tower and windows which suggest the fortress
+rather than the church. The heights which stretch eastward from the
+Cheviots and bound the valley of the Till add not a little to the beauty
+and variety of the scenery in this district.
+
+The little stream, which turns northward near Glanton railway station,
+moves on in loops and windings past Beanley, which Earl Gospatric held
+in former days by virtue of the curious office of being a kind of
+official mediator between the monarchs of England and Scotland when they
+came to blows; and past Bewick, with its little Norman church buried
+from sight amongst leafy trees. The effigy of a lady in the chancel of
+this church is said to be that of Matilda, wife of Henry I. This is the
+more likely in that the lands of Bewick formed part of her dowry, and
+were given by her to the monks of Tynemouth Priory. At Bewick Bridge the
+little stream ceases to be the Breamish, and becomes the Till; as an old
+rhyme has it--
+
+  "The foot of Breamish, and head of Till,
+  Meet together at Bewick Mill"
+
+Some miles to the northward, the Till reaches the little village of
+Chatton, having, on the way, passed a little to the westward of
+Chillingham Castle and Park, where is the famous herd of wild cattle.
+Roscastle, a craggy height covered with heather, stands at the edge of
+the chase, and looks over a wild and romantic scene of moorland and
+pastureland, deep glens and heathery hills. The Vicarage at Chatton is
+another of those north-country vicarages in which an old pele-tower
+forms part of the modern residence. On the top of Chatton Law is an
+ancient British encampment, with inscribed circles similar to those on
+Bewick Hill.
+
+From Chatton, the loops and windings of the Till grow more insistent,
+and the little stream adds miles to its length by reason of its
+frequent doubling on its tracks; this, however, but gives an added charm
+to the landscape, as the silvery gleams of the winding river come
+unexpectedly into view again and again. It flows on through Glendale,
+with which attractive region we have already made acquaintance; and on
+its banks are the two prettiest villages in Northumberland--Ford and
+Etal.
+
+Ford Castle, as seen at the present day, is chiefly modern, but the
+northwest tower is part of the old fortress of Odenel de Forde, which
+experienced so many vicissitudes in its time. One of the most famous
+owners of Ford Castle was Sir William Heron, who married Odenel's
+daughter, and who held the responsible and troublesome office of High
+Sheriff of Northumberland for eleven years, besides being Captain of
+Bamburgh and Warden of the northern forests. The castle was burnt down
+by James IV. of Scotland just before the battle of Flodden, which was
+not by any means the only time in its career that it was demolished,
+entirely or in part, and restored again.
+
+In the village of Ford, the walls of the schoolroom are decorated by a
+series of pictures of the children of Scripture story, for whose
+portrayal it is said the Marchioness of Waterford, the artist, took the
+village children as models. The late Vicar of Ford, the Rev. Hastings
+Neville, has laid all who are interested in the rural life of
+Northumberland, and the quaint and traditional manners and customs of
+the North-country which are so fast disappearing, under the greatest
+obligation to him for his interesting and entirely delightful little
+book, "A Corner in the North." Historical records, and matters of
+business, ownerships, etc., connected with any special area can always
+be turned up for reference when required; but the manner of speech, the
+customs of daily life, the quaint survivals of former usages and
+half-forgotten lore, being entirely dependent on individual memory and
+oral tradition, only too often disappear before any adequate record can
+be made. Hence it is a matter for congratulation that such a book should
+have been written.
+
+Etal, Ford's pretty neighbour, also boasts a castle, built only two
+years after that of Ford and by the same masons. A considerable portion
+of the ruins remains, but, unlike Ford Castle, it was never restored
+after James the Fourth's drastic handling of it, but was left to decay.
+Opposite Ford and Etal, on the left bank of the Till, is Pallinsburn
+House, referred to in another chapter, and the village of Crookham; and
+beyond the woods of Pallinsburn, Flodden ridge, with its memories of the
+disastrous field on which James was slain.
+
+The mansion house of Tillmouth Park, owned by Sir Francis Blake, is
+built of stones from the ruins of Twizell Castle, on the northern bank
+of the Till; the castle was begun by a former Sir Francis Blake but
+never finished. Between the two buildings the Berwick Road crosses the
+Till by Twizell Bridge, over which Surrey marched his men southward on
+the morning of Flodden. Not far from this bridge, to the westward, is
+St. Helen's Well, alluded to by Scott in his account of the battle, in
+"Marmion"--
+
+  "Many a chief of birth and rank,
+  St. Helen, at thy fountain drank."
+
+Sibyl's well, from which Lady Clare brought water to moisten the lips of
+the dying Marmion, is beside the little church at Branxton. Tillmouth,
+however, has older memories still; for it was to the little chapel there
+that St. Cuthbert's body floated in its stone coffin from Melrose,
+dating the course of its seven years' wandering, ere it found a final
+rest at Durham.
+
+
+  "From sea to sea, from shore to shore,
+  Seven years Saint Cuthbert's corpse they bore
+  They rested them in fair Melrose,
+  But though alive he loved it well
+  Not there his relics might repose,
+      For, wondrous tale to tell,
+  In his stone coffin forth he glides,
+  A ponderous bark for river tides,
+  Yet light as gossamer it glides
+      Downward to Tillmouth cell.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Chester-le-Street and Ripon saw
+  His holy corpse, ere Wardilaw
+      Hailed it with joy and fear;
+  Till, after many wanderings past,
+  He chose his lordly seat at last
+  Where his cathedral, huge and vast,
+      Looks down upon the Wear."
+
+  _Sir W. Scott_--MARMION.
+
+
+The "stone coffin" was boat-shaped, "ten feet long, three feet and a
+half in diameter, and only four inches thick, so that, with very little
+assistance, it might certainly have swum; it still lies, or at least did
+so a few years ago, in two pieces, beside the ruined chapel at
+Tilmouth."--_Sir W. Scott's Notes to "Marmion."_
+
+Three or four miles from Tillmouth, south-westward up the valley of the
+Tweed, and just beyond Cornhill, lies the village of Wark, near which
+the remains of the famous Border castle are still standing. The castle
+was built on a stony ridge of detritus called the _Kaim_, which
+stretches from Wark village towards Carham. In the reign of Henry I. all
+those who owned land in the North were seemingly animated simultaneously
+by a lively desire to secure their Borders; Bishop Flambard began to
+build Norham Castle, Eustace Fitz-John, husband of Beatrice de Vesci,
+built the greater part of Alnwick Castle, and Walter Espic raised the
+mighty fortress, the great "Wark" or work (A.S. _were_ or _weare_) on
+the steep ridge above Tweed, in "his honour (seignieury) of Carham."
+
+From that time the castle of Wark went through a greater succession of
+sieges, assaults, burnings, surrenders, demolitions, and restorations
+than any other place in England, except, perhaps, Norham Castle or
+Berwick-upon-Tweed. In an age and situation where hard blows given and
+returned, desperate adventures and equal chances of life or death were
+the common-places of everyday existence, Wark was probably the place
+where these excitements were to be had oftener than anywhere else.
+
+The romantic episode which gave rise to the establishment of the Order
+of the Garter is generally allowed to have taken place at Wark Castle.
+The young king of Scotland, David Bruce, had "ridden a raid" into
+England, and ravaged and plundered on his way as far as Auckland, after
+having burnt the town of Alnwick, amongst others, but having been
+repulsed before the castle. King Edward III. was at Stamford when he
+heard of the invasion; but hurrying northward he reached Newcastle in
+four days. The Scots, retreating before him, passed Wark Castle, which
+was held by the Countess of Salisbury and her nephew, in the absence of
+her husband. The young man was loth to let so much English booty be
+carried off under his very eyes, so he fell upon the rearguard, and
+succeeded in bringing a number of packhorses to the castle. On this the
+whole Scottish array turned back, and a siege of the castle began; but
+the Countess spiritedly held out, and Edward meanwhile drew nearer. Some
+of the Scotsmen were captured, and from them the Countess's nephew
+heard that Edward had reached Alnwick. He stole out of the castle before
+dawning in heavy rain, to let the King know where his help was urgently
+needed; and by noon of the same day Edward was at Wark, only to find his
+quarry flown, the Scots having retreated a few hours earlier. The King
+was joyfully received and thanked by the grateful Countess; and he in
+his turn was much struck by the beauty and grace of the high-spirited
+lady, and showed his admiration plainly. In the evening, according to
+tradition, a ball was held, at which the incident occurred, so often
+related, of the accidental losing of her garter by the fair chatelaine,
+and the restoration of it by the King, with the remark, as a rebuke to
+the smiling bystanders,--"_Honi soit qui mal y pense._" This he
+afterwards adopted as the motto of the Order he established in honour of
+the beautiful Countess.
+
+The Garter is the most exclusive of Orders, and consists of the reigning
+Sovereign and twenty-five Companions, of whom the Prince of Wales is
+always one; and it takes precedence of all other titles, ranking next to
+royalty. It is a matter of great pride to all Northumbrians that perhaps
+the only instance of its having been bestowed on any except a peer of
+the realm or a foreign Sovereign, has occurred recently in the bestowal
+of the coveted decoration on Sir Edward Grey, a member of the ancient
+and important Northumbrian house of that name.
+
+Every King of England from Henry I. to Henry IV., seems to have been at
+Wark at some time during his reign, with the exception of Richard
+Coeur-de-Lion and Richard II. After the Union of the Crowns, Wark, like
+most other fortresses in the north that were not in use as the dwellings
+of their owners, was allowed to fall into decay. From Wark to Carham is
+a walk of only two miles along the road which follows the course of the
+river, and ultimately leads to Kelso. Carham has the remains of an
+ancient monastery; and here the Danes, after having plundered
+Lindisfarne, fought a battle in which the Saxons, led by several
+Bishops, were defeated with great slaughter. From Carham, having reached
+the last point of interest on the Tweed within the Northumbrian border,
+we must retrace our steps to Tillmouth, and follow the Tweed through
+pasture land and level haughs, until we come in sight of the steep
+cliffs and overhanging woods by Norham Castle.
+
+Naturally here, the words of the opening canto of "Marmion" are recalled
+to our memory--
+
+  "Day set on Norham's castled steep,
+  On Tweed's fair river, broad and deep,
+  And Cheviot's mountains lone
+  The battled towers, the donjon keep,
+  The loophole grates, where captives weep,
+  The flanking walls that round it sweep,
+      In yellow lustre shone."
+
+
+The "castled steep" is still crowned by a massive fragment of the old
+fortress that has braved, in its time, so many days of storm and stress.
+A good deal of the curtain wall, too, is standing, and the natural
+defences of the castle are admirable, for a deep ravine on the east and
+the river with its steep banks on the south made it practically
+unassailable at these points. It was built in 1121, as we have seen, by
+Bishop Flambard of Durham, as a defence for the northern portions of his
+diocese. The necessity for its presence there was soon made apparent,
+for it was attacked by the Scots again and again; and by the time thirty
+years had passed. Bishop Pudsey found it necessary to strengthen it
+greatly. When Edward I. was called to arbitrate between the claimants
+to the Scottish throne, he came to Norham and met the rival nobles, who,
+with their followers, were quartered at Ladykirk, on the opposite side
+of the Tweed. It was known as Upsettlington then, however; the name of
+Ladykirk was bestowed upon it long afterwards, when James IV. built the
+little chapel there, in gratitude for an escape from drowning in the
+Tweed. Edward held his interview with the Scottish nobles in Norham
+church, and announced that he had come there in the character of lord
+paramount, and as such was prepared to make choice of one among them.
+Edward did not by any means make up his mind quickly, and the various
+places in which the successive acts in the affair took place are widely
+scattered, for he met the nobles at Norham, some time afterwards
+delivered his decision at Berwick, and finally received the homage of
+John Balliol at Newcastle.
+
+Norham, like Wark, has also its romantic episode--or rather, an episode
+more conspicuously so in a series of them to which the name might with
+justice be applied. It occurred during the time that Sir Thomas Gray was
+holding the castle against a determined blockade of it by the Scots in
+1318. A certain fair lady of Lincolnshire sent one of her maidens to a
+knight whom she loved, Sir William Marmion (whose name probably
+suggested to Sir Walter Scott the name for the hero of his tale of
+Norham and Flodden). Sir William was at a banquet when the maiden came
+before him bearing a helmet with a golden crest, together with a letter
+from his lady bidding him go "into the daungerust place in England, and
+there to let the heaulme be seene and knowen as famose." Evidently it
+was well known where "the daungerust place in England" was to be found,
+for the story laconically says "So he went to Norham." He had not been
+there more than a day or two when a band of nearly two hundred Scots,
+bold and expert horsemen, led by Philip de Mowbray, made an attack on
+the castle, rousing Sir Thomas and his garrison from their dinner. They
+quickly mounted, and were about to sally forth when Sir Thomas caught
+sight of Marmion, in rich armour, and on his head the helmet with the
+golden crest; and halting his men, he cried out, "Sir knight, ye be come
+hither as a knight-errant to fame your helm; and since deeds of chivalry
+should rather be done on horseback than on foot, mount up on your horse,
+and spur him like a valiant knight into the midst of your enemies here
+at hand, and I forsake God if I rescue not thy body dead or alive, or I
+myself will die for it." At this Marmion mounted and spurred towards the
+Scots, by whom he was instantly set upon, wounded, and dragged from the
+saddle. But before they had time to give him the final blow they were
+scattered by the rapid charge of Sir Thomas and his men, who quickly
+rescued Marmion and set him on his horse again; and using their lances
+against the horses of the Scots, caused many of them to throw their
+riders, while the rest galloped away. The women of the castle caught
+fifty of the riderless horses, on which more of the garrison mounted and
+joined in the pursuit of the flying Scots, whom they chased nearly to
+Berwick.
+
+The tables were sometimes turned, however; and on one of these occasions
+the valiant Sir Thomas Gray and his son were enticed out of the castle
+into an ambush laid for them by their foes, and both captured.
+
+In 1513, just before the battle of Flodden, its walls were at length
+laid low by James IV., but not until the famous cannon "Mons
+Meg"--still, I believe, to be seen at Edinburgh Castle--had been brought
+against it. One of the cannon-balls fired from "Mons Meg" was found,
+and is still kept with others at the Castle. It is said that the Scots
+were told of the weakest spot in the fortifications by a treacherous
+inmate of the castle, who doubtless expected a rich reward for his
+information. Indeed, the ballad of "Flodden" says he came for it; but
+the valiant and chivalrous king would give him no reward but that which
+he said every traitor deserved--a rope.
+
+Afterwards the castle was restored once more, but its more stirring days
+were over; and, to-day, it stands a shattered but dignified ruin,
+overlooking the tranquil river and peaceful woodlands which once echoed
+so continuously to the clash of arms and the shouts of besiegers and
+besieged.
+
+The village of Norham was in Saxon days known as Ubbanford--the Upper
+Ford of two that were available in those days on the Tweed. There was a
+church here, too, in Saxon times, for Bishop Ecfrid built one about the
+year 830, and in it was buried the Saxon king Ceolwulf who became a
+monk: the present church has a good deal remaining of the one built on
+the same site by Bishop Flambard, about the same time as the castle.
+Earl Gospatric, whom William the Conqueror made Earl of Northumberland
+in return for a considerable sum of money--doubtless thinking that to
+give a Northumbrian the Earldom would reconcile the North to his
+rule--is buried in the church porch. Gospatric joined in the resistance
+of the North to William, but returned to his allegiance later. The
+Market Cross of Norham stands on the original base.
+
+From Norham to Tweedmouth the river sweeps forward between picturesque
+ever-widening banks, and often hidden by a leafy screen, past the
+village of Horncliffe, beneath the Union Suspension Bridge, one of the
+first erected of its kind, until at length its bright waters lave the
+historic walls of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and in the quiet harbour there
+meet the inrushing tide from the North Sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+DRUM AND TRUMPET.
+
+"The history of Northumberland is essentially a drum and trumpet
+history, from the time when the _buccina_ of the Batavian cohort first
+rang out over the moors of Procolitia down to the proclamation of James
+III. at Warkworth Cross"--_Cadwallader J Bates_.
+
+
+This sentence of the historian of Northumberland sums up the story of
+our northern county no less admirably than tersely, and it would be
+difficult to find one which should more clearly bring before us the
+whole atmosphere of north-country history and north-country doings for
+many centuries.
+
+Within the limits of this chapter it is impossible to go into the
+details of every "foughten field" within the county; the most that can
+be done is to indicate the many and treat in detail only the few. A
+goodly number have already been alluded to in connection with the place
+where each occurred.
+
+After the Roman campaigns, from those of Agricola to those of Theodosius
+the elder and Maximus, and the legion sent by Stilicho, the earliest
+battle story is that of the one in Glendale fought by King Arthur. Then
+the forming of the kingdom of Bernicia with the advent of Ida at
+Bamburgh was the beginning of a long-protracted struggle between the
+various little states, each fighting for its life, and surrounded by
+others equally determined to take every advantage that offered against
+it. The sons of Ida fought against the celebrated Urien, a Keltic
+chief, who almost succeeded in dispossessing them of their kingdom of
+Bernicia. Hussa, one of Ida's sons, ultimately vanquished Urien's son
+Owen, "chief of the glittering West"; and after Hussa's death Ethelric
+of Bernicia, as we have seen, overcame the neighbouring chieftain of
+Deira, thus forming the kingdom of Northumbria. His successor,
+Ethelfrith, in the year 603 gained a great victory over a large force of
+northern Britons under a leader named Aedan at a place called
+Daegsanstan, which is thought to be Dissington, near Newcastle. His
+further victories were gained outside the limits of our present survey.
+
+After the long and glorious reign of Edwin, his successor, Ethelfrith's
+sons came back to Bamburgh; the eldest, Eanfrid, was slain within a
+year, and his brother Oswald carried on the struggle against Penda of
+Mercia. We have seen how he fought against Penda and Cadwallon on the
+Heavenfield near Chollerford, and gained a victory which obtained for
+him many years of peace. Penda was finally slain by Oswald's successor
+Oswy in a great battle which is supposed to have taken place on the
+banks of the Tweed.
+
+Many years afterwards, Sitric, grandson of that Prince Guthred who was
+once a slave at Whittingham, married a sister of King Athelstan,
+grandson of Alfred the Great. When Sitric died, Athelstan came northward
+to claim Northumbria for himself. He captured Bamburgh--the first time
+that stronghold of the Bernician kings had ever been taken--and arranged
+for two earls to govern Northumbria for him. They attempted
+unsuccessfully to oppose a force of Scots under Anlaf the Red, who was
+joined by two earls of Bretland (Cumbria); and the whole force encamped
+near a place called Weondune, supposed to be Wandon near Chatton.
+Athelstan advanced against them and challenged them to a pitched battle
+on this ground. They agreed, and with much deliberation the course was
+staked out with hazel wands between a wood and a river (Chillingham
+woods and the Till). The Scots greatly outnumbered Athelstan's men, who
+set up their tents at the narrowest part of the plain, giving their king
+time to reach a little "burg" (Old Bewick) in the neighbourhood. A
+running fight followed, which was carried on the next day, and with the
+help of two brothers, Egil and Thorold, who were Norsemen, it ended in a
+complete victory for Athelstan. While in the north, King Athelstan gave
+the well-known rhyming charter to a certain Paulan of Roddam;
+
+  "I kyng Adelstan
+  giffs hier to Paulan
+  Oddam and Roddam
+  als gud and als fair
+  als evyr thai myne war,
+  and thar to wytness
+  Mald my Wiffe."
+
+Shortly after this, at the Battle of Brunanburh, Athelstan vanquished
+Anlaf Sitricsson and Constantine, king of the Scots. The site of this
+battle would seem to have been in Northumbria, as it was into the Humber
+that Anlaf and Constantine sailed with their large fleet; but the
+precise spot has never been determined.
+
+In the reign of Knut the Dane, the Scots obtained the whole of Lothian
+from the Saxon earl of Northumberland, and the vast possessions of St.
+Cuthbert beyond the Tweed seemed about to be lost to the church of
+Durham. Accordingly, the clergy called upon all the people of St.
+Cuthbert from the Tees to the Tweed--all those, that is, who dwelt on
+lands granted by various donors to the church of St. Cuthbert--to rise
+and march northward to fight for their lands. This great company set
+out, in the autumn of 1018, and reached Carham on the Tweed, where they
+were met by Malcolm king of the Scots. A comet had been seen in the sky
+for some weeks and the fears inspired by this dread visitant seem to
+have had more effect upon the Northumbrians than upon the Scots. From
+whatever cause it arose, when the two forces joined in battle a panic
+spread among the followers of St. Cuthbert. They were utterly routed,
+and most of the leading Northumbrians as well as eighteen priests were
+slain--thus curiously repeating the experience of the earlier battle of
+Carham.
+
+For the next three hundred years Northumberland was swept by successive
+waves of raid and reprisal, in the course of which occurred the two
+well-known events, the attack of William the Lion of Scotland on Alnwick
+Castle, and the more famous affair still, the struggle between Percy and
+Douglas known as the battle of Otterburn, which was fought in "Chevy
+Chase" (Cheviot Forest). More important poetically than politically, it
+stands out more vividly in the records of the time than many other
+conflicts of larger import. The personal element in the fight, the deeds
+of gallantry recorded, the sounding roll of the chief knights' names,
+and the high renown of the two leaders, throw a glamour around this
+particular contest which is kept alive by the ballads that chant the
+praises of Percy or Douglas according as the singer was Scot or Saxon.
+Sir Philip Sidney, that "verray parfit gentil knight" and discriminating
+_litterateur_, said "I never heard the old song of Percie and Douglas
+that I found not my hart mooved more than with a trumpet: and yet it is
+sung but by some blynd Crowder,[11] with no rougher voyce than rude
+stile! which beeing so evill apparelled in the dust and cobweb of that
+uncivill age, what wolde it work trimmed in the gorgeous eloquence of
+Pindare!" [Footnote 11: Crowder = fiddler.]
+
+In the endless warfare of the Borders the second of two short-lived
+periods of truce had just expired, and an organised raid on a large
+scale was arranged by the Scots. The main body was to ravage Cumberland;
+and a smaller, but picked force led by Earls Douglas, Moray, and March
+came southward by way of Northumberland. But Northumbrian towers and
+towns knew nothing of their passing; they marched rapidly and by stealth
+into Durham, having crossed the Tyne between Corbridge and Bywell, and
+began to harry and lay waste the greener pastures and richer villages of
+the southern county, the smoke of whose burning homesteads was the first
+intimation to the unlucky English of the fact that a Scottish host was
+in their midst.
+
+The Earl of Northumberland remained at Alnwick in the hope that he might
+be able to attack the Scots on their homeward journey; but he despatched
+his sons Henry Hotspur and Ralph in all haste to defend Newcastle. The
+Scots in due time appeared before the walls.
+
+  And he marched up to Newcastel
+  And rode it round about;
+  "O wha's the lord o' this castel?
+  Or wha's the lady o't?"
+
+  But up spake proud Lord Percy then,
+  And O but he spake hie!
+  "I am the lord o' this castel,
+  My wife's the lady gay."
+
+Douglas challenged Percy to meet him in single combat, and Percy
+promptly accepted. In the duel Percy was unhorsed, and Douglas captured
+his pennon and his gauntlet gloves, embroidered with the Percy lion in
+pearls. This trophy Douglas vowed he would carry off to Scotland with
+him, and set it in the topmost tower of his castle of Dalkeith, that it
+might be seen from afar. "By heaven! that you never shall," replied
+Percy; "you shall not carry it out of Northumberland." "Come and take
+it, then," was Douglas' answer; and Hotspur would have attempted its
+recovery there and then, but he was restrained by his knights. Douglas,
+however, said he would give Percy a chance to recover it, and agreed to
+await him at Otterburn.
+
+  "Yet I will stay at Otterbourne,
+  Where you shall welcome be;
+  And if ye come not at three dayis end,
+  A fause lord I'll call thee"
+
+Next day the Scots left Newcastle and marched northward. They took Sir
+Aymer de Athol's castle of Ponte-land, and the good knight Sir Aymer
+himself, and went on their way, harrying and burning as they went. At
+Otterburn they halted, and rested all night, making huts for themselves
+of boughs and branches. The spot they had chosen was a strong one, on
+the site of a former British camp; and not only was it surrounded by
+trees, but was near marshy ground as well. Next day they attempted to
+take Otterburn tower, but without success.
+
+Meanwhile word was brought to Hotspur that the Scots would spend the
+night at Otterburn; and he, without waiting for Walter de Skirlaw,
+Bishop of Durham, who was expected that evening with a strong force, at
+once set off with 600 spearmen, and a force on foot which is variously
+given as anything from 800 to 8,000. They covered the thirty-odd miles
+by the time evening fell: and as the Scots were at supper in their
+little huts, they were startled by a tumult amongst their grooms and
+camp-followers, and cries of "a Percy! a Percy!" and the Englishmen were
+among them. The Scottish leaders had placed their camp-followers and
+servants at the outermost; part of their encampment, facing the
+Newcastle road; and Hotspur's force, ignorant of this, mistook it for
+the main camp. While they were thus engaged, the Scottish knights were
+enabled to make a detour around the scene of the first attack, and take
+the English in the rear. With loud shouts of "Douglas! Douglas!" they
+fell upon them, and a fierce hand-to-hand struggle began. The moon rose
+clear and bright, and the quiet evening air was filled with the din of
+battle, the ring of steel on steel, the crash of axe on armour, the
+groans of the wounded, and the battle-cries of the combatants on each
+side. Sir Ralph Percy, pressing too rashly forward, was captured by a
+newly-made Scottish knight, Sir John Maxwell. The battle was turning in
+favour of Hotspur, when Douglas sent his silken banner to the front and
+with renewed shouts of "Douglas!" the Scots pressed forward and overbore
+their foes. According to Froissart, there was not a man there, knight,
+squire, or groom, who played the coward. "This bataylle was one of the
+sorest and best foughten without cowards or faynte hearts; for there was
+neither knight nor I squire but that did his devoyre and foughte hande
+to hande." Great deeds were done, and the fame of none amongst them is
+greater than that of the gallant Widdrington;
+
+  "For Witherington my heart is woe,
+  That ever he slaine sholde be!
+  For when his legs were hewn in two
+  He knelt and fought on his knee"
+
+Douglas rushed into the thickest of the fray, and Hotspur tried to find
+him, but in the dim light that was difficult, especially as Douglas
+had, in his haste, come to the fight without helmet or breastplate.
+Presently he was borne to the ground by three English spears; and as he
+lay guarded by his faithful chaplain, Sir John and Sir Walter Sinclair,
+with Sir James Lindsay, came upon him. "How fare you, cousin?" asked Sir
+John. "But poorly, I thank God," answered Douglas; "for few of my
+ancestors died in bed or chamber. I count myself dead, for my heart
+beats slow. Think now to avenge me. Raise my banner and shout 'Douglas!'
+and let neither my friends nor my foes know of my state, lest the one
+rejoice and the other be discomforted." His dying commands were obeyed;
+and while his battle-cry was raised anew, his dead body was laid by a
+"bracken bush," and the fact of his death concealed from friend and foe
+alike. The furious onslaught of the Scots now carried all before them;
+and Hotspur fell a captive to the sword of Sir Hugh Montgomery, a nephew
+of Douglas, after a fierce hand-to-hand encounter. The two chief English
+leaders being captured, the day, or rather the night, was with the
+Scots, in fulfilment of an old prophesy that "a dead Douglas should win
+a field."
+
+  "This deed was done at Otterbourne
+  At the breaking of the day;
+  Earl Douglas was buried at the braken bush,
+  And the Percy led captive away."
+
+
+When the fray was over, the two sides treated their captives with
+knightly courtesy, many being allowed to go to their homes until they
+recovered from their wounds, on giving their word of honour to send the
+amount of their ransom, or themselves return to their captors.
+
+The Bishop of Durham, immediately after having had some refreshment at
+Newcastle, had set out to join the Percies; but as he and his men
+neared Otterburn, they met so many fugitives who gave them anything but
+reassuring accounts of the fortunes of their friends, that half of his
+force melted away, and the Bishop had perforce to return to Newcastle;
+it was scarcely to be expected, indeed, that everyone should have that
+thirst for hard blows which distinguished the knights and their
+immediate followers. The Bishop, however, made one capture--Sir James
+Lindsay, who had ridden so far in pursuit of Sir Matthew Redman that he
+found himself amongst the force advancing under the leadership of the
+warlike prelate.
+
+When the Scots retired from their camp, they took the body of Douglas
+from the "bracken bush" where it lay, and carried it away for burial in
+Melrose Abbey; and Hotspur, as the price of his ransom, built a castle
+for Sir Hugh Montgomery.
+
+After this there was peace on the Borders for the next ten years or so,
+when the game began again as merrily as ever. When Sir Thomas Gray was
+absent from his castle of Wark-on-Tweed, attending Parliament, the Scots
+came down upon it and carried off his children and servants. Sir Robert
+Umfraville met and checked another company that were harrying
+Coquetdale. In the year 1400, Henry Bolingbroke himself led an army to
+Edinburgh; but a guerilla band of Scots, avoiding his line of march,
+stole behind him and ravaged Bamburghshire.
+
+Two years after this, a party of Scots under the next Douglas rode into
+Northumberland, coming nearly as far south as Newcastle. Hotspur set off
+from Bamburgh, of which castle he was Constable at the time, to
+intercept them. He awaited them on the banks of the Glen, near Wooler;
+and the archers of his force went out for forage meanwhile. When the
+Scots arrived, they found themselves in the presence of an enemy whom
+they had imagined to be behind them, and they immediately occupied
+Homildon Hill. The archers, returning, saw the Scottish force on the
+hill, and began the attack forthwith, letting fly their arrows upon the
+foe with deadly precision. Flight after flight fell upon the Scots, who
+were completely bewildered, and seemed incapable of action. A Scottish
+knight, Sir John Swinton, implored the leaders to charge, passionately
+exclaiming, "What madness has seized you, my brave countrymen, that you
+stand here like deer to be shot down? Follow me, those who will! We will
+either gain the victory, or die like men of courage."
+
+On hearing these brave words, Adam de Gordon, Swinton's deadly foe, felt
+his hatred turn to admiration, and kneeling before Swinton, begged that
+he might receive the honour of knighthood from so valiant a hand. The
+two gallant knights then charged the enemy, followed by a number of the
+Scots; but the showers of arrows forced them to retreat towards the
+river, and thither also moved the whole Scottish force, followed still
+by that grim and deadly hail from the English bows. Hotspur would now
+have charged, but the Earl of March, his former antagonist, now his
+friend, restrained his impetuous leader, and persuaded him to let the
+archers continue their effective work.
+
+The event proved his wisdom; the Scots were utterly routed by the
+archers alone. The unfortunate Archibald Douglas added another to his
+long list of reverses; he was taken prisoner, sorely wounded, as was
+also Sir Hugh Montgomery, and over four-score others of importance. It
+was in connection with these prisoners, whom Hotspur refused to deliver
+up to Bolingbroke, that the quarrel took place which eventually led
+Northumberland and his son Hotspur openly to throw off their allegiance
+to Henry Bolingbroke and join in the rebellion of Owen Glendower. Not
+only did Hotspur refuse to give up Douglas and the others to King Henry,
+but he wished Henry to ransom his brother-in-law Mortimer.
+
+  _K. Henry_. But sirrah, henceforth
+  Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer.
+  Send me your prisoners with the speediest means,
+  Or you shall hear in such a kind from me
+  As will displease you.--My lord Northumberland,
+  We licence your departure with your son.--
+  Send us your prisoners, or you'll hear of it.
+
+(_Exeunt_ K. Henry, Blunt, _and train_)
+
+  _Hotspur_. And if the devil come and roar for them
+  I will not send them:--I will after, straight,
+  And tell him so.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  _Worcester_. These same noble Scots
+  That are your prisoners--
+
+  _Hotspur_. I'll keep them all;
+  By heaven, he shall not have a Scot of them;
+  No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not;
+  I'll keep them, by this hand.
+
+  _Worcester_. You start away,
+  And lend no ear unto my purposes.
+  Those prisoners you shall keep.--
+
+  _Hotspur_. Nay, I will, that's flat:--
+  He said he would not ransom Mortimer;
+  Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer;
+  But I will find him when he lies asleep,
+  And in his ear I'll holla "Mortimer!"
+  Nay, I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak
+  Nothing but "Mortimer," and give it him
+  To keep his anger still in motion.
+
+  _The First Part of_ KING HENRY IV., _Act I., Scene 3_.
+
+
+The fight at Homildon Hill took place on a Monday in August, 1402, and
+the memory of it is kept alive by the name of the "Monday Clough" near
+Wooler, where the archers commenced the fight.
+
+More than a hundred years after this, the last, and in many respects the
+greatest, battle ever fought on Northumbrian soil took place at Flodden.
+King James IV. of Scotland had several grievances against England, which
+had rankled in his mind for some time; he had not yet received the full
+amount of the dowry which had been promised with his wife, Margaret
+Tudor, sister of Henry VIII., although they had been married for many
+years; a Scottish noble, Sir Robert Ker, had been killed in
+Northumberland, and the slayer could not be found to be brought to
+justice--he was outlawed, but that seemed to King James very
+insufficient; a Border raid on a large scale, led by Lord Hume, had met
+with disastrous defeat on Milfield Plain at the hands of Sir William
+Bulmer; and Andrew Barton, a notable sea-captain, whom James was looking
+forward to seeing as one of the best leaders of his new navy, had been
+killed in a sea-fight by Thomas Howard, Lord Admiral of England. Added
+to all this, France had appealed to him to invade England in order to
+force Henry VIII. to abandon his French war; the English monarch was
+just then conducting the siege of Terouenne, and the Queen of France
+sent a romantic appeal to James (together with a large sum of money)
+begging him to march "three feet on to English ground" for her sake.
+
+No time could have been more favourable in James' eyes for the
+enterprise; and in a very short space of time he had an army of 100,000
+men collected, and marched from Edinburgh to the Tweed, which he crossed
+near Coldstream. He laid siege to Norham, and captured it after a week's
+investment; and thereafter Wark, Ford, Etal, Duddo and Chillingham fell
+before him. He took up his quarters at Ford Castle, and on marching
+later to meet Surrey, left it almost in ruins.
+
+Surrey meantime had gathered a large force from the northern counties,
+much to James' surprise, for he had taken it for granted that nearly
+every English fighting man would be with Henry in Flanders. There were
+bowmen and billmen from Cheshire and Lancashire under the Stanley
+banner; and James Stanley, Bishop of Ely, brought the banner of St.
+Etheldreda, the Northumbrian queen who founded the monastery of Ely.
+Admiral Sir Thomas Howard brought a band of sailors to join his father
+at Alnwick. Dacre came with a strong contingent from the western
+Marches, men from Alston Moor, Gilsland, and Eskdale, and also some from
+Tynemouth and Bamburgh; and Sir Brian Tunstall with Sir William Bulmer
+led the men of the Bishopric under the banner of St. Cuthbert.
+
+From Alnwick Surrey sent a letter pledging himself to meet James by
+September 9th, and challenging him to battle, a challenge which was
+promptly accepted by the Scottish king. Marching from Alnwick towards
+the Scottish army, Surrey encamped on September 6th on Wooler Haughs.
+James had formed his camp on Flodden Hill, and all Surrey's devices
+could not induce him abandon this strong position. Many of his own
+nobles advised him not to risk a battle, but to withdraw while there was
+yet time; and some were ready to leave the camp and return home, which
+thousands of the more undisciplined in his army had done already, being
+more anxious to carry off their plunder safely than to stay and fight.
+But James was eager for the contest, and felt himself bound in honour to
+give battle to Surrey; he answered haughtily those who counselled
+retreat, and scornfully told Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, that he
+might go home if he were afraid. The old man sorrowfully left the field,
+but his two sons remained with their rash but gallant king, and were
+both slain.
+
+On the day before the battle took place, Surrey, that "auld crooked
+carle," as James called him, marched his men northward across the Till
+and encamped for the night near Barmoor Wood. To the Scots this looked
+as though they had gone off towards Berwick, to repeat James' own
+manoeuvre, and invade the country in the absence of its king; and they
+must have thought that there would be little chance of the battle for
+which James had punctiliously waited taking place on the morrow. But
+Surrey's purpose proved to be quite otherwise. On the following morning
+he sent the vanguard of his army, with the artillery, to make a detour
+of several miles round by Twizell bridge, where they re-crossed to the
+south bank of the Till; and coming south-eastward towards Flodden, they
+were joined by the rest of the army, which had plunged through the
+stream, swollen by continuous rains, at two points near Crookham. The
+two divisions met at Branxton, after having waded through a marsh which
+extended from Branxton nearly to the Till, and which the Scots had
+thought impassable.
+
+Seeing that the English were about to occupy Branxton Hill, which would
+entirely cut him off from communication with Scotland, James was forced
+to abandon his advantageous position; he gave orders for the camp-refuse
+to be fired, and under cover of the dense clouds of smoke marched down
+to forestall Surrey and occupy Branxton ridge. The two armies suddenly
+found themselves within a few spears' length of each other, and the
+battle was begun by the artillery on both sides.
+
+      Sudden, as he spoke,
+  From the sharp ridges of the hill,
+  All downward to the banks of Till
+      Was wreathed in sable smoke.
+  Volumed, and vast, and rolling far,
+  The cloud enveloped Scotland's war
+      As down the hill they broke;
+  Nor martial shout, nor minstrel tone
+  Announced their march; their tread alone,
+  At times one warning trumpet blown,
+      At times a stifled hum.
+  Told England, from his mountain throne
+      King James did rushing come.
+  Scarce could they hear or see their foes
+  Until at weapon-point they close.
+
+Many of the raw levies on the English side fled at the first sound of
+the Scottish cannon; but the master of the ordnance, Lord Sinclair, was
+killed, and his guns silenced. Then the battle joined, and the first
+result was that the English right wing under Sir Edmund Howard was
+scattered and broken before the impetuous charge of the Gordons and
+Highlanders under the Earl of Huntley and Lord Home. Sir Edmund narrowly
+escaped with his life; but Lord Dacre bringing up his reserve of
+horsemen at that moment checked the further advance of the Scots. The
+two central divisions of the armies engaged each other fiercely, the
+Earl of Surrey, with his son Sir Thomas Howard commanding the English
+centre, and King James, with the Earls of Crawford and Montrose that of
+the Scots. Sir Thomas, after having been so hard pressed as to send the
+_Agnus Dei_ he wore to his father as a signal for help, afterwards with
+Sir Marmaduke Constable defeated the Earl of Crawford, whose division
+was opposed to him. Dacre and Sir Thomas now charged Lord Home and
+drove him some little way back, but could not dislodge his men entirely
+from their position. The Earl of Bothwell, who commanded the Scottish
+reserves, now came up to the help of the king, and the day seemed about
+to be decided in favour of the Scots, when Lord Stanley, on the English
+left, exactly reversed the fortunes of the right wing, and scattered and
+routed the Highlanders led by the Earls of Lennox and Argyle. Then with
+his Lancashire lads he attacked the rear of the Scottish position, as
+did also Dacre and Sir Thomas Howard.
+
+  "They saw Lord Marmion's falcon fly,
+  And stainless Tunstall's banner white
+  And Edmund Howard's lion bright
+  All bear them bravely in the fight,
+    Although against them come
+  Of gallant Gordons many a one,
+  And many a stubborn Highlandman,
+  And many a rugged Border clan
+    With Huntly and with Home.
+  Far on the left, unseen the while,
+  Stanley broke Lennox and Argyle."
+
+Nothing now remained for the Scottish centre, hemmed in on all sides,
+but to make a stubborn last stand; and gallantly did they do it. The
+flower of Scotland's chivalry surrounded their brave monarch, and in the
+falling dusk fought desperately to guard their king.
+
+  "No thought was there of dastard flight;
+  Linked in that serried phalanx tight,
+  Groom fought like noble, squire like knight,
+    As fearlessly and well.
+  The stubborn spearmen still made good
+  Their dark impenetrable wood,
+  Each stepping where his comrade stood
+    The instant that he fell."
+
+As night fell, the fierce struggle continued until the darkness made it
+impossible to see friend or foe, but the fate of Scotland's bravest was
+sealed. The king lay dead, covered with wounds, and around him a heap of
+slain; those who were able made their way in haste from the field, while
+the English host encamped where it stood. The more lawless in each army
+plundered both sides impartially, and when the king's body was found
+next day, it too was stripped like many others around it.
+
+  "Then did their loss his foemen know,
+  Their king, their lords, their mightiest low,
+  They melted from the field as snow
+    Dissolves in silent dew.
+  Tweed's echoes heard the ceaseless plash
+    While many a broken band,
+  Disordered, through its currents dash
+    To gain the Scottish land;
+  To town and tower, to down and dale,
+  To tell red Flodden's dismal tale,
+  And raise the universal wail."
+
+The tragic effects of that terrible day were long felt in Scotland.
+Every family of note in the land lost one or more of its members on the
+fatal field, besides the thousands of humbler beings who fell at the
+same time. Scotland did not recover from the crushing blow for more than
+a hundred years; and for many a day the people could not believe that
+their gallant king was really slain, but continued to hope that he had
+escaped in the darkness, and would one day return.
+
+There has recently been erected on Flodden Field a simple cross of stone
+as a memorial of that tragic day. It was unveiled on September 27th,
+1910, by Sir George Douglas, Bart. The inscription on the stone is "To
+the Brave of both Nations."
+
+
+
+
+  THE FLOWERS OF THE FOREST.
+
+
+  A LAMENT FOR FLODDEN.
+
+  I've heard the liltin' at our ewe-milking,
+  Lasses a' liltin' before dawn o' day;
+  But now they are moaning on ilka green loaning--
+  The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away.
+
+  At bughts,[12] in the mornin', nae blythe lads are scornin',
+  Lasses are lonely and dowie and wae;
+  Nae daffin', nae jabbin', but sighin' and sabbin',
+  Ilk ane lifts her leglin [13] and hies her away.
+
+  In harst, at the shearing, nae youths now are jeering,
+  Bandsters are lyart,[14] and runkled, and gray;
+  At fair or at preaching, nae wooing, nae fleeching [15]--
+  The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away.
+
+  At e'en, in the gloaming, nae younkers are roaming
+  'Bout stacks, with the lasses at "bogle" to play;
+  But ilk ane sits drearie, lamenting her dearie--
+  The Flowers of the Forest are weded away.
+
+  Dool and wae for the order sent our lads to the Border!
+  The English for ance by guile wan the day;
+  The Flowers of the Forest, that fought aye the foremost,
+  The prime of our land, are cauld in the clay.
+
+  We'll hear nae mair liltin' at our ewe-milkin';
+  Women and bairns are heartless and wae;
+  Sighing and moaning on ilka green loaning--
+  The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away.
+
+  [Footnote 12: Bughts = sheep-pens.]
+  [Footnote 13: Leglin = milk-pail.]
+  [Footnote 14 Lyart = grizzled.]
+  [Footnote 15: Fleeching = coaxing.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+TALES AND LEGENDS.
+
+
+Northumberland, as might be guessed from its wild history, is rich in
+tales of daring and stories of gallant deeds; there are true tales, as
+well as legendary ones, which latter, after all, may be true in
+substance though not in detail, in spirit and possibility though not in
+a certain sequence of facts. Now-a-days we look upon dragons as fabulous
+animals, and stories of the destruction they wrought, their fierceness
+and their might are dismissed with a smile, and mentally relegated to a
+place amongst the fairy tales that delighted our childhood's days, when
+the idea of belief or disbelief simply did not enter the question. Yet
+what are the dragon stories but faint memories of those gigantic and
+fearsome beasts which roamed the earth in the "dim, red dawn of
+man"--their names, as we read the labels on their skeletons in our
+museums, being now the most fearsome things about them! No one can deny
+that the ichthyosaurus, plesiosaurus, and all the rest of their tribe
+did exist; and were they to be encountered in these days would spread
+the same terror around, and find man almost as helpless before them as
+did any fierce dragon of the fairy tales. That part of the legends,
+therefore, has its foundation in fact; though from the nature of the
+case, we certainly do not possess an authenticated account of any
+particular contest between primitive man and one of these gigantic
+creatures. That oldest Northumbrian poem, however, the "Beowulf,"
+chants the praises of its hero's prowess in encounters of the kind; and
+the north-country still has its legends of the Sockburn Worm, the
+Lambton Worm, and the "Laidly" Worm of Spindleston Heugh, the two first
+having their _venue_ in Durham, and the last in Northumberland. The
+Spindlestone, a high crag not far from Bamburgh, and Bamburgh Castle
+itself, form the scene of this well-known legend. The fair Princess
+Margaret, daughter of the King of Bamburgh was turned into a "laidly
+worm" (loathly or loathsome serpent) by her wicked stepmother, who was
+jealous of the lovely maid. The whole district was in terror of this
+dreadful monster, which desolated the country-side in its search for
+food.
+
+  "For seven miles east and seven miles west
+  And seven miles north and south,
+  No blade of grass or corn would grow,
+  So deadly was her mouth.
+
+  The milk of seven streakit cows
+  It was her cost to kepe,
+  They brought her dayly, whyche she drank
+  Before she wente to slepe."
+
+This offering proved successful in pacifying the creature, and it
+remained in the cave at Spindleston, coming out daily to drink its fill
+from the trough prepared for it. But the fear of it in no wise
+diminished, and
+
+  "Word went east, and word went west,
+  And word is gone over the sea,
+  That a laidly worm in Spindleston Heugh
+  Would ruin the North Countree."
+
+The news in due course comes to the ears of Princess Margaret's only
+brother, the Childe Wynde, who is away seeking fame and fortune abroad.
+In fear for his lovely sister, he calls together his "merry men all,"
+and they set to work to build a ship
+
+  "With masts of the rowan-tree,"
+
+a sure defence against the spells of witchcraft; and hoisting their
+silken sails they hasten homeward.
+
+  "... ... The wind with speed
+  Blew them along the deep.
+  The sea was calm, the weather clear,
+  When they approached nigher;
+  King Ida's castle well they knew,
+  And the banks of Bamburghshire."
+
+
+The wicked queen saw the little bark coming near, and knew that her
+guilt was about to meet its reward. In haste she tried to wreck the
+vessel, but the rowan-tree masts made her spells of no avail. Then she
+bade her servants go to the beach and oppose the landing of the Childe
+and his crew; but the servants were beaten back, and the young knight
+and his men landed in Budle Bay. The worm came fiercely to the attack,
+as the Childe Wynde advanced against it; but on meeting him, and feeling
+the touch of his "berry-brown sword," it besought him to do it no harm.
+
+  "'O quit thy sword, unbend thy brow,
+  And give me kisses three;
+  For though I be a laidly worm
+  No harm I'll do to thee.
+
+  O quit thy sword, unbend thy brow,
+  And give me kisses three;
+  If I'm not won ere the sun goes down
+  Won shall I never be.'
+
+  He quitted his sword, and smoothed his brow,
+  And gave her kisses three;
+  She crept intill the hole a worm,
+  And came out a fayre ladie."
+
+The knight clasped his lovely sister in his arms, and, casting around
+her his crimson cloak, led her back to her home, where the trembling
+queen awaited them. Her doom was spoken by the Childe Wynde--
+
+  "Woe be to thee, thou wicked witch;
+  An ill death mayst thou dee!
+  As thou hast likened my sister dear,
+  So likened shalt thou be"
+
+and he turned her into the likeness of an ugly toad, in which hateful
+shape she remained to her dying day, wandering around the castle and the
+green fields, an object of hatred to all who saw her. The
+"Spindlestone," a tall crag on which the young knight hung his bridle,
+when he went further on to seek the worm in the "heugh," is still to be
+seen, but the huge trough from which the worm was said to drink has been
+destroyed.
+
+There are two legends somewhat similar to each other which are told of a
+company held in the spell of a magic sleep, to be awakened by certain
+devices, in which the blowing of a horn and the drawing of a sword are
+prominent. One is the story of "Sir Guy the Seeker," and is told of
+Dunstanborough Castle. Sir Guy sought refuge in the Castle from a storm;
+and while within the walls a spectre form with flaming hair addressed
+him,
+
+  "Sir knight, Sir knight, if your heart be right,
+  And your nerves be firm and true,"
+
+(fancy "nerves" in a ballad!)--
+
+  "Sir knight, Sir knight, a beauty bright
+  In durance waits for you."
+
+The ballad, written by M.G. Lewis, now describes in a painfully
+commonplace manner the knight's further adventures. He and his guide
+wandered round and round and high and low in the maze of chambers within
+the castle, until at last a door of brass, whose bolt was a venomous
+snake, gave them entrance to a gloomy hall, draped in black, which the
+"hundred lights" failed to brighten. In the hall a hundred knights of
+"marble white" lay sleeping by their steeds of "marble black as the
+raven's back." At the end of the hall, guarded by two huge skeleton
+forms, the imprisoned lady was seen in tears within a crystal tomb. One
+skeleton held in his bony fingers a horn, the other a "falchion bright,"
+and the knight was told to choose between them, and the fate of himself
+and the lady would depend upon his choice. Sir Guy, after long
+hesitation, blew a shrill blast upon the horn; at the sound the hundred
+steeds stamped their hoofs, the hundred knights sprang up, and the
+unlucky knight fell down senseless, with his ghastly guide's words
+ringing in his ears--
+
+  "Shame on the coward who sounded a horn
+  When he might have unsheathed a sword!"
+
+In the morning, the unfortunate Sir Guy awoke to find himself lying
+amongst the ruins, and forthwith began his ceaseless and unavailing
+search for the lady he had failed to rescue.
+
+The legend similar to this in many respects is that of King Arthur and
+his court at Sewingshields, to which allusion has already been made in
+the chapter on the Roman Wall. I cannot do better than give this in the
+words of Mr. Hodgson, who tells the story in his History of
+Northumberland. "Immemorial tradition has asserted that King Arthur,
+his queen Guenever, his court of lords and ladies, and his hounds were
+enchanted in some cave of the crags, or in a hall below the castle of
+Sewingshields, and would continue entranced there until someone should
+first blow a bugle-horn that lay on a table near the entrance of the
+hall, and then with the 'sword of the stone' (was this Excalibur?) cut a
+garter, also placed there beside it. But none had ever heard where the
+entrance to this enchanted hall was, till the farmer at Sewingshields,
+about fifty years since, was sitting knitting on the ruins of the
+castle, and his clew fell, and ran downwards through a rush of briars
+and nettles, as he supposed, into a subterraneous passage. Full in the
+faith that the entrance to King Arthur's hall had now been discovered,
+he cleared the briary portal of its weeds and rubbish, and entering a
+vaulted passage, followed in his darkling way the thread of his clew.
+The floor was infested with toads and lizards; and the dark wings of
+bats, disturbed by his unhallowed intrusion, flitted fearfully around
+him. At length his sinking courage was strengthened by a dim, distant
+light, which as he advanced grew gradually brighter, till all at once he
+entered a vast and vaulted hall, in the centre of which a fire without
+fuel, from a broad crevice in the floor blazed with a high and lambent
+flame, that showed all the carved walls and fretted roof, and the
+monarch and his queen and court reposing around, in a theatre of thrones
+and costly couches. On the floor beyond the fire lay the faithful and
+deep-toned pack of thirty couple of hounds; and on a table before it the
+spell-dissolving horn, sword, and garter. The shepherd reverently, but
+firmly, grasped the sword, and as he drew it leisurely from its rusty
+scabbard, the eyes of the monarch and his courtiers began to open, and
+they rose till they sat upright. He cut the garter; and as the sword was
+being slowly sheathed the spell assumed its ancient power, and they all
+gradually sank to rest; but not before the monarch had lifted up his
+eyes and hands, and exclaimed--
+
+  "O woe betide that evil day
+  On which this witless wight was born,
+  Who drew the sword, the garter cut.
+  But never blew the bugle horn!"
+
+Terror brought on loss of memory, and the shepherd was unable to give
+any correct account of his adventure, or to find again the entrance to
+the enchanted hall.
+
+Another legend is connected with Tynemouth. Just above the short sands
+was a cave known as Jingling Geordie's Hole; the "Geordie" is evidently
+a late interpolation, for earlier mention of the cave gives it as the
+Jingling Man's Hole. No one knows how it came by its name; tradition
+says that it was the entrance to a subterranean passage leading from the
+Priory beneath the Tyne to Jarrow. In this cave it was said that a
+treasure of a fabulous amount was concealed, and the tale of this hoard
+fired a boy named Walter to seek it out, when he heard the tale from his
+mother. On his attaining to knighthood, he resolved to make the finding
+of the treasure his particular "quest," and arming himself, he
+adventured forth on the Eve of St. John. Making his way fearlessly down
+into the cave, undaunted by spectre or dragon, as they attempted to
+dispute his passage, he arrived at a gloomy gateway, where hung a bugle,
+fastened by a golden cord. Boldly he placed the bugle to his lips, and
+blew three loud blasts. To his amazement, at the sound the doors rolled
+back, displaying a vast and brightly-lit hall, whose roof was supported
+on pillars of jasper and crystal; the glow from lamps of gold shone
+softly down on gold and gems, which were heaped upon the floor of this
+magic chamber, and the treasure became the rich reward of the dauntless
+youth.
+
+  "Gold heaped upon gold, and emeralds green,
+  And diamonds and rubies, and sapphires untold,
+  Rewarded the courage of Walter the Bold."
+
+The fortunate youth became a very great personage, indeed, as by means
+of his great riches he was "lord of a hundred castles" and wide domains.
+
+Of a very different character is the story of the Hermit of Warkworth.
+It is unfortunate that this, the most tragic and moving of all
+Northumbrian tales, should be most widely known by means of the prosy
+imitation ballad by Dr. Percy, whose ability as a poet did by no means
+equal his zeal as a collector of ballads. The hero of the sorrowful tale
+is said to have been a Bertram of Bothal, who loved fair Isabel,
+daughter of the lord of Widdrington. Bertram was a knight in Percy's
+train, and at a great feast made by the lord of Alnwick the fair maiden
+and her father were amongst the guests. As the minstrels chanted the
+praises of their lord, and sang of the valiant deeds by which his noble
+house had won renown, the heart of Isabel thrilled at the thought of her
+true knight rivalling those deeds of fame. Summoning one of her
+attendant maidens, she sent her to Bertram, bearing a helmet of steel
+with crest of gold. With the helmet the maiden gave her mistress'
+message, that she would yield to her knight's pleadings and become his
+bride, as soon as he had proved himself a valiant and worthy wearer of
+the golden-crested helm. Reverently Bertram accepted the commands of
+his lady, and vowed to prove his devotion wherever hard blows were to be
+given and danger to be found. The lord of Alnwick straightway arranged
+for an expedition on to Scottish land, in requital of old scores, and
+assembled together a goodly company to ride against the Scots. Earl
+Douglas and his men opposed them, and blows were dealt thick and fast on
+both sides. Bertram was sorely wounded, after showing wondrous prowess
+in the fight; but being rescued by Percy, was borne to the castle of
+Wark upon the Tweed, to recover from his wounds in safety. Isabel's aged
+father had seen the young knight's valour, and promised that the maiden
+herself should tend his hurts and care for him until he recovered. Day
+after day passed, however, and still she came not. At last the knight,
+scarcely able to take the saddle, rode back to Widdrington, tended by
+his gallant young brother, to satisfy himself of what had become of his
+lady. They reached Widdrington tower to find it all in darkness; and
+after repeated knockings the aged nurse came to the gateway and demanded
+the name of those who so insistently clamoured at the door. Bertram
+enquired for the lady Isabel; and then, indeed, all was dismay. The
+nurse, trembling with fear, told the two youths that her mistress had
+set out immediately on hearing of her lover's plight, reproaching
+herself for having led him to adventure his life so rashly, and it was
+now six days since she had gone. Weary and weak, Bertram rested the
+night at the castle, and then set out on his search for his lost lady.
+That they might the sooner search the country round, he and his brother,
+who loved him dearly, took different directions, one going eastward, and
+the other north. They put on various disguises as they went, Bertram
+appearing now in the guise of a holy Palmer, now as a wandering
+minstrel As he was sitting, despondent and well-nigh despairing,
+beneath a hawthorn tree, an aged monk came by, and on seeing the
+supposed minstrel's face of sorrow, said to him,
+
+  "All minstrels yet that e'er I saw
+  Are full of game and glee,
+  But thou art sad and woe-begone;
+  I marvel whence it be."
+
+Bertram replied that he served an aged lord whose only child had been
+stolen away, and that he would know no happiness until he had found her.
+The pilgrim comforted him and bade him hope, telling him that
+
+  "Behind yon hills so steep and high,
+  Down in a lonely glen,
+  There stands a castle fair and strong,
+  Far from the abode of men."
+
+Saying that he had heard a lady's voice lamenting in this lonely tower,
+he passed on, giving Bertram the hope that now at last his quest was
+ended. He made his way to that strong castle, and with his music
+prevailed upon the porter to let him stay near at hand in a cavern; for
+the porter refused to admit him to the castle in the absence of his
+lord, though at the same time giving him food and directing him to the
+cave. He piped all day and watched all night, and was rewarded by
+hearing his lady's voice lamenting within the walls of her prison. On
+the second night he caught a glimpse of her beauteous form, fair as the
+moonbeams that shone around the tower. On the third night, worn with
+watching, he slept, and only awakened as dawn drew nigh. Grasping his
+weapon, he stole near to the castle walls, when to his amazement, he saw
+his lady descend from her window by a ladder of rope, held for her by a
+youth in Highland dress. Stunned at the sight, he could not move to
+follow them, till they had left behind them the castle where the lady
+had been held captive, and were about to disappear over the hill.
+Silently and swiftly then he drew near, and crying furiously, "Vile
+traitor! yield that lady up!" fell upon the youth who accompanied her,
+who in his turn fought as furiously as he. In a few moments Bertram's
+antagonist lay stretched on the ground; and as he gave him the fatal
+thrust he cried, "Die, traitor, die!" The lady recognised his voice, and
+rushing forward, shrieked, "Stay! stay! it is thy brother." But the
+sword of Bertram, already descending with the force of rage and fury in
+the blow, could not be stayed until too late. The fair maid's breast was
+pierced by the sword of the knight who loved her, and she sank down by
+the side of the youth who had delivered her. It was indeed Bertram's
+brother, who had succeeded in his search; and the dying maiden found
+time to tell of his devotion, in rescuing her from this castle of the
+son of a Scottish lord who fain would have made her his bride, before
+she, too, lay lifeless by the side of her brave rescuer, leaving her
+lover too despairing and desolate to seek safety in flight, so that the
+band of searchers from the castle, seeking their prisoner on the hills,
+and dreading their lord's wrath on his return, bore him back with them
+to the dungeon. Their lord, however, had meantime been taken captive by
+Percy (Hotspur), who, as soon as he heard of Bertram's capture, quickly
+exchanged the Scottish chief for his friend. Bertram's sorrow lasted for
+the rest of his days; he gave away his lands and possessions to the
+poor, and retiring to a lovely spot on the banks of the Coquet, where
+rocky cliffs overhung the river, he carved out in the living stone a
+little cell, dormitory, and chapel, and dwelt there, passing his days in
+mourning, meditation, and prayer. In the chapel, with its gracefully
+arched roof, he fashioned on an altar-tomb the image of a lady, and at
+her feet the figure of a hermit, in the attitude of grief, one hand
+supporting his head and the other pressed against his breast, leaning
+over and gazing at the lady for ever. The poignant sentence "My tears
+have been my meat day and night," is carved over the entrance to the
+little chapel. Here, in this beautiful spot, almost under the shadow of
+the castle walls belonging to his noble friend, the sorrowing knight,
+now a holy hermit, spent the remainder of his life in the little
+dwelling he had wrought in the living rock. It remains to-day more
+beautiful, if possible, than ever, overhung by a canopy of waving
+greenery, and draped with ferns and mosses, their graceful fronds laved
+by the rippling Coquet whose gentle murmurings fill the still air with
+music.
+
+The next tale takes us to the neighbourhood of Belford, and out upon the
+old post road from London to Edinburgh. In the unsettled times of James
+the Second's reign, one Sir John Cochrane of Ochiltree was condemned to
+death for his part in the rising which was led by the Duke of Argyle.
+Powerful friends, heavily bribed by Sir John's father, the Earl of
+Dundonald, were working in Sir John's favour, and they had strong hopes
+of obtaining a pardon. But meanwhile, Sir John lay in the Tolbooth at
+Edinburgh, and the warrant for his execution was already on its way
+northward, in the post-bag carried forward by horseman after horseman
+throughout the length of the way. Could the arrival of the warrant only
+be delayed by some means, his life might be saved. In this strait, his
+daughter Grizzel, a girl of eighteen, conceived the desperate idea of
+preventing the warrant's reaching its destination. Saying nothing to
+anyone of her intentions, she stole away from home, and rode swiftly to
+the Border. Following the road for about four miles on the English
+side, she arrived at the house of her old nurse; and here she changed
+her clothes, persuading the old dame to lend her a suit belonging to her
+foster-brother. Making her way southward, she went to the inn at Belford
+where the riders carrying the mail usually put up for the night. Here,
+the same night, came the postman, and the seeming youth watched
+nervously, but determinedly, for an opportunity of finding out whether
+the fateful paper was in his bag or not. No slightest chance presented
+itself, however, and an attempt to obtain the mail-bag during the night
+failed by reason of the fact that the man slept upon it. One thing she
+did accomplish, which gave her hope that the encounter for which she was
+nerving herself might end successfully for her; she managed, unseen, to
+draw the charges from his pistols. Then the courageous girl rode off
+through the dark night to select a favourable spot in which to await his
+coming. For two or three lonely hours she waited, the thought that she
+was fighting for her father's life giving her courage. In the dim light
+of the early dawn she heard the sound of his horse's hoofs from where
+she stood in the shadow of a clump of trees; and steeling herself for
+the part she was to play, and in ignorance of whether he might have
+found out that the charges had been withdrawn from his pistols and might
+have re-loaded them, she waited until he was almost abreast of her, and
+fired at his horse, bringing it down. Before he could extricate himself
+she was upon him with drawn sword; but promising to spare his life if he
+would let her have the mail-bag, she seized it and darted away. He
+attempted to follow to recover his charge, but she reached her horse,
+and rode off like the wind. When she reached a place of safety and
+examined the contents of the bag, what was her joy to find that the
+warrant was there. It was speedily destroyed; and during the time that
+elapsed before the news of the loss could be sent to London and another
+one made out, the friends of Sir John succeeded in obtaining his pardon.
+"Cochrane's bonny Grizzy" lived to a good old age; and "Grizzy's clump"
+on the north road near the little village of Buckton keeps green the
+memory of her daring exploit.
+
+"Bonny Grizzy" was a Scottish maid, though her gallant if lawless deed
+was performed on Northumbrian soil; but there is one Northumbrian maiden
+whose fame will live as long as the sea-waves beat on the wild
+north-east coast, and as long as men's hearts thrill to a tale of
+courage and high resolve. Grace Darling's name still awakens in every
+bosom a response to all that is compassionate, courageous, and
+unselfish; and the thoughts of all north-country folk bold that
+admiration for the gentle girl which has been voiced as no other could
+voice it, in the magical words of Swinburne--
+
+  "Take, O star of all our seas, from not an alien hand,
+  Homage paid of song bowed down before thy glory's face,
+  Thou the living light of all our lovely stormy strand,
+  Thou the brave north-country's very glory of glories, Grace."
+
+The story of her gallantry has been many times re-told, but never grows
+wearisome. The memory of that stormy voyage of the _Forfarshire_, which
+ended in disaster on the Harcar rocks in the Farne group, remains in
+men's minds as the dark and tragic setting which throws into bright
+relief the gallant action of the father and daughter who dared almost
+certain death to rescue their fellow-creatures in peril. It was in
+September, 1838, that the ill-fated vessel left Hull for Dundee; but a
+leak in the boilers caused the fires to be nearly extinguished in the
+storm the vessel encountered. It reached St. Abb's Head by the aid of
+the sails, but then drifted southward, driven by the storm, and struck
+in the early morning, in a dense fog, on the Harcar rocks. Nine of the
+people on board managed to escape in a small boat, which was driven in a
+miraculous manner through the only safe outlet between the rocks. They
+were picked up by a passing boat and taken to Shields. Meanwhile a heavy
+sea had crashed down upon the _Forfarshire_, and broken it in half, one
+portion, with the greater number of crew and passengers, being swept
+away immediately. The remaining portion, the fore part of the vessel,
+was firmly fixed upon the rock. Here the shivering survivors clung all
+that stormy day, the waves dashing over them continually. The captain
+and his wife were washed overboard, clasped in each others' arms; and
+two little children, a boy of eight and a girl of eleven years of age,
+died from exposure and the relentless buffeting of the waves, their
+distracted mother clasping them by the hand long after life was extinct.
+To a terrible day succeeded a yet more terrible night.
+
+  "Scarce the cliffs of the islets, scarce the walls of Joyous Gard
+  Flash to sight between the deadlier lightnings of the sea;
+  Storm is lord and master of a midnight evil-starred,
+  Nor may sight nor fear discern what evil stars may be."
+
+Until the morning they endured; and in the stormy dawn the keeper of the
+Longstone lighthouse, William Darling, and his daughter Grace saw them
+huddled in a shivering heap upon the wave-swept fragments of the wreck.
+The girl begged her father to try to save them, and to allow her to help
+in the task, and after some natural hesitation he consented. The
+brave-hearted mother helped them to launch the boat, and they set forth.
+
+[Illustration: The Wreck of the "Forfarshire"]
+
+  "Sire and daughter, hand on oar and face against the night.
+  Maid and man whose names are beacons ever to the north.
+  ...... all the madness of the stormy surf
+  Hounds and roars them back, but roars and hounds them back in   vain.
+
+  Not our mother, not Northumberland, brought ever forth.
+  Though no southern shore may match the sons that kiss her mouth,
+  Children worthier all the birthright given of the ardent north,
+  Where the fire of hearts outburns the suns that fire the south."
+
+  They reached the rock, where nine persons were still
+  clinging to the wreck, and
+
+  "Life by life the man redeems them, head by storm-worn head,
+  While the girl's hand stays the boat whereof the waves are fain."
+
+With five of the exhausted survivors the boat returned to the Longstone;
+and two of the men went back with William Darling for the other four.
+All were safely housed in the lighthouse and tended by the noble family
+of the Darlings; but the storm raged for several days longer, and made
+it impossible for them to be put ashore. When at length they returned to
+their homes, and the story of the rescue was made known, the whole
+country was moved by it; and presents of all kinds, money, and offers of
+marriage poured in upon Grace, who remained quite unmoved by it all, and
+was still the gentle unassuming girl that she had always been. She
+refused to leave her home, though she was offered twenty pounds a night
+at the Adelphi if she would consent merely to sit in a boat for London
+audiences to gaze upon her. Sad to say, she died of consumption about
+two years afterwards, after having tried in vain to arrest the course of
+her sickness by change of air at Wooler and Alnwick; and she sleeps in
+Bamburgh churchyard, within sound of the sea by which she had spent her
+short life.
+
+  "East and west and south acclaim her queen of England's maids.
+  Star more sweet than all their stars, and flower than all their flowers."
+
+The actual boat in which the gallant deed was performed was long
+preserved at Newton Hall, Stocksfield; but the owners have lately
+presented it to the Marine Laboratory at Cullercoats.
+
+[Illustration:]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+BALLADS AND POEMS.
+
+
+The ballads of Northumberland, as all true ballads should do, partake of
+the characteristics of the district which is their home. As we should
+expect, they treat chiefly of warlike themes, of the chieftain's doughty
+deeds, the moss-trooper's daring and skill, of the knight's courtesies
+and gallant feats of arms, and the feuds of rival clans; in fact, they
+portray for us vividly the time of which they treat, and in a few
+graphic touches bring before us the very spirit of the period. In direct
+and simple phrases the narrative proceeds, giving with rare power just
+the necessary expression to the tale.
+
+These ballads fall naturally into three main divisions. The historical
+ballad is at its best in the famous "Chevy-Chase," which has been the
+delight of gentle and simple for centuries; and the oft-quoted
+declaration of Sir Philip Sidney concerning it still finds an echo in
+our own day.
+
+Of the two best known versions of the ballad, the one here given is the
+more poetical by far; the other, however, contains the account of the
+courage of Hugh Widdrington which has made the gallant squire immortal.
+
+The latter version is as evidently English as the former is Scottish; or
+rather, each has grown to its present form as the reciters exercised
+their art to please an English or a Scottish audience. In the one
+version it is Douglas who takes the offensive, and challenges Percy,
+waiting for him at Otterbourne; in the other we are told that
+
+  "The stout Erle of Northumberland
+  A vow to God did make,
+  His pleasure in the Scottish woods
+  Three summer days to take."
+
+On the death of Douglas--
+
+  "Erle Percy took
+  The dead man by the hand,
+  And said, 'Erle Douglas, for thy life
+  Would I had lost my land!'"
+
+When the battle is over,
+
+  "Next day did many widdowes come
+  Their husbands to bewayle;
+  Their bodyes bathed in purple blood
+  They bore with them away;
+  They kist them dead a thousand times
+  Ere they were cladd in clay."
+
+It was neither of these versions, however, that so moved the heart of
+gallant Sidney, but a much older one, beginning
+
+  "The Perse owt off Northomberlande
+    And a vow to God made he,
+  That he wold hunt in the mountayns
+    Off Chyviat within days iii."
+
+Other historical ballads are "The Rising of the North," "The Raid of the
+Reidswire," "Flodden Field," "Homildon Hill" and "Hedgeley Moor."
+
+The next division may be termed semi-historical; that is, they treat of
+events which actually happened, but which have chiefly a local interest;
+and these may therefore be said to be more truly Northumbrian than any
+others. Such are "Jock o' the Side," "Johnnie Armstrong," "Hobbie Noble"
+and "The Death of Parcy Reed."
+
+Of the third class, the romantic ballads, we have not so rich a store;
+yet "The Gay Goss-hawk," the "Nut-browne Mayde" and the touchingly
+beautiful "Barthram's Dirge" may stand amongst the best of their kind.
+
+"The Gay Gross-hawk" is one of those delightful and imaginative
+productions of which there are so many examples, in which birds and
+hounds share their lords' and ladies' secrets, and serve them staunchly
+in hours of peril; they belong to the times when fairies were still seen
+holding their moonlight revels, when witches exercised their baleful
+arts, and fearsome dragons wore still to be met and conquered--"and if
+you do not believe it," said Dr. Spence Watson, "I am sorry for you!"
+
+The "Nut-browne Mayde" is supposed to have been a Lady Margaret Percy,
+who lived in the reign of Henry VIII.; and the lover to whom she was so
+faithful, notwithstanding his trial of her love by declaring that he was
+an outlaw, and "must to the greenwood go, alone, a banished man," was
+Henry Clifford, son of the Earl of Westmoreland. The inordinate length
+of this ballad forbade its inclusion in the present selection; I am
+sensible that that selection may appear somewhat meagre, but only want
+of space has prevented the inclusion of others that many of my readers
+would doubtless have been glad to see.
+
+Of songs in dialect, Joe Wilson's "Aw wish yor Muthor wad cum!" stands
+easily first; and the other, "Sair feyl'd, hinny!" is given as an
+example of the Northumbrian muse in another mood.
+
+In conclusion, let me say that of the modern verse every example is from
+the pen of a Northumbrian.
+
+
+
+
+
+  CHEVY CHASE I.
+
+
+  It fell about the Lammas tide,
+  When muir-men win their hay,
+  The doughty Douglas bound him to ride
+  Into England to drive a prey.
+
+  He chose the Gordons and the Graemes,
+  With them the Lindsays, light and gay;
+  But the Jardines would not with them ride,
+  And they rue it to this day.
+
+  And he has burned the dales o' Tyne,
+  And part o' Bamburghshire;
+  And three good towers on Reidswire fells
+  He left them all on fire.
+
+  And he marched up to New Castel,
+  And rode it round about;
+  "O wha's the lord of this castel?
+  Or wha's the lady o't?"
+
+  And up spake proud Lord Percy then,
+  And O! but he spake hie!
+  "O I'm the lord of this castel,
+  My wife's the lady gay."
+
+  "If thou art the lord of this castel,
+  Sae weel it pleases me!
+  For ere I cross the Border fells,
+  The tane of us sall die."
+
+  He took a lang spere in his hand
+  Shod wi' the metal free,
+  And for to meet the Douglas there
+  He rode right furiouslie!
+
+  But oh! how pale his lady looked
+  Frae off the castle wa',
+  When down before the Scottish speare
+  She saw proud Percy fa'!
+
+  "Had we twa been upon the green,
+  And never an eye to see,
+  I wad hae had you, flesh and fell,
+  But your sword shall gae wi' me."
+
+  "But gae ye up to Otterbourne
+  And wait there dayis three,
+  And if I come not ere three dayis end,
+  A fause knight ca' ye me."
+
+  "The Otterbourne's a bonnie burn,
+  'Tis pleasant there to be;
+  But there is naught at Otterbourne
+  To feed my men and me.
+
+  "The deer rins wild on hill and dale,
+  The birds fly wild frae tree to tree,
+  But there is neither bread nor kale
+  To feed my men and me.
+
+  "Yet I will stay at Otterbourne
+  Where you sall welcome be;
+  And if ye come not at three dayis end
+  A fause lord I'll call thee."
+
+  "Thither will I come," proud Percy said,
+  "By the might of Our Ladye!"
+  "Thither will I bide thee," said the Douglas,
+  "My troth I plight to thee."
+
+  They lighted high on Otterbourne,
+  Upon the bent sae brown;
+  They lighted high on Otterbourne
+  And threw their pallions down.
+
+  And he that had a bonnie boy,
+  Sent out his horse to grass;
+  And he that had not a bonnie boy,
+  His ain servant he was.
+
+  And up then spake a little foot-page,
+  Before the peep o' dawn--
+  "O waken, waken ye, my good lord,
+  The Percy is hard at hand!"
+
+  "Ye lee, ye lee, ye leear loud!
+  Sae loud I hear ye lee!
+  For Percy had not men yestreen
+  To dight my men and me!"
+
+  "But I hae dreamed a dreary dream,
+  Beyond the Isle of Skye;
+  I saw a dead man win a fight,
+  An' I think that man was I."
+
+  He belted on his gude braid-sword,
+  And to the field he ran;
+  But he forgot his helmet good,
+  That should have kept his brain.
+
+  When Percy wi' the Douglas met
+  I wat he was fu' fain!
+  They swakked their swords till sair they swat,
+  The blude ran down like rain.
+
+  But Percy, with his gude braid-sword,
+  That could sae sharply wound,
+  Has stricken Douglas on the brow,
+  Till he fell to the ground.
+
+  Then he called on his little foot-page
+  And said, "Run speedilie,
+  And fetch my ain dear sister's son,
+  Sir Hugh Montgomerie."
+
+  "My nephew good," the Douglas said,
+  "What recks the death of ane?
+  Last night I dreamed a dreary dream,
+  And I ken the day's thy ain.
+
+  "My wound is deep, I fain wad sleep;
+  Take thou the vanguard of the three,
+  And hide me by the bracken bush
+  That grows on yonder lilye lea.
+
+  "O bury me by the bracken bush,
+  Beneath the bloomin' brier;
+  Let never a living mortal ken
+  That ever a kindly Scot lies here."
+
+  He lifted up that noble lord,
+  Wi' the saut tear in his e'e;
+  He hid him in the bracken bush
+  That his merrie men might not see.
+
+  The moon was clear, the day drew near,
+  The speres in flinders flew,
+  And mony a gallant Englishman
+  Ere day the Scotsmen slew.
+
+  The Gordons gude, in English blude
+  They steeped their hose and shoon;
+  The Lindsays flew like fire about
+  Till a' the fray was dune.
+
+  The Percy and Montgomerie met,
+  And either of other was fain;
+  They swakked swords, and sair they swat,
+  And the blude ran doun like rain.
+
+  "Now yield thee, yield thee, Percy!" he cried;
+  "Or else will I lay thee low."
+  "To whom sall I yield?" quoth Erle Percy,
+  "Sin I see it maun be so."
+
+  "Thou shalt not yield to lord or loon,
+  Nor yet shalt thou yield to me,
+  But thou shalt yield to the bracken bush
+  That grows on yon lilye lea."
+
+  "I will not yield to a bracken bush;
+  Nor yet will I yield to a brier;
+  But I would yield to Erle Douglas,
+  Or Hugh Montgomerie if he were here."
+
+  As soon as he knew it was Montgomerie
+  He stuck his sword's-point in the gronde;
+  The Montgomerie was a courteous knight,
+  And quickly took him by the honde.
+
+  This deed was done at the Otterbourne,
+  About the breaking of the day;
+  Erle Douglas was buried at the bracken bush.
+  And the Percy led captive away.
+
+
+
+
+  JOCK O' THE SIDE.
+
+  Now Liddesdale has ridden a raid,
+  But I wat they had better hae staid at hame;
+  For Michael o' Winfield he is dead,
+  And Jock o' the Side is prisoner ta'en.
+
+  For Mangerton house Lady Downie has gane,
+  Her coats she has kilted up to her knee;
+  And down the water wi' speed she rins,
+  While tears in spates fa' fast frae her e'e.
+
+  Then up and spoke our guid auld laird--
+  "What news, what news, sister Downie, to me?"
+  "Bad news, bad news, for Michael is killed,
+  And they hae taken my son Johnnie."
+
+  "Ne'er fear, sister Downie," quo' Mangerton,
+  "I have yokes of owsen, twenty and three,
+  My barns, my byres, and my faulds a' weel filled,
+  I'll part wi' them a' ere Johnnie shall dee.
+
+  "Three men I'll send to set him free,
+  A' harnessed wi' the best o' steel;
+  The English loons may hear, and drie
+  The weight o' their braid-swords to feel.
+
+  "The Laird's Jock ane, the Laird's Wat twa,
+  O Hobbie Noble, thou ane maun be!
+  Thy coat is blue, thou has been true
+  Since England banished thee to me."
+
+  Now Hobbie was an English man,
+  In Bewcastle dale was bred and born;
+  But his misdeeds they were so great,
+  They banished him ne'er to return.
+
+  Laird Mangerton them orders gave,
+  "Your horses the wrang way maun be shod;
+  Like gentlemen ye maunna seem,
+  But look like corn-cadgers ga'en the road.
+
+  "Your armour gude ye maunna show,
+  Nor yet appear like men of weir;
+  As country lads be a' array'd,
+  Wi' branks and brecham on each mare."
+
+  Sae their horses are the wrang way shod,
+  And Hobbie has mounted his gray sae fine;
+  Jock his lively bay, Wat's on his white horse behind.
+  And on they rode for the water of Tyne.
+
+  At the Cholerford they a' light doun,
+  And there wi' the help o' the light o' the moon,
+  A tree they cut, wi' fifteen nogs on each side,
+  To climb up the wa' of Newcastle toun.
+
+  But when they cam' to Newcastle toun,
+  And were alighted at the wa'
+  They fand their tree three ells ower laigh,
+  They fand their stick baith short and sma'.
+
+  Then up and spak the Laird's ain Jock,
+  "There's naething for't; the gates we maun force."
+  But when they cam' the gate untill,
+  A proud porter withstood baith men and horse.
+
+  His neck in twa the Armstrangs wrung;
+  With fute or hand he ne'er played pa!
+  His life and his keys at once they hae ta'en,
+  And cast the body ahint the wa'.
+
+  Now sune they reach Newcastle jail,
+  And to the prisoner thus they call:
+  "Sleeps thou, or wakes thou, Jock o' the Side,
+  Or art thou weary of thy thrall?"
+
+  Jock answered thus, wi' doleful tone,
+  "Aft, aft I wake--I seldom sleep;
+  But wha's this kens my name sae weel,
+  And thus to ease my wae does seek."
+
+  Then out and spake the gude Laird's Jock,
+  "Now fear ye na', my billie," quo' he;
+  "For here are the Laird's Jock, the Laird's Wat,
+  And Hobbie Noble, come to set thee free."
+
+  "Now haud thy tongue, my gude Laird's Jock,
+  For ever, alas! this canna be;
+  For if a' Liddesdale were here the night,
+  The morn's the day that I maun dee."
+
+  "Full fifteen stane o' Spanish iron
+  They hae laid a' right sair or me;
+  Wi' locks and keys I am fast bound
+  Into this dungeon dark and dreirie!"
+
+  "Fear ye nae that," quo' the Laird's Jock;
+  "A faint heart ne'er won a fair ladie;
+  Work thou within, we'll work without,
+  And I'll be sworn we'll set thee free."
+
+  The first strong door that they cam' at,
+  They loosed it without a key;
+  The next chain'd door that they cam' at
+  They gar'd it a' to flinders flee.
+
+  The prisoner now upon his back
+  The Laird's Jock has gotten up fu' hie;
+  And down the stair, him, irons and a',
+  Wi' nae sma' speid and joy brings he.
+
+  "Now Jock, my man," quo Hobbie Noble,
+  "Some o' his weight ye may lay on me."
+  "I wat weel no," quo' the Laird's ain Jock;
+  "I count him lighter than a flee."
+
+  Sae out at the gates they a' are gane,
+  The prisoner's set on horseback hie;
+  And now wi' speed they're ta'en the gate,
+  While ilk ane jokes fu' wantonlie.
+
+  "O Jock! sae winsomely 's ye ride,
+  Wi' baith your feet upon ae side;
+  Sae weel ye're harnessed, and sae trig,
+  In troth ye sit like ony bride!"
+
+  The night, tho' wat, they didna mind,
+  But hied them on fu' merrilie
+  Until they cam' to Cholerford brae,
+  Where the water ran baith deep and hie.
+
+  But when they came to Cholerford,
+  There they met with an auld man,
+  Says, "Honest man, will the water ride?
+  Tell us in haste, if that ye can."
+
+  "I wat weel no," quo' the gude auld man;
+  "I hae lived here thirty years and three,
+  And I ne'er yet saw the Tyne sae big,
+  Nor running anes sae like a sea."
+
+  Then out and spake the Laird's Saft Wat,
+  The greatest coward in the companie;
+  "Now halt, now halt, we needna try't,
+  The day is come we a' maun dee."
+
+  "Puir faint-hearted thief!" cried the Laird's ain Jock,
+  "There'll nae man die but him that's fey;
+  I'll guide ye a' right safely thro',
+  Lift ye the prisoner on ahint me."
+
+  Wi' that the water they hae ta'en;
+  By anes and twas they a' swam thro';
+  "Here we are a' safe," quo' the Laird's Jock,
+  "And puir faint Wat, what think ye now?"
+
+  They scarce the other brae had won
+  When twenty men they saw pursue;
+  Frae Newcastle toun they had been sent,
+  A' English lads baith stout and true.
+
+  But when the land-serjeant the water saw,
+  "It winna ride, my lads," says he;
+  Then cried aloud--"The prisoner take,
+  But leave the fetters, I pray, to me."
+
+  "I wat weel no," quo' the Laird's Jock;
+  "I'll keep them a'; shoon to my mare they'll be.
+  My gude bay mare--for I am sure
+  She has bought them a' right dear frae thee."
+
+  Sae now they are on to Liddesdale,
+  E'en as fast as they could them hie;
+  The prisoner is brought to his ain fireside,
+  And there o' his airns they mak' him free.
+
+  "Now, Jock, ma billie," quo' a' the three,
+  "The day is com'd thou was to dee.
+  But thou's as weel at thy ain ingle-side,
+  Now sitting, I think 'twixt thou and me."
+
+
+
+
+  BARTHRAM'S DIRGE.
+
+  They shot him dead at the Nine-stane Rig,
+  Beside the Headless Cross,
+  And they left him lying in his blood,
+  Upon the moor and moss.
+
+  They made a bier of the broken bough
+  The sauch and the aspin grey,
+  And they bore him to the Lady Chapel,
+  And waked him there all day.
+
+  A lady came to that lonely bower,
+  And threw her robes aside;
+  She tore her ling lang yellow hair,
+  And knelt at Barthram's side.
+
+  She bathed him in the Lady-Well,
+  His wounds sae deep and sair;
+  And she plaited a garland for his breast,
+  And a garland for his hair.
+
+  They rowed him in a lily sheet
+  And bare him to his earth;
+  And the Grey Friars sung the dead man's mass
+  As they passed the Chapel garth.
+
+  They buried him at the mirk midnight,
+  When the dew fell cold and still,
+  When the aspin grey forgot to play,
+  And the mist clung to the hill.
+
+  They dug his grave but a bare foot deep,
+  By the edge of the Nine-stane Burn,
+  And they covered him o'er with the heather-flower,
+  The moss and the lady-fern.
+
+  A Grey Friar staid upon the grave,
+  And sang till the morning tide;
+  And a friar shall sing for Barthram's soul
+  While the Headless Cross shall bide.
+
+
+
+
+  THE FAIR FLOWER OF NORTHUMBERLAND
+
+  It was a knight in Scotland born,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Was taken pris'ner and left forlorn,
+  Even by the good Earl of Northumberland.
+
+  Then was he cast in prison strong,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Where he could not walk nor lie along,
+  Even by the good Earl of Northumberland.
+
+  And as in sorrow thus he lay,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  The Earl's sweet daughter passed that way,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  And passing by, like an angel bright,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  The prisoner had of her a sight,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  And aloud to her this knight did cry,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  The salt tears standing in her eye,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  "Fair lady," he said, "take pity on me,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And let me not in prison dee,
+  And you the fair flower of Northumberland."
+
+  "Fair sir, how should I take pity on thee,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Thou being a foe to our countrie,
+  And I the fair flower of Northumberland?"
+
+  "Fair lady, I am no foe," he said,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  "Through thy sweet love here was I stayed,
+  And thou the fair flower of Northumberland."
+
+  "Why shouldst thou come here for love of me,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Having wife and bairns in thy own countrie,
+  And I the fair flower of Northumberland?"
+
+  "I swear by the Blessed Trinity,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  That neither wife nor bairns have I,
+  And thou the fair flower of Northumberland."
+
+  "If courteously thou wilt set me free,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  I vow that I will marry thee,
+  And thou the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  "Thou shalt be lady of castles and towers,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And sit like a queen in princely bowers,
+  Even thou the fair flower of Northumberland."
+
+  Then parted hence this lady gay,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And got her father's ring away,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  Likewise much gold got she by sleight,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And all to help this forlorn knight,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  Two gallant steeds both good and able,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand),
+  She likewise took out of the stable,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  And to the goaler she sent the ring,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Who the knight from prison forth did bring,
+  To meet the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  This token set the prisoner free,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Who straight went to this fair ladye,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  A gallant steed he did bestride,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And with the lady away did ride,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  They rode till they came to a water clear,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  "Good sir, how shall I follow you here,
+  And I the fair flower of Northumberland?
+
+  "The water is rough and wonderful deep,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And on my saddle I shall not keep,
+  And I the fair flower of Northumberland?
+
+  "Fear not the ford, fair lady," quoth he,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  "For long I cannot stay for thee,
+  Even thou the fair flower of Northumberland."
+
+  The lady prickt her gallant steed,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And over the water swam with speed,
+  Even she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  From top to toe all wet was she,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  "This have I done for love of thee,
+  Even I the fair flower of Northumberland."
+
+  Thus rode she all one winter's night.
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Till Edenborough they saw in sight,
+  The fairest town in all Scotland.
+
+  "Now I have a wife and children five,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  In Edenborough they be alive,
+  And thou the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  "And if thou wilt not give thy hand,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Then get thee home to fair England,
+  And thou the fair flower of Northumberland
+
+  "This favour thou shalt have, to boot,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  I'll have thy horse; go thou on foot,
+  Even thou the fair flower of Northumberland."
+
+  "O false and faithless knight," quoth she;
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  "And canst thou deal so bad with me,
+  Even I the fair flower of Northumberland?"
+
+  He took her from her stately steed,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And left her there in extreme need,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  Then she sat down full heavily,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  At length two knights came riding by,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  Two gallant knights of fair England,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And there they found her on the strand,
+  Even she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  She fell down humbly on her knee,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Crying, "Courteous knights, take pity on me,
+  Even I the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  "I have offended my father dear,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  For a false knight that brought me here,
+  Even I the fair flower of Northumberland."
+
+  They took her up beside them then,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  And brought her to her father again,
+  And she the fair flower of Northumberland.
+
+  Now all you fair maids, be warned by me,
+  (Follow, my love, come over the strand)
+  Scots never were true, nor ever will be,
+  To lord, nor lady, nor fair England.
+
+
+
+
+
+  WHITTINGHAM FAIR.
+
+  Are you going to Whittingham Fair
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  Remember me to one that lives there,
+  For once she was a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell her to make me a cambric shirt,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  Without any seam or needlework,
+  Then she shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell her to wash it in yonder well,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  Where never spring water or rain ever fell,
+  And she shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell her to dry it on yonder thorn,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  Which never bore blossom since Adam was born.
+  Then she shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Now he has asked me questions three,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  I hope he'll answer as many for me,
+  Before he shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell him to buy me an acre of land,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  Betwixt the salt water and the sea sand,
+  Then he shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell him to plough it with a ram's horn.
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  And sow it all over with one pepper corn.
+  And he shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell him to shear't with a sickle of leather,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  And bind it up with a peacock feather,
+  And he shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  Tell him to thrash it on yonder wall,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  And never let one corn of it fall,
+  Then he shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+  When he has done and finished his work,
+  (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme),
+  O tell him to come and he'll have his shirt,
+  And he shall be a true lover of mine.
+
+
+
+
+  O THE OAK AND THE ASH.
+
+
+  A North country mayde up to London had strayed,
+  Although with her nature it did not agree.
+  Which made her repent, and often lament,
+  Still wishing again in the North for to be.
+    "O the Oak and the Ash and the bonny Ivy tree,
+    They are all growing green in my North Countrie!"
+
+  "O fain wad I be in the North Countrie
+  Where the lads and the lasses are all making hay;
+  O there wad I see what is pleasant to me,--
+  A mischief 'light on them enticed me away!
+    O the Oak and the Ash and the bonny Ivy tree,
+    They are all growing green in my North Countrie!"
+
+  "Then farewell my father, and farewell my mother,
+  Until I do see you I nothing but mourn;
+  Remembering my brothers, my sisters, and others--
+  In less than a year I hope to return.
+    O the Oak and the Ash and the bonny Ivy tree.
+    They are all growing green in my North Countrie!"
+
+
+
+
+  SAIR FEYL'D, HINNY!
+
+
+     "Sair feyl'd, hinny!
+      Sair feyl'd now,
+      Sair feyl'd, hinny,
+      Sin' aw ken'd thou.
+  Aw was young and lusty,
+  Aw was fair and clear;
+  Aw was young and lusty
+  Mony a lang year.
+      Sair feyl'd, hinny!
+      Sair feyl'd now;
+      Sair feyl'd, hinny,
+      Sin' aw ken'd thou.
+
+  "When aw was young and lusty
+  Aw cud lowp u dyke;
+  But now aw'm aud and still.
+  Aw can hardly stop a syke.
+      Sair feyl'd, hinny!
+      Sair feyl'd now,
+      Sair feyl'd hinny,
+      Sin' aw ken'd thou.
+
+  "When aw was five and twenty
+  Aw was brave an bauld.
+  Now at five an' sixty
+  Aw'm byeth stiff an' cauld.
+      Sair feyl'd, hinny!
+      Sair feyl'd now.
+      Sair feyl'd, hinny,
+      Sin' aw ken'd thou"
+
+  Thus said the aud man
+  To the oak tree;
+  "Sair feyl'd is aw
+  Sin' aw kenn'd thee!
+      Sair feyl'd, hinny!
+      Sair feyl'd now;
+      Sair feyl'd, hinny,
+      Sin' aw ken'd thou."
+
+
+
+
+  AW WISH YOE MUTHER WAD CUM!
+
+
+  "Cum, Geordy, haud the bairn,
+  Aw's sure aw'll not stop lang,
+  Aw'd tyek the jewl me-sel,
+  But really aw's not strang.
+  Thor's flooer and coals te get,
+  The hoose-torns thor not deun,
+  So haud the bairn for fairs,
+  Ye're often deun'd for fun!"
+
+  Then Geordy held the bairn,
+  But sair agyen his will,
+  The poor bit thing wes gud,
+  But Geordy had ne skill,
+  He haddint its muther's ways,
+  He sat both stiff an' num,--
+  Before five minutes wes past
+  He wished its muther wad cum!
+
+  His wife had scarcely gyen,
+  The bairn begun te squall,
+  Wi' hikin't up an' doon
+  He'd let the poor thing fall,
+  It waddent haud its tung,
+  Tho' sum aud teun he'd hum,--
+  'Jack an' Gill went up a hill'--
+  "Aw wish yor muther wad cum!"
+
+  "What weary toil," says he,
+  "This nursin bairns mun be,
+  A bit on't's weel eneuf,
+  Ay, quite eneuf for me;
+  Te keep a crying bairn,
+  It may be grand te sum,
+  A day's wark's not as bad--
+  Aw wish yor muther wad cum.
+
+  "Men seldom give a thowt
+  Te what thor wives indure,
+  Aw thowt she'd nowt te de
+  But clean the hoose, aw's sure.
+  Or myek me dinner an' tea--
+  It's startin' te chow its thumb,
+  The poor thing wants its tit,
+  Aw wish yor muther wad cum."
+
+  'What a selfish world this is,
+  Thor's nowt mair se than man;
+  He laffs at wummin's toil,
+  And winnet nurse his awn;--
+  It's startin' te cry agyen,
+  Aw see tuts throo its gum,
+  Maw little bit pet, dinnet fret,--
+  Aw wish yor muther wad cum.
+
+  "But kindness dis a vast.
+  It's ne use gettin' vext.
+  It winnet please the bairn,
+  Or ease a mind perplext.
+  At last--its gyen te sleep,
+  Me wife'll not say aw's num,
+  She'll think aw's a real gud norse,
+  Aw wish yor muther wud cum!"
+
+  _Joe Wilson_
+
+
+
+
+  THE AULD FISHER'S LAST WISH
+
+
+  The morn is grey, and green the brae, the wind is frae the wast
+  Before the gale the snaw-white clouds are drivin' light and fast;
+  The airly sun is glintin' forth, owre hill, and dell, and plain,
+  And Coquet's streams are glitterin', as they run frae muir to main.
+
+  At Dewshill wood the mavis sings beside her birken nest,
+  At Halystane the laverock springs upon his breezy quest;
+  Wi' eydent e'e, aboon the craigs, the gled is high in air,
+  Beneath brent Brinkburn's shadowed cliff the fox lies in his lair.
+
+  There's joy at merry Thristlehaugh tie new-mown hay to win;
+  The busy bees at Todstead-shaw are bringing honey in;
+  The trouts they loup in ilka stream, the birds on ilka tree;
+  Auld Coquet-side is Coquet still--but there's nae place for me!
+
+  My sun is set, my eyne are wet, cauld poortith now is mine;
+  Nae mair I'll range by Coquet-side and thraw the gleesome line;
+  Nae mair I'll see her bonnie stream in spring-bright raiment drest,
+  Save in the dream that stirs the heart when the weary e'e's at rest.
+
+  Oh! were my limbs as ance they were, to jink across the green.
+  And were my heart as light again as sometime it has been,
+  And could my fortunes blink again as erst when youth was sweet,
+  Then Coquet--hap what might beside--we'd no be lang to meet'
+
+  Or had I but the cushat's wing, where'er I list to flee,
+  And wi' a wish, might wend my way owre hill, and dale, and lea.
+  'Tis there I'd fauld that weary wing, there gaze my latest gaze.
+  Content to see thee ance again--then sleep beside thy braes!
+
+  --_Thomas Doublerday_.
+
+
+
+
+  A SONNET.
+
+
+  Go, take thine angle, and with practised line.
+    Light as the gossamer, the current sweep;
+    And if thou failest in the calm, still deep,
+  In the rough eddy may a prize be thine.
+  Say thou'rt unlucky where the sunbeams shine;
+    Beneath the shadow, where the waters creep
+    Perchance the monarch of the brook shall leap--
+  For fate is ever better than design.
+
+  Still persevere; the giddiest breeze that blows,
+    For thee may blow with fame and fortune rife.
+  Be prosperous; and what reck if it arose
+    Out of some pebble with the stream at strife,
+  Or that the light wind dallied with the boughs?
+    Thou art successful.--Such is human life!
+
+  --_Thomas Doubleday_.
+
+
+
+
+  A VISION OF JOYOUS-GARDE.
+
+
+  "And so sir Launcelot brought sir Tristan and La Beate Isoud unto
+  Joyous-gard, the which was his owne castle that hee had wonne with his
+  owne hands."--_Malory_.
+
+  "Bamburgh ... the great rock-fortress that was known to the Celts as
+  Dinguardi, and was to figure in Arthurian romance as Joyous Garde ...
+  "--_C.J. Bates_ (History of Northumberland).
+
+    I wandered under winter stars
+    The lone Northumbrian shore;
+  And night lay deep in silence on the sea.
+    Save where, unceasingly,
+    Among the pillared scaurs
+  Of perilous Farnes, wild waves for ever more
+    Breaking in foam,
+  Sounded as some far strife through the star-haunted gloam.
+
+    Before me, looming through the night,
+    Darker than night's sad heart,
+  King Ida's castle on the sheer crag set
+    Waked darker sorrow yet
+    Within me for the light,
+  Beauty, and might of old loves rent apart,
+    Time-broken, spent,
+  And strewn as old dead winds among the salt-sea bent.
+
+    Till, dreaming of the glittering days,
+    And eves with beauty starred,
+  Time fell from me as some night-cloud withdrawn,
+    And in enchanted dawn,
+    All in a golden haze,
+  I saw the gleaming towers of Joyous Garde
+    In splendour rise,
+  Tall, pinnacled, and white to my dream-laden eyes.
+
+    While thither, as in days of old,
+    Launcelot homeward came,
+  War-wearied, and yet wearier of the strife
+    Of love that tore his life;
+
+    Burning, beneath the cold
+  Armour of steel, a never-dying flame:
+    The fierce desire
+  Consuming honour's gold on the heart's altar fire!
+
+    And thither in great love he brought
+    The fugitives of love,
+  Isoud and Tristram fleeing from King Mark.
+    One day 'twixt dark and dark
+    These lovers, by fate caught
+  In love's bright web, dreamed with blue skies above
+    Of love no tide
+  Of wavering life may part, or death's swift sea divide.
+
+    But Launcelot, in their bliss forlorn,
+    Fled from the laughter clear
+  Of happy lovers, and love's silent noon;
+    All night beneath the moon
+    He strode, his spirit torn
+  For Guenevere! All night on Guenevere
+    He cried aloud
+  Unto the moonlit foam and every windy cloud.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Then faded, quivering, from my sight
+    The memory-woven dream.
+  The towers of Joyous Garde shall never more
+    Lighten that desolate shore;
+    No longe'r through the night
+  Wrestling with love, beneath the pale moon gleam
+    That anguished form!--
+  But keen with snow and wind, and loud with gathering storm.
+
+  _--Wilfrid W. Gibson_.
+
+  (In "The Northern Counties Magazine," March, 1901).
+
+
+
+
+  MY NORTH COUNTRIE.
+
+
+  O though here fair blows the rose, and the woodbine waves on high,
+  And oak, and elm, and bracken fronds enrich the rolling lea,
+  And winds, as if in Arcady, breathe joy as they go by,
+  Yet I yearn and I pine for my North Countrie!
+
+  I leave the drowsing South, and in thought I northward fly,
+  And walk the stretching moors that fringe the ever-calling sea,
+  And am gladdened as the gales that are so bitter-sweet rush by.
+  While grey clouds sweetly darken o'er my North Countrie.
+
+  For there's music in the storms, and there's colour in the shades,
+  And joy e'en in the grief so widely brooding o'er the sea;
+  And larger thoughts have birth amid the moors and lonely glades
+  And reedy mounds and sands of my North Countrie!
+
+  --_Thomas Runciman_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+[Illustration: Sketch Map Of Northumberland.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Northumberland Yesterday and To-day
+by Jean F. Terry
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORTHUMBERLAND ***
+
+***** This file should be named 11124.txt or 11124.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/1/2/11124/
+
+Produced by Miranda van de Heijning, Margaret Macaskill and PG
+Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's
+eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII,
+compressed (zipped), HTML and others.
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over
+the old filename and etext number.  The replaced older file is renamed.
+VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving
+new filenames and etext numbers.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000,
+are filed in directories based on their release date.  If you want to
+download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular
+search system you may utilize the following addresses and just
+download by the etext year.
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/etext06
+
+    (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99,
+     98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90)
+
+EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are
+filed in a different way.  The year of a release date is no longer part
+of the directory path.  The path is based on the etext number (which is
+identical to the filename).  The path to the file is made up of single
+digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename.  For
+example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234
+
+or filename 24689 would be found at:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689
+
+An alternative method of locating eBooks:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL
+
+
diff --git a/old/11124.zip b/old/11124.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..507af38
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11124.zip