Part 2 (1/2)
PAINTED BY
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
(_Famous in connection with Flodden Field_)
[Ill.u.s.tration]
II. THE ENGLISH BORDER
NORTHUMBERLAND
A line drawn from Berwick to Carlisle, and across England to the Coquet, thence north again, coast-wise, to the old Tweedside borough will give us, for all practical purposes, the English Border Country. Only a part of the Roman Wall, as far as Crag Loch and Borcovicus (Housesteads), will come within the present purview, which excludes Newcastle itself and the ”coaly Tyne.” We are to deal with rural Northumberland rather, and with a little corner of c.u.mberland, the immediate and true Border.
Even at this time of day much of the English Border is still a kind of _terra incognita_ to the tourist and holiday-maker. For travelling facilities have not been of the best hitherto. But it is a new order of things now, and even the most outlying spots can be reached with a wonderful degree of comfort impossible not so very long ago. Bewcastle, for instance, and the once wild and trackless ”Debateable Land” between Canonbie and the Solway, have come within comparatively easy distance of railroad and coaching centres. The crossing of the Solway Moss by the Caledonian Route, and the opening out of the line from Alnwick to Wooler and Cornhill, together with the numerous driving tours that are in daily operation during the summer at least, have become the _open sesame_ to a district practically shut up even less than a half century since. It is now possible to breakfast in Carlisle, or Newcastle, or much further south for that matter (or north), and within an hour or two to be revelling in the most delightful rusticities at the foot of the Cheviots, or in the very heart of them. The remotest localities are rendered accessible even for a single day's outing, and a holiday on the English Border is not likely to be a disappointing one. There is something to suit every taste. If one is archaeologically inclined, for instance, Northumberland has one of the finest collections of military antiquities in the kingdom, from the rude circular camps and entrenchments of the primitive inhabitants to the great castles and peel-towers of mediaeval times. The Romans have left a mighty monument of their power--none more significant--in the huge barrier thrown across the lower half of the county, and in the stations and roads connected with it. In some respects the Roman Wall may be accounted Northumberland's princ.i.p.al attraction, and a pilgrimage between Tyne and Solway must always repay itself. If one is artistically inclined, there are beauty-spots for all canvases--as befits the birthplace of such masters as Bewick and Foster. And as an angler's paradise the Cheviot uplands have long been popular. The historical memories of the English Border are outstanding. For centuries this little fringe of country was a continuous warring-ground for the two nations that are now happily one. Upon its soil were fought some of the bloodiest, and it must be added, some of the most fool-hardy and unjustifiable fights on record.
In its religious story it has much to boast of. By its missionaries and by its sword it won England from heathendom to the Christian Church. The development of the monastic system in Northumbria did more than anything else to civilise and colonise the entire realm, Scotland included. ”Its monasteries,” as Green says, ”were the seat of whatever intellectual life the country possessed, and above all, it had been the first to gather together into a loose political unity the various tribes of the English people, and by standing at their head for nearly a century to accustom them to a national life out of which England as we have it now was to spring.”
The physical conditions, generally speaking, are similar on both sides of the Border. Wide arable expanses, well-wooded and fertile, cover the chief valleys and much of the Northumbrian coast-line. But in the main, the landscape is purely pastoral for miles, showing few signs of human life, and the nearest habitation often at a considerable distance. The Northumbrian uplands are confined chiefly to the Cheviots, the Pyrenees on a small scale; two-thirds of their whole three hundred square miles are in the county, const.i.tuting perhaps the loveliest cl.u.s.ter of pastoral hills in the island. Of this group, Cheviot--to be more distinctive, _the_ Cheviot--(2676 feet) sits in the centre almost, dignified and ma.s.sive, the ”rec.u.mbent guardian of the great lone moorland.” Others, taking them according to height, are Cairn Hill (2545), Hedgehope (2348), Comb Fell (2132), Cushat Law (2020), b.l.o.o.d.y Bush Edge (2001), Windy Gyle (1963), Dunmore (1860), Carter Fell (1600), and Yeavering Bell (1182)--a graceful cone overlooking the pretty hamlet of Kirknewton. A climb to the broad back of the Cheviot, or the rounded top of Yeavering, should be made by every tourist who rambles along the Border. Both are reachable from the Scottish and English sides, as by Bowmont and Colledge Waters, or by that loveliest of all the upland dales, Langleeford. Despite the somewhat quagmire character of its flat summit, the view from the Cheviot, as one might expect, is a truly inspiring one, comprising the whole coast-line between Berwick and Tynemouth, and the vast inland expanse from Midlothian to the Solway--the Scottish Border _in toto_. The Cheviots are hills rather than the ”mountains blue” of poetic licence. Yet all are imposing to a degree, and exhibit an excellent contour against the sky-line. They have none of the wildness and savagery of the Highland ranges, and even the steepest are gra.s.s-grown from skirt to summit, being easy of ascent, and commanding the most varied and brilliant prospects.
Robert Crawford sings of them as ”Cheviot braes so soft and gay,” and Gilpin likens the hirsels browsing on the most acclivitous to pictures hung on immense green walls. From time immemorial those charming uplands have been grazed by the quiet, hardy, fine-wooled, white-faced breed of sheep which bear their name; and in the days of the raids (for this is the true ”raider-land” of history) they were resonant, more than any other part of Scotland, with the clang of freebootery and the yell of strife. Mrs. Sigourney's apostrophe to the present day flocks may be quoted:
Graze on, graze on, there comes no sound Of Border warfare here, No slogan cry of gathering clan, No battle-axe, or spear.
No belted knight in armour bright, With glance of kindled ire, Doth change the sports of Chevy-Chase To conflict stern and dire.
Ye wist not that ye press the spot, Where Percy held his way Across the marches, in his pride, The ”chiefest harts to slay;”
And where the stout Earl Douglas rode Upon his milk-white steed, With ”fifteen hundred Scottish spears,”
To stay the invaders' deed.
Ye wist not, that ye press the spot Where, with his eagle eye, King James, and all his gallant train, To Flodden-Field swept by.
The Queen was weeping in her bower, Amid her maids that day, And on her cradled nursling's face Those tears like pearl-drops lay:
Graze on, graze on, there's many a rill Bright sparkling through the glade, Where you may freely slake your thirst, With none to make afraid.
There's many a wandering stream that flows From Cheviot's terraced side, Yet not one drop of warrior's gore Distains its crystal tide.
PLATE 7
FLODDEN FIELD AND THE CHEVIOT HILLS
FROM A WATER COLOUR SKETCH
PAINTED BY
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
(_See pp. 40, 48, 99, 103, 121_)
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Of the river valleys running south of the Border line, the chief are the Breamish, or the Till, as it is termed from Bewick Brig--the ”sullen Till” of ”Marmion”; the Aln, from Alnham Kirk to the sand-banks of Alnmouth, a glen emphatically rich in legendary lore; the Coquet, the most picturesque and most popular trouting-stream in the North of England; and Redesdale, redolent of ”Chevy Chase,” rising out of Carter Fell, and joining the North Tyne at Redesmouth, a little below the pleasant market-town of Bellingham. The chief towns are Berwick and Alnwick, Hexham being outside our present delimitation. Many of the smaller places, and the villages, are models of their kind. Wooler, at the base of the Cheviots, is a choice mountaineering and angling centre, from which, by way of Langleeford, is the favourite route to Cheviot top. It was at the Whitsun Tryst or Wooler sheep fair, that Scott's grandfather spent his old shepherd's thirty pounds in buying a horse instead of sheep, but with such happy results in the sequel. And hither came Scott himself in August, 1791, to imbue his mind with the legends, the history, and scenery of the neighbourhood. ”Behold a letter from the mountains,” he writes to his friend William Clerk, ”for I am very snugly settled here, in a farmer's house (at Langleeford), about six miles from Wooler, in the very centre of the Cheviot hills, in one of the wildest and most romantic situations, which your imagination, fertile upon the subject of cottages, ever suggested. 'And what the deuce are you about there?' methinks I hear you say. Why, sir, of all things in the world, drinking goat's whey; not that I stand in the least need of it, but my uncle having a slight cold, and being a little tired of home, asked me last Sunday evening if I would like to go with him to Wooler; and I, answering in the affirmative, next morning's sun beheld us on our journey through a pa.s.s in the Cheviots, upon the backs of two special nags, and man Thomas behind with a portmanteau, and two fis.h.i.+ng-rods fastened across his back, much in the style of St. Andrew's cross. Upon reaching Wooler we found the accommodation so bad that we were forced to use some interest to get lodgings here, where we are most delightfully appointed, indeed. To add to my satisfaction we are amidst places renowned by feats of former days; each hill is crowned with a tower, or camp, or cairn; and in no situation can you be near more fields of battle--Flodden, Otterburn, and Chevy Chase. Ford Castle, Chillingham Castle, Coupland Castle and many another scene of blood are within the compa.s.s of a forenoon's ride. Out of the brooks with which the hills are intersected, we pull trouts of half a yard in length, as fast as we did the perches from the pond at Pennicuik, and we are in the very country of muirfowl.... My uncle drinks the whey here, as I do ever since I understood it was brought to his bedside every morning at six, by a very pretty dairymaid. So much for my residence. All the day we shoot, fish, walk, and ride; dine and sup on fish struggling from the stream, and the most delicious heath-fed mutton, barn-door fowls, pies, milk cheese, etc, all in perfection; and so much simplicity resides amongst those hills that a pen, which could write at least, was not to be found about the house, though belonging to a considerable farmer, till I shot the crow with whose quill I write this epistle.” (See Lockhart, chapter vi.). In this pa.s.sage we have an interesting glimpse of what Northumberland was a hundred years ago, and of the great author enjoying a holiday while yet reading for the law, and before fame began to blow her trumpet in his praise.
Sweeter villages than Etal and Ford could scarcely be imagined out of Arcadia. Etal Castle was destroyed by James IV. previous to Flodden, and has never been restored. Ford Castle, built originally in 1287, has been frequently renovated and enlarged, and is now a most excellent example of the military style of architecture plus the modern mansion house. Formerly held by the Herons, its chatelaine figures in ”Marmion”