i»lfliiiiil!!i!ii!!li!iiil^ £.j^ THE LIBRARY OF THE UNI\TRSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES ^'/f^///// //'/'feAJ . NORTHUMBERLAND: ITS HISTORY, ITS FEATURES, AND ITS PEOPLE, BY The Rev. JAS. CHRISTIE, B.A. Lond. Autfuir of " Men and Things Russiati " ; " A Minister's EaMcr Mondays " ; ic. '01 the oak, and the ash, and the bonny ivy tree, They flourish at home in my own country." Seventeenth Century Northumhrian Ballad. CARLISLE : Chas. Thcbnam and Sons. NEWCASTLE : Mawson, Swak, and Mokgan. LONDON : Peesbtteman PnBLiCATios Committee, 14, Paternoster Square. 1893. ULL EIGBTS RESERVED.] > 1,10 DEDICATION. To MY Dear Wiff, herself a Northumbrian, WHO FOR MANY YEARS HAS GREATLY ASSISTED ME IN ALL MY WORK, AND TO ALL WHO LOVE THEIR NaTIVE County at Home and Abroad, this little book IS Dedicated by their Fellow-Noethumbkian. LISRARf PREFACE. This volume was originally prepared as a popular Lecture, and was delivered before the Tyneside Geographical and Carlisle Scientific Societies. Being a native of Otterburn, where his father originated the Presbyterian Church, and was its minister for a period of twenty-eight years, and succeeding him in the ministry there, the Author has naturally been deeply interested in his native county, an interest which has not diminished by his removal to a neighbouring one. It appears in this form at the urgent request of many who heard it as a Lecture. The Author therefore hopes that in this more permanent form it may serv'e to deepen the interest of Northumbrians in their native county. He gratefully acknowledges his indebtedness to the Rev. A. H. Drysdale, M.A., Morpeth, who volun- teered to revise the proof sheets, and to Mr. Walter Cranston, Carlisle, who kindly supplied several valuable historical incidents. Carlisle, April, 1893. CONTENTS. FAQB AbW Dutens, Rector of Elsdon 112 Aidan 26 Bedlington Terriers and Greyhounds ... 123 Bee Masters ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 54 Beeswing ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 151 Bot.any — The Linnca Borcalis 63 British Remains 15 Builders of the Wall 16 Burns, Northumberland 60 Burr, The 125 Castles— Alnwick 69 Cheviot Sheep — Summer in the Land ... ... ... 50 Chillingham, Wild Cattle at 72 Christi.-inity Introduced 21 Church Going 98 Churches and Churchyards ... .. ... ... . 113 Climate, Healthiness of ... ... ... ... ... 66 Coalfield, Extent of 77 Coalpit, Descent of 118 Communion Forty Years Ago, A .. ... . ... 99 Communion Hospitality 103 Coquet, The 59 Courtship, Advice on ... ... ... .. ... .. 65 Curwen, Mary 128 Cuthbert 29 Cuthbert's Bones, Pilgrimage of ... ... ... ... 34 Cuthbert at Carlisle ... ... ... ... ... ... 32 Danes, Kinship of the... ... ... ... ... ... 36 Danish Invasion, The ... 35 Derwentwater, Earl of ... ... ... ... ... 46 Distinguished Preachers ... ... ... ... ... 129 Duchess Eleanor and Lord Macaulay ... ... ... 71 Earth Weighing, The 137 Elsdon Church, A Sunday at 108 Eminent Men.. 130 English Raid, An 43 Fisher Folk, The 86 Fisherman's Cottage ... ... ... ... ... ... 87 Fishermen, A Night with the 88 Flodden Field, Battle of 44 Funerals ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Ill Gilpin, Rev. Percy 109 Grace Darling ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 135 Great Missionaries, The ... ... ... ... ... 23 Gregory and the Angles .. ... ... ... ... 20 Hartley Accident— The Queen's Letter .- 117 Hesleyside Spur, The 74 Hexham and Hedgeley Moor, Battles of 45 CONTEXTS— fcojrfinued;. PAGE Hinds, Northumbrian 95 Keelmen, The 115 Knights of Industry HI Last Conquest of Rome in the West 13 Lead iliners, The 76 Learning, Love of ... ... ... ... .•• ••. HO L'Envoi 143 Light, Making for the 22 Minerals — Lead Mining 75 Moor Burning in March 53 Ned the Precentor 106 North and South Tyne 57 Northumberland Supremacy, End of the .. 33 Otterburn, Battle of 37 Paulinus 24 Pennine Range and Whinstone Dyke 49 Percys and " The Great Divide " 70 Pitmen, The 116 Pitman's House, A 121 Purvis, Billy 138 Quay Side, Newcastle 80 Quoiting 124 Recollections, Mr. Stokoe's 149 Rivers ... ... ... ... ... ... -. .•■ 56 River Reed 58 Roman Domination, End of the 19 Roman Wall and Dr. Bruce 14 Roman Wall, Tour of the 17 Ruskin, Mr., at WaUington 145 Sally the Mugger 91 Sally the Mugger, Anecdotes of 147 Salmon , Abundance of ... ... .. ... ... 89 Salmon Poaching 90 Smuggling 94 Shepherds, Northumbrian 96 Shepherds, Piety and Courage of 97 SUver Nut Well 48 Sport, Love of — Newcastle Races 122 The Old and the New 12 Towns — Newcastle ... ... ... .. ... ... 78 Tyne Commissioners — Walker ... ... ... ... 81 Tynemouth— Admiral Collingwood 83 lYnemouth Sands 84 Watling Street 18 Wesley's, John, Love for Newcastle 79 Willie the Precentor 104 WUlie Winter's Stob 51 Worthies— Bishop Ridley, 4c 127 Appendix ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 145 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE. HOLY ISLAND or LINDISFARNE - - 29 B.A.TTLE STONE at OTTERBURN - - - 41 ALNWICK CASTLE 68 GRACE DARLING 13* NORTHUMBERLAND: ITS HISTORY. CHAPTER I. Tlif Spell of the Word Xorthumbei'Iaud^The Roman Domination — The Roman Wall and Dr. Bruce — Watling Street — Conversion to Cliristianity in the times of the Saxons — The Great Missionaries, Panlinus, Aidan, and Cuthbcrt — Battles of Otterbuni, Flodden Field, Hedgeley Moor, and Hexham — Jacobite Outing and the Earl of Dem-entwater. ■T^ORTHUMBERLiND ; Shakespeare asks:— _L 1 " What's iu a name ? " and replies, " That which we call a rose, by any other word would smell as sweet." Xo doubt it is so with the gi-and northern county of Eno-land, and yet who shall deny that the very word Northumberland has a royal look, as well as a royal ring about it? As it is with the name, so it is with the county, its people, its history and associations. " Breathes there the man, with soul .so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own North-umber-land .' If such there breathe, go, mark him well." What we have to deal with is not the North - umbria of our early English Historj^ that is, the 12 THE OLD AXD THE NEW. whole country lying between the Estuary of the Humber and the Firth of Forth, but that most northern county of the England we live in, which, from its physical appearance, forms a triangular apex to our ' right little, tight little island.'' The history of our own times about any English county is full of interest and impulse; but when the storied past, which kindles the imagination with its witchery and glamour, is added to the more prosaic record of the present hour, a nameless charm is imparted to the short study. The wand of Merlin is laid alongside the more potent rod of our modem knights of industry, and the javelin of the Roman infantr}', the sword of Douglas, and the spear of Hotspur, measure their exact force with the battery of modern artillery which hits with an unerring aim at the distance of several miles. Among English counties none lends itself better to the inter-blending of the old and the new than North- umberland. The past is rich in legend, and in the moving records left by the tramp of legions, and the shock of battle between warring hosts ; the present is instinct with many-sided and unwearied endeavour to keep England foremost amid the van of nations. LAST CONQUEST OF HOME fN THE WEST. 13 In the galleries o£ the palace of Kolyrood there is a long-extending line of the portraits of Scottish Kings, with regard to some of whom it is most likely, that we do not greatly err when we say they go far beyond the historic period. We have no desire thus to deal with our study of Northumberland, and accordingly it is hoped that it will satisfy the most exacting, if, assuming the stride of a Colossus, we bring beneath the purview of the reader a period extending over no less an interval than nineteen hundred years and treat of Northumberland and its people. From every point of view the beginning of the Christian era must form an altogether excep- tional opening for a record of any kind, and it is with the dawn of Christianity that Northumberland first emerges from what, we are ready to admit, was until then impenetrable obscurity. It was then she had planted upon her well-marked and rugged features a work of almost imperishable endurance- Of course we refer to the Roman Wall. England was the last attempt at conquest, made by Rome in the west, and although internal disorders soon compelled her to withdraw her legionaries, she has left such a stamp of her might behind her, that we, the English of to-day, who among the nations most resemble the 14 ROMAN WALL AND DR. BRUCE. Romans in our powers of colonising, and our general force of purpose, and endurance in endeavour, may well guard as a sacred treasure whatever relic of Roman dominion remains entrusted to our care. Csesar, Agricola, Hadrian, Severus, are all names which readily occur to us in association with the Roman occupation of Britain, and upon the best authority, the Emperor Hadrian was the builder of the wall. That authority of course is the late Dr. Brace — ultimus Romanorum, and a Roman he looked every inch of him. Of all the cohort of antiquarians, Dr. Bruce has done most for the Roman ^Yall. It was his life-long study ; and the Lapidarmm, and that magnum opus, " The Roman Wall," are destined to endure. Here are a few lines upon the Doctor and his work : — " A chief among these famous men is Doctor Heavy- tome, AMio has achieved a greater fame than all the gods of Rome, For Rome was not eternal, we know it by her fall, But the Doctor has decreed her an everlasting wall." There is only one ciTor in these lines. The Doctor was anything rather than a Heavytome. Both as a preacher, lecturer, and writer, he was BRITISH REMAINS. 15 as interesting as he was scholarly, and there can- not be a doubt that the witty writer of the humorous lines only inti'oduced the word because of the unbending exigency of rhythm. Csesar landed in Kent about half-a-century befoi-e the bii-th of Christ, and Hadrian built the wall most likely about the year 120 A.D. Rome's power was great, but it was even then upon the wane. Domestic feuds and servile wars, and the threatened incursions of barbaric tribes troubled and weakened the heart of the empire, and as one legion after another was called back to Italy, it was necessary to make the position of those serving in distant colonies as secure as possible. Hence the reason, as we conceive, why the Roman Wall was built between Wallsend and Bowness-on-Solway, covering a distance which Horsley estimates at sixty-eight miles and three furlongs. It was erected for the purpose of checking and thrusting back the Picts and other northern barbarian hordes. It may be mentioned here that British remains exist throughout the county to a considerable extent. Greaves Ash and Three Stone Burn, near Wooler, are the principal, while Mote Hills are to be found at Elsdon, Wark, Haltwhistle, and Morpeth. The Mote Hill, or council chamber as we should now say, 16 BUILDERS OP THE WALL. at Elsdon, is probably the finest and most per- fect to be found iu the countiy. What a massive and noble structure the wall must have been at its best, with its stations, and mile castles, and watch towers, and roads, it is easy to suppose, and even now, after a lapse of eighteen centuries, during which interval, for hundreds of years, it was just a quarry for any and every kind of building all along the isthmus, the ruins that remain are enough to testify to the skill and purpose of the builders. Imagination is fain to picture the stirring scenes that must have been witnessed when the wall was building. The short, thick-set, muscular Italian, the fiery Gaul, the olive-skinned and sedate Spaniard, the phlegmatic Batavian, one after another, must have been employed upon it, while of course the poor natives, nolens volens, would be impressed as beasts of burthen and slaves. Nor are we to suppose that the enemies issuing from the Caledonian forest would not often put themselves en evidence while the work was being carried forward. Thus might it be in the building of the Roman Wall as it was in the re-building of the wall of Jerusalem in the time of Nehemiah, in the one hand they held the trowel wherewith to build, and in the TOrii OF THE ROMAX WALL. 17 other they held the sword wlierewith to drive off the enemy. As often as we have walked along the wall, so often have we wondered how so stupendous a work could have been effected. If the country was then anything like what it is to-day, the population must have been exceedingly sparse. A few raids for foraging purposes would speedily exhaust the stock of provisions, and if, as has been suggested, the troops were fed from York as a base of supplies — a distance of ninety or one hundred miles — the difficulties of transport must have been well nigh as formidable as they are to-day between Zanzi'uar and Uganda. He who would have the best idea of this famous wcirk should start early in the morning from Chollerford — where the piers of the old Roman bridge that crossed the North Tyne, are still to be seen when the river is low — and walk along the wall, where wall, and ditch and vallum, are still entire, to the north, past Haltwhistle, and along the Nine Nicks of Thirlwall, where the wall follows in the strangest manner possible the sinuosities of the Whinstone Dyke, which runs right through Noi'thumberland. Another marked feature of the Roman occupa- tion isWatling Street. This was the great Military 18 WATLISG STREET. Road in Britain. It begins at Watling Street in the City of London, where the first milestone may still be seen in the wall of a Church, and then branches off in different directions. The North- umbrian portion of Watling Street, after crossing the Tj'ne, goes north-west by way of Corbridge, Ridsdale, Woodburn, and Rochester, and then following through interminable moors strikes Scotland at Chew Green. One of the peculiar features about Watling Street is that it pursues the even tenor of its way, just as the crow flies, and over the highest ground. This latter circumstance makes it a .stiff enough road for conveyances and loaded vehicles in our day ; but undoubtedly it had its advantage for the Roman.s, giving them so commanding a view of the surrounding country, that the native tribes had little chance of taking them at a disadvantage. It is on the line of Watling Street that two of the finest Roman stations in Britain are to be seen. These are Bremenium and Habitancum, the modern Rochester, and Risingham near Wood- bum. A number of 3-ears ago they were opened out, and antitjuarians had some of their richest finds. The Duke of Northumberland, Algernon the Good, assisted greatly in those explorations, END OF THE ROilAN DOMINATION. 19 and it is a raelancboly reflection to think that the excavations have in a great measure been filled in again lest danger should befall sheep and cattle, or chance passers by. With the beginning of the fifth century — 411 A.D. — the Roman dominion ceased, and when in the end of the sixth, and the beginning of the seventh centuries, our attention is again directed to Northumberland the Saxons are the over-lords. With the struggles and fierce contests there were for supremacy we shall not deal, but rather let us dwell for a short time upon that phase of God in historj', which has a perennial interest attending it, namely the conversion of North- umberland to Christianity. From first to last this period is replete with a nameless charm, and while the pencil of the artist, the genius of the poet, and the pen of the historian have often been emploj^ed in represent- ing, each in its own way, the leading incidents, wide fields still remain in which imagination is free to revel and to roam. Who shall say that some at least, if not all the boys who were exposed for sale in the slave market at Rome — very likely in the great Forum itself — and attracted the notice of Gregory, the Roman deacon, who afterwards assumed the 20 GREGORY ASD THE ASOLES. Pontificate, and sent Augustine, with forty monks, to sow the seeds of Christianity in what was then this heathen country, were not North- umbrians ? To our mind it has always appeared self-evident that it could not be otherwise. The country between the Forth and Tyne was then called Bemicia, and that between the Tyne and the Humber, Deira. In a war between the two kingdoms — and it was a strife between conquerors — Ella, King of Deira, defeated the northern kingdom, and with a portion of the spoil hastened to fill the slave market at Rome. The story that follows is so well known that it might seem almost unnecessary to repeat it, but so irresistible is its spell that we cannot forbear. Among the slaves that were brought from many lands those from Britain could not fail to be the obser\-ed among all observers. Their faces were fair, their bodies were white, their stature and mien were noble, their locks were yellow gold. As Gregory passed through the market and stood astonished before this singular group, he asked the dealer who they were. " They are Angles," [that is, English] he replied. With a heart full of divine pity, Gregory answered, " Not Angles, but angels, with faces so angel-like." " And from what country do they come ? " " From Deira," CHRISTIANITY INTRODUCED. 21 replied the merchant. " De Ira," said Gregory, with vivacious word-play, " Aye, plucked from God's wrath and called to Christ's mercy." "And who is their King?" "Ella," was the answer. Seizing the word as of good omen, Gregory exclaimed, "Alleluia shall be sung in Ella's land;" and as Mr. Green has beautifully put it in his Making of England, " he passed on, musing how the angel faces should be brought to sing it." And brought to sing God's praises the Northumbrians were in the seventh century, and somewhere about the year 627. The good work begun at Canterbury by Augustine at length reached these northern lands. Edwin the king was happy in having e.spoused as his queen the Christian Princess Ethelburgh, daughter of King Ethelbert. Zealous for the faith, Edwin, moved by her prayei's, promised to believe in God if he re- turned successful from a fight he had on hand. He did return, and that as the victor, but — man- like — slow to redeem his pledge, he spent a whole winter in silent musing, until Paulinus stepping down, troubled the pool of his reflec- tions, and roused the king to action, whereupon Edwin declared himself a Christian and summoned the wise men of Northumberland to take their oath upon the faith he had embraced. 22 MAKING FOR THE LIGHT. The debate that followed, as related by Bede, shows admirably what is the trend of the human mind from the finer and the coarser side. To the finer mind, the charm of Christianity lies in the light it throws on the darkness encompassing our lives, both in the future and in the past. To the coarser fibre, it consists in the revelation it wives of the utter helplessness of heathenism. From amid the ranks of the Ealdermen of the Saxon Witan, there stood forth an aged man, and addressing King Edwin he exclaimed : — " So seems the life of man, King, as a sparrow's flight through the hall when one is sitting at meat in the winter-tide, with the warm fire lighted on the hearth, but the icy rain-storms without. The sparrow flies in at one door, and tarries for a moment in the light and heat of the hearth-fire, and then flying forth from the other, vanishes into the darkness whence it c PAULINUS. 25 preacher, crowds attended him, as they did John the Baptist when he went preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and on confessing their sins, he absolved them in the name of Christ. Many spots in Northumberland are identified with this early Apostle of the North. Pallinsburn, that is, Paulinus Burn, is one of them. But dearest to the memory of a Northumbrian, is the Ladj' Well at Hol3^stone, in the vale of the Coquet. There, in a secluded .spot, is the holy well. It is neatly railed round, and a thin belt of trees surrounds it. The background of purple mountains heightens the effect that is produced, while the clear waters of the mountain-fed river as they flow over their pebbly bed with a soft and musical rhythm, woo the reflective mood. Hither, in the year 627, Paulinus came, preached the Gospel to the rude Northumbrians, and baptized. It was the centre of a wide district. They must have come from the slopes of the Cheviot on the north, and the water-shed of the Tyne and the Reed on the south ; from Alnwick and Rothbury, Elsdon and Otterburn, from Harbottle, rude hamlets all of them, yet containing men who felt a divine impulse working within them. It was as when there was of old the sound of a-going on the tops of the mulberry trees, and God in Christ 26 A WAX. was revealeJ by the tongue of Paulinus as the friend and' the Saviour of everj^ man. As the traveller sits on the wooden bench within the inelosure, and gazes into the clear waters of the large oval-shaped well where the gold fish chase one another, days speak, generations speak, centuries speak, and, as reflexions flow, he ceases to wonder at the meaning of the great words of the holy Apostle, for he is here face to face with their interpretation : — " While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal ; but the things which are not seen are eternal." A large and graceful Runic cross has been erected in the centre of the well bearing this inscription on the plinth : — " In this place Paulinus the Biship baptized 3000 North- umbrians, Easter, Dcxxvii ;" while on the pediment there is this other : — '• In this fountain, called the Lady's Well, on the introduction of Christianity in the Saxon reign of Edwin, and early in the seventh century, Puulinus, an English bishop, baptized above 3000 people." It was Colomba, the Irishman, who set up a mission station for the Picts at lona, a low-lying island off' the West Coast of Scotland, and thence came Aidan at the summons of Oswald to ^ CUT H BERT. 29 evangelise the Northuinbriaiis. The first mis- sionary who was sent failed of success, and upon his return to lona he reported that among a people so stubborn and barbarous as these Northumbrian folk success was impossible. " Was it their stubbornness, or your harshness ? " asked a brother sitting bj'', " did you forget God's word, to give them the milk first and then the meat ? " All eyes were fixed on the speaker, who was none other than Aidan. He was reckoned the fittest person to undertake the abandoned mission, and accordingly in the year 635 he fixed his Bishop's Stool or See in the island peninsula of Lindisfarne, the Holj' Island of to-day. There, from a monasterj^ he poured forth preachers all over the land, and himself wandered on foot, preaching among the peasants. Great was the good that this holy man effected. But he was not suffered to continue by reason of death. Who should take his place ? God always holds some one in readiness to succeed a labourer when his task is o'er. To Moses, Joshua succeeds ; to St. Paul, someone else : and to Aidan, St. Cuthbert. In the hagiography of Northumberland, St. Cuthbert undoubtedly stands first. Christian devotion, added to romance, gives him the fore- 30 CVTHBERT. most place ia the bead-roll of the consecrated host He was bom on the southern edge of the Lammermoors, those long-backed i-anws of hiUs which run eastward to the sea at Dunbar, and which, since St. Cuthbert's day, have proved the rearing ground of manyatrue-hearted and success- ful minister of the blessed Evangel. As a boy he was swift of foot, quick of wit, fond of laughter and of fun, and even from the spring of his life- time was gifted with a poetic sensibility which was ever calling him to higher things. Attacked by a lameness, his religious impressions were deepened, and as he kept his master's sheep on the bleak uplands where the Leader flows into the Tweed, his bent was to a religious life. Thus he came to spend the night watches in prayer while his comrades slept ; made these high lands resonant with hynms and holy songs, and with that spirituelle imagination of his, saw, in the falling stars, and Ln the wonder-filling Aurora boTealis of these northern skies, angel hosts ascending and descending between earth and heaven. Moved to action by the widely-rumoured death of Aidan, he made his way to the straw- thatched log huts of the mission station at Melrose, and became a missionary through the length and breadth of Northumbei-land. He CUTHBERT. 31 needec) no interpreter. His lowland training made him as one of the Northumbrian peasants themselves. He could hurr as well as they. Their frugal lives suited him. He was patient, good-tempered, full of common sense, had a pleasing countenance and an endui-ing frame, and it is not to be wondered that he was adored. Many were his troubles and vicissitudes. The secession that followed upon the Synod of Whitby gave rise to endless disputes and sadly reduced his company. He fled to a solitary island not far from Bamborough, the North- umbrian fortress of Ida, the flame-bearer, and spent years of seclusion in a rude hut. Reverence for his growing sanctity at length dragged this Apostle of the Lowlands back to fill the vacant See at Lindisfarne. This was in the reisn of the Saxon King, Ecgfrith. But extensive though the See of Lin- disfarne was, St. Cuthbert bore ecclesiastical sway, and had personal over-lordship, over an additional domain. The learned Chancellor Ferguson in his History of Cumberland argues from the position of the far famed Bewcastle monument, and the Runic inscriptions upon it, that in the seventh century, Cumberland was more or less subject to, or a tributary of 32 CUTHBERT AT CARLISLE. Xoi'thumbria, and that therefore at that time the history of the one was as that of the other. Tictorious over the Britons in Cumbria, King Eegfrith donated the conquered country to the See of Lindisfarne, so far as concerned the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and according to Sytneon of Durham, on account of the in- sufficiency of the grant of a village and three miles round, at Craik, near Easingwold, in York- shire, the king also gave him land within a circuit of fifteen miles at Carlisle. By this, we are no doubt to understand the town and the area included in the old parish of St. Cuthbert Without-the-walls. "It occupies," says Chancellor Ferguson, " the angle between the rivere Eden and Caldew, and was probably the only land then cleared from scrub and cultivated in the vicinity of the town."' It is in connexion with this jurisdiction in Cumberland, and over-lordship of Carlisle, that an exceedingly interesting incident occurs in the life of Cuthbert. Entering Carlisle in 685, at a time when King Eegfrith had gone north to punish the Picts who had risen in rebellion, he found that all were anxiously await- ing the result of the great strugi,de which must be at hand. The Venerable Bede, in his life of St. Cuthbert, relates that a day or two after his END OF THE NORTHUMBRIAN SUPREMACY. 33 arrival, wheu some of the citizens were taking him round for the purpose of showing him the walls of the city, as he leant over a Roman fountain which still stood unharmed among the ruins, the anxious bystanders thought they caught words of ill-omen falling from the old man's lips. '■ Perhaps," he seemed to murmur, " at this very moment the hazard of the battle is over. " When they questioned him he would only say : — " Do you not see how marvellously clianged and disturbed the air is ? and who among mortals is sufficient to search out the judgments of God ?" On the following Sunday the burden of his discourse, as he preached to the brethren of the monastery was " Watch anil pray, watch and pray. "' " In a few days more, " writes Mr. Green in The Making of England, "a solitary fugitive, escaped from the slaughter, told tliat the Picts, under Bruidi their king, had turned desperately to bay, as the Engli.sh army entered Fife ; and that Ec^frith and the flower of his nobles lay a ghastly ring of corpses on the far-off moorland of Nechtansraere." What the feelines of St. Cuthbert must have been, as in one day the Northumbrian King and supremacy fell — for Mercia and Galloway at once claimed in- dependence — it is more easy to imagine than to 34 PILORIMAOE OF CUTHBERTS BONES. describe. The hand of the Lord was indeed heavy upon him : but it was His hand, and so he kissed the rud and blessed the smiter, and after a life in which the joy and the sorrow rapidly alternated, and where the self-denial was as marked as the service, Cuthbert died as he had lived, a true Apostle of the living God. But not even did death tei-minate his wonderful career. The troubles of the times, after the invasion of the Danish host, made it necessary for the monks of his order to carry his body about from one hiding place to another. The story of the wanderings of the body of the great missionarj' — thechiefest treasure of Lindisfarne — reads like a romance. For seven long years they carried the bones of the Bishop through the six northern counties of England, and a portion of the south of Scotland, and for one hundred and thirteen years these bones rested at Chester-le-Street, in the county of Durham. Faithful serving-men carried the mummified bodj' of David Livingstone down from the very heart of the dark continent of Africa to the great wide sea, whence it was transported to our shores, and amid the prayers of a vast multitude for the opening up and the conversion of Africa, it was finally laid to rest in the nation's .shrine at Westmin.ster. THE DANISH LWASIOX. 35 Faithful men, with loving hands, carried the body of St. Cuthbert about from one place to another, like another ark of God. Wherever it rested, men say a church arose, dedicated to the glory of God, and in honour of the saint ; and when at length the wandering foot and the weary breast of these St. Christophers — for they lovingly can-ied the body of him who under Christ was himself a Christ to men — found rest, they laid the revered remains in the holy shrine on the banks of the Wear at Durham, where they shall sleep till the morning of the resuirection, when St. Cuthbert shall come forth a glorified saint, and joining the monks, and peasants, and shep- herds of Northumberland, who worked alongside him, and were ministered to by him. shall join in the laud and chant and praise which shall rise to Him that sitteth on the throne and to the Lamb. Time would fail to tell of all the progress that was made in many ways in Northumberland during the Saxon domination, or of the desola- tions that followed when the Danish invasion succeeded in the ninth century. Valiant, forceful men were these Dane.s. Quickly roused and masterful in war ; patient, plodding, much- enduring in the arts of peace. What they were, 36 KIN SB IP TO THE DANES. such are the men of Northumberlaud to-day. The Danish invaders of the ninth century Hve ao-ain in the Northumbrians of the preseut centurj-. A mere tyro in ethnography, who traverses Northumberland, and then crossing the North Sea, visits Denmark, cannot mistake the fact. The two peoples are one. The very physical appearance is common to the Dane and tlie Northumbrian, the fair hair, the blue eye, long limbs, and plenty of bone, while the genius of the two peoples, so friendly, and so happily allied by the strong ties of royalty, is akin. The tale of conquest and of struggle bulks largely in the staple of every country, and particularly so till there is dynastic settlement and security. Scotland and England were long full-blooded enemies, and during their mutual struggles, as might be expected, Northumberland wa.s often called upon to bear the brunt of the shock of war. These struggles — internecine they might almost be called, but now long ago happily terminated for ever — crystallised into com- manding proportions at the battles of Otterburn or Chevy Chase, and Flodden, and we need not say that their detail stirs pulses to this hour all round the globe. BA TTLE OP OTTERBURN. 37 The Rev. A. H. Drysdale, in his article " Round about the Cheviot," in Good Words for January, says : — " Otterburn is the real original Chevj' Chase of the ballads, and type of all that followed. And so it has lodged its impression deep on every one of them from first to last." In the battle of Otterburn it is as if the heroic ages had been transported into the fourteenth century. During that moonlight night, betwixt the twilight of evening and the twilight of the DO O succeeding morn, another Homeric Idyll, a lordly Iliad, is worked out, perfect in every detail. Hector and Achilles, Priam, and all the Im- mortals, live over again in Douglas and the Percys, Sir Hugh Montgomerj-, the valiant Widdrington, and all the Knights and Squires, who, amid the bracken and the bent, shouted alternately, " A Douglas '." "A Dougla.s ! " "A Percy ! " "A Percy ! " • " For Witherington needs must I wayle, As one in doleful dumpes ; For when bis leggs were cutted oif, He fought upon his stumpes." The battle was fought on August 19th, 13S8, in the twelfth year of the reign of Richard II. The 38 BATTLE OP OTTERBVRN. Scotch, under James, Earl Douglas, invaded and hanied Northumberland and Durham. In a skirmish outside the walls of Newcastle, the Scottish Earl seized the pennon or colours of Henry, Lord Percy, son of the Earl of North- umberland, known in history as Hotspur, and, as might be expected, such an affront deserved and met with reprisal. Nor was it long in coming. Marching thirty miles to Otterburn, a party laid siege to the Castle there, and the Scottish army encamped on the northern slope of the river Reed, about a mile to the west of the village. Hotspur followed with a strong force, and without resting his men after the long march, began the attack as soon as he reached the Scottish camp. It was a moonlight night, but owing to the uncertain light there was not a little confusion. Single combats were common all over the field — the pure Homeric stjde of fight — and the rallpng cries of either part}-, inter- mingled with the ring of battle-axes and the clash of spears. The tide of victory, according to concurrent testimony, was with the Scotch ; but it was a dead man that won the field. Early in the fight Douglas was borne down to the ground. He had performed prodigies of valour, but having advanced too far into the ranks of BATTLE OP OTTERBURy. 39 the enemy without being supported, lie received a sheaf of the English speai's, and if not slain outright, was wounded unto death. They laid his body below a bracken bush lest a panic might seize the Scottish army — for neither party generally knew what had happened^ — and when day broke, and the issue was decided, victory was more bitter to the conquerors than defeat was to the vanquished, for the valiant and noble Doufflas was stark in death. On that night. Hotspur and his brother were taken prisoners and held to ransom. In Bishop Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry the heroic ballad of The Battle of Otterbourne is given with all Homeric circumstance. The following are stanzas from this famous ballad: — " It fell about the Lammas tide, When moorsmen win their hay ; The doughty Douglas bound him to ride, In England to take a prey. And boldly brent Northiunberland, And harried many a town ; They did our English men great wrang, To battle that were not bound." 40 BATTLE OP OTTERBVRN. Then follows a full and particular account of the fight, and the eoucludiug verses are as follows : — " There was slain upon the English part, For truth as I you say ; Of nine thousand English men, Five hundred cam away. The other were slain in the field, Christ keep their souls from woe ; Seeing there were so few friends, Against so many a foe. Then on the morn they made them beeres Of birch and hazeU grey : Many a widow with weeping tears, There makes them faint away. This fray began at Otterburne, Between the night and day ; There the Douglas lost his life, And the Percy was led away." A battle-stone — singularly enough called Percy Cross — has been erected to mark the spot where Dougla.s fell, although we imagine that event happened more to the north ; and from time to time the plough — so long as there was any tillage in Reed water, has turned up relics, of what Froissart says " was the hardest and most .•l.V ENGLISH RAJD. 43 obstinate battle that was ever fouglit," and of which Sir Philip Sidney said—" I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas that I found not my heart more moved than with a trumpet." Happily the union of the English and Scottish crowns put an end to the warlike raids of the Percys into Scotland, and of the Douglas and other Scottish nobles into Northumberland. We say warlike raids, for we are reminded that even in very recent times there have been raids of the Percys across the border. Just twenty-five years ao-o a certain young Northumbrian nobleman — Lord Percy— made a raid into Argyleshire, anil carried off as his bride from Inverary Castle, a fair daughter of the house of Argyle, in whose veins flowed the commingled blood of Campbell and Douglas. "The whirligig of time brings about strange revenges." The future Chdtelain of Alnwick Castle is of " the best Scotch bluid," and we may hope that for centuries to come, a long string of Dukes of Northumberland will look back with loving pride to their ancestors, that Earl and Countess of Percy, who in the reign of Victoria, worthily upheld the best traditions of the distinguished families to which they belonged. 44 BATTLE OP PLODDEN FIELD. To Scotland, the field of Flodden was as disastrous as that of Bannockburu was glorious. Flodden Field is close to Ford Castle, and about eight miles from Wooler, and only a short distance from the Scottish Border. With regard to the quarrel which brought on the battle, it is not necessary to say more than that when James the Fourth of Scotland ascended the throne, he married Margaret, the eldest daughter of Henry the Seventh of England. This alliance, it was thought, would inaugurate an era of peace. Henry the Eighth however, upon succeeding his father, in spite of the protests of his brother-in- law, James the Fourth, declared war against France, with which country Scotland had been long in close alliance. No sooner had Henrj- set out for France, than James, for the purpose of creating a diversion in favour of his ally, declared wai* against England, and in the short period of three weeks, one hundred thousand men were mustered for the fight in the vicinity of Edinburgh. Marching south, the Scottish army met the English host at Flodden. The battle was fought on September 9tli, 1513, and owing to a tactical error, as great as that committed by the English at Bannockburn, the Scottish forces were completely routed. History narrates that > BA TTLES OF UEXUA M AND HEDOELE Y MOOR. 45 on the night of the battle of Gravelotte, outside Metz, in 1870, so terrible had been the slaughter during the day, that there was not a noble family all through Germany from whose hearth-stone a bitter wail did not ascend, similar to that which ran through Egypt when the first-born was slain. It was so throughout Scotland after Flodden. The English archers twanged their bow-strings to such purpose, that while on their side comparatively few of note were slain, the ranks of the Scottish chivalry were depleted — " The flowers o' the forest were a' wede away." The king was slain. The hiei-archy shai-ed his fate, for they had followed in his train ; twelve earls, fifteen lords and chiefs of clans, and in one family or clan — that of Douglas — two hundred gentlemen fell. The battles of Hexham and Hedgeley Moor, fouffht in l-iGrl", between the houses of York and Lancaster, during the Wars of the Roses, only need to be incidentally referred to, and happy to narrate, the Jacobite rebellion of 1715, for adhering to which the unfortunate Earl of Derwentwater suffered so severely, saw the last muster on Northumbrian soil for the fight. It is known to everyone how the gallant but mistaken Earl was compelled to capitulate at 46 EARL OP DERWENTWATES. Preston, and after being imprisoned in the Tower till 1716, was suddenly hurried to the block ou Tower HilL The whole of the Earl's estates were confiscated and handed over to Greenwich Hospital, which draws a large annual revenue from them. Within the last thirty j-ears we have had the fiasco of the so-called Countess of Derwentwater. NORTHUMBERLAND: ITS FEATURES. CHAPTER II. Natural Features — Sheep Farmers — Large r.Small Holdings ^Among the Northumberland Moors — Willie Winter's Gibbet — The Rivers and Burns — A Northumbrian Winter^North- iimbrian Castles — Mineral Treasures — Towns. '"["^HE natural feature.s of IN orthumberland -■- ave most diversified in form, as migfht be expected in so large a county. The North- umbrian plain i.s not to be compai'ed with that of Cumberland, which is perhaps the most extensive in the kingdom. It is that part of the county which borders upon the German Ocean, and begins at the base and .spurs of the Cheviot range. The valleys are generally long, and only moderately wide. They all bear testimony to the thickly-wooded character of the county in earlier times. In some places considerable patches of primitive alder and birch still survive where the repose of nature has never been molested. Fine specimens of black oak are frequently unearthed, or duo- out of the bed of the streams and rivers, and several of the county houses contain articles 48 SILVER NUT WELL. of fui'niture which have been made out of it. A strange phenomenon occurs at Meadowhaugh near Otterburn. In the centre of what must have been at one time a hirge morass bordering upon the river Reed, there is a pool of some con- siderable circumference, known as the Silver Xut Well. The waters are in a continual state of unrest, and as they keep boiling up, they bring to the surface the debris of forest trees and hazel nuts, which are still in a state of perfect preserva- tion, and are so beautifulh- silvered h\ chemical action that they give their name to the well. These " silver nuts " are often bottled and carried away, and when the vessel is hermetically sealed they are an enduring curiosity. According to venerable tradition, a man and horse, and cart laden with hay, once disappeared beneath the waters of the well. Credat Judoeus ! Many of the names of places also bear testimony, in their reference to the fauna, to the unsubdued character of the county in former times. There is, for instance, the wolf, as Wolf Crag and Wool law ; the wild cat, as Catcleugh ; the fox or tod, as Todholes ; the otter, a= Otterburn ; the hart, as Hartburn ; the raven, as Ravenscleugh. The uplands of Northumberland are long- reaching, and the mountains of the Pennine PENNJiXS RANGE AND WUINSTONE DYKE. 49 range — the backbone of England — which begin at Cheviot and run down through Derbysiiire, are only of a comparative height, and are rounded and covered with heather or grass. Cheviot itself — the glory of the " north countree " — is 2,676 feet high. Hedge Hope, Yeavering Bell, Hartside and Windygyle, Carter Fell, and the Simonside range, are imposing in form, and stand out in splendid relief against the sky outline. The northern part of the chain is porphyritic, the southern mainly carboniferous. The great geo- logical feature of Northumberland, the Whinstone Dyke, crosses the county from east to west. It appears first at Holy Island, zig-zags between the mainland and the coast as far as Bamborough and to Dunstanboroagh, and then follows a well- defined and sinuous course by way of Ratcheugh, Rothley, Gunnerton, Sewingshields, Craig Lough, and Thirlwall, to Gilsland, where it enters Cum- berland. After leaving the alluvial plain on the east of the count}', one range of hills succeeds another until the Scottish border is reached. The plough above the ground, and the miner below it, mostly occupy the lowland, while a race of sheep farmers tenants the higher grounds. These farmers arc all alike, hardy and enterprising, and as fiock- 50 (.HEVJOT :^, over what were literally mountains of snow. By the time I arrived at the station my clothes were wringing with perspiration, and in that condition I travelled to Newca,stle in a third-class carriage during a hard frost. It may be assumed that such exposure would, in most instances at any rate, be attended with some desjree of danser. ADVICE ON COURTSHIP. 66 At the time, liowever, that I speak of, the gentler passion was in the ascendancy, and no harm befel me. In the matter of courtship, Northumbrians are proverbial!}- canny and careful not to commit themselves. I recollect that some short time after my ordination one of my elders, a large farmer, and a most kind-hearted man, addressed me one day as follows : — " Now Mr. Christie, ye'll very likely be doing a bit o' courting some day, and let me advise you never to put it in black and white, for you'll always find a horse in my stable when- ever you want one." I may mention that I used my worthy elder's thoroughbred, and thinking it well to have two strings to my bow, at the fame time committed myself to black and white. And if the winter is often severe in the lower lying grounds, six and seven hundred feet above sea level, it is not difficult to understand what the rigour must be among the mountains. The cold indeed is excessive, as it occasionally is during blizzards from the east, even far into May, and once and again hapless travellers, or belated bacchanals, have fallen victims to the cold and storm. I recollect once, when, as a boy, I was returning from the Nest Academy in Jedburgh at Christmas to my father's manse, that I rode 66 HEALTHIXESS OP TEE CLIMATE. over the Carter Fell on the top of a carrier's cart — for there was no other way then of covering tli? twenty-six miles unless it was on foot. What my sensations were it would be in vain to attempt to describe, for, so far as I can remember, they left me altogether. The story runs that when an old Carter Fell carrier was asked if he did not find it very cold on the top, he replied in terms laconic enough: — "Hoot, man, hoot, the varra diel himsel' wadna bide there haK an 'oor unless he was tethered." In spring again, the east winds are generally long-continued and very trying. Such winds of God, as Charles Kingsley declared, no doubt make hardy Englishmen. But then what about the weaklings ? As for rain, the " little summer shower " of the song is often a down-right spate " in the north countree,'" and then the bums roar and foam, and the rivers come down sometimes like a breast-deep wall. With regard to the general healthiness of the covmty there can be no doubt. The two unions of Rothbury and Bellingham swell the bills of mortality least in all England. Dr. Haviland, who iias written on climate and disease, accounts for this on the ground that the air is pure, and because the precipitous coast of Northumberland causes the easterly winds to lose their dynamic force. NORTHUMBRIAN CASTLES- ALNWICK. 69 Hence it is that there is purity without the disastrous effects of the rude blasts. Thick fogs are by no means uncommon in autumn and summer ; but horsemen accustomed to the fells have no fear. The animals they ride, liardy and wise, are never put out, and all the rider has to do is just to give his steed a long loose rein, and he wnll be brought in safety " o'er moors and mosses mony 0." Northumberland is dotted throughout its length and breadth with castles and gentlemen's seats, and here, as might be expected, the Duke of Northumberland, the overlord of the county, takes first rank. Alnwick Castle is a princely residence, and in any other country would be a royal palace. It occupies a commanding position on a height above the river Aln, and overlooks a vast expanse of undulating and well-wooded country. The castle occupies about five acres of ground, and is .surrounded by a massive wall flanked by sixteen towers and turrets. A few years ago Alnwick Castle was thoroughly reno- vated. Several Italians— the most gifted men of the day — were employed in the different depart- ments of restoration, and the entire work cost, it is believed, somewhere about half a million sterling. In the summer of 1892, when Lord 70 TEE PERCYS AND " THE GREA T DIVIDE." Warkworth, eldest son of Earl Percy, and heir apparent to the Dukedom, came of age, there were great rejoicings at Alnwick Castle, and princely hospitality was extended to all. It may be interesting to state that there is an important historic connexion between Cum- berland and Xorthumberland with regard to the Dukes of Northumberland. For centuries the Percys were not only the great landowners of Xorthumberland, but also of Cumberland. They secured large possessions after the Norman Conquest, and some three centuries later these were greatly increased by the marriage of the first Earl of Northumberland — the fatherof the immor- tal Hany Hotspur — to Maud de Lucj', the heiress of Anthony de Lucy. The Percys thus acquired the honour and castle of Cockermouth. These estates remained in the possession of the main line of the Percys till 1670, when the eleventh Earl of Northumberland died, leaving an only daughter, Lady Elizabeth Percy, who became the wife of the seventh Duke of Somerset, and upon his death in 1750 — he leaving an only daughter — came '' the great divide." That daughter married Sir Hugh Smithson, who afterwards became Duke of Northumberland, and was the lineal ancestor of the present Duke. DUCHESS ELEANOR AXD LORD MACAULAY. 71 The nephew of the seventh Duke became Baron Cockermouth and Earl of Egremont, and is the direct ancestor of the present Lord Leconfield. Thus after the lapse of five centuries, one of the descendants of Hotspur is still the owner of great estates in Northumberland, and another descendant is a great landowner in Cumberland. The Duke's principal residence among the moors is at Keilder.in North Tyne When the first volume of Macaulay's History of Enghind came out, Duke Algernon and Duchess Eleanor were in residence at Keilder Castle. Every one knows with what a graphic pen the gifted historian, in his third chapter, portrays the England of the seventeenth century, and the following is one of his sonorous sentences:— "Within the memory of some whom this generation has seen, the sports- man who wandered in pursuit of game to the sources of the Tyne, found the heath round Keilder Castle peopled by a race scarcely less savage than the Indians of California, and heard with surprise the half-naked women chanting a wild measure, while the men with brandished dirks danced a war dance." The Duchess read the volume with an interest that thrilled her whole womanhood, but when she came to thus sentence, she had no sooner finished it than, as 72 WILD CATTLE AT CIIILLINGHAM. ■we have often heard Dr. Brace tell the story, ■with the maguificent ■wrath of the strawberry leaf, she took it, aud ttiDging it to the other eud of the dra^«-ing room, vowed that no line of Macaulay should ever come beneath her eye again. Dilston Castle, near Hexham, was the seat of the ill-fated Earl of Derwentwater, and is now a picturesque ruin. Chillingham Castle, the seat of the Earl of Tankerville, is renowned for the breed of wild cattle — the Bos Brittanicus or Caledonian Urus, the original British breed, some say — which are hei-e parked. They are cream coloured. The inside of the ear is a bright pink, and the tips of the horns, the muzzle, and the hoofs, are black as sloes. The Chillingham cattle, together with the deer of the park, live again in the master-pieces of Sir Edwin Landseer. Earl Grey has a famous seat at Howick, while Falloden i.s the seat of Sir Edward Grey, .M.P., gi-andson of Sir George Grey, and Under- Secretary for Foreign Affairs in Mi'. Gladstone's present administration. We cannot mention the name of Grey without laying it alongside that of John Scott, and that by way of contrast. Earl Grey and John Scott, Lord Eldon, were both Nortliumbrians — mighty men and men of LORD ELDON AND EARL ORFT. "3 renown. Whatever may be the political views of the reader, we feel sure tliat radicals and tories will agree that no truer patriots ever lived. They loved their country with a full- hearted love, and we cherish their mem- ay because we know they were true-born English- men to the core. It was in Earl Grey's ministry that the Reform Bill was introduced in 1832 by Lord John Russell, and when he did so. Lord Eldon declared in high Briti.sh Doric that England was gone to the dogs at last. E;irl Grey and Lord Eldon are now only names, mighty though they be, and old England is more vigorous, more prosperous and happier than ever. Liberal fore- sight and conservative energy have each furnished the necessary quota to guide the vessel of the state in safety over seas that have in turn been smooth and stormy, and in the near futuie, far from expecting a cataclysm, we look for such a golden age as ancients never pictured and poets never sang, and such a Utopia as Sir Thomas More never dreamed of. Lord Armstrong has a splendid place at rugged Cragside, near Rothbury, and Sir George Trevelyan, the present Minister for Scotland, has his place at Wallington, near Caml)0, the very ii-arden of Northumberland.* ^^^____ *See Appendix. 74 TEE HESLEYSIDE SPUR. Bamborough, Dunstanborough, and Wark- worth Castles, on the bold north coast, not to speak of Xorham and other noble relics, are replete with the flavour of poetry and legendary lore, which clothe their ruins with undying interest, and place them on the bead-roll of Northumberland's choicest treasures. Nor amid this list of country mansions and ancient castles may we omit to mention Hesley- side Hall, the seat on North Tyne of the ancient family, of the Charltons. Within recent years, some portions of the large estate have been brought to the hammer ; but till then. Squire Charlton could ride thirty miles on his own property over a splendid grazing and sport- ing country, from Tynedale to Kershope Foot. It is to the house of Charlton that the well- known incident of the served-up spur belongs. In ancient times, when border barons and squills reived and lifted — or in less euphonious terms, stole one another's cattle — whenever the larder at Hesleyside was getting empty, the lady of the house had a spur served up at dinner as a sign to the hard-riding .squires and their re- tainers that they must to boot and saddle at once and fetch in a herd of fat beeves from Scotland. MISERALS-LEAD MINING. '■' Northumberland abounds in mineral wealth, coal, limestone, lead, and iron, and these all con- tribute in a very large degree to the fertility and wealth of the county. Limestone is to be found in most parts, and the Hareshaw Moors around Rids- daleand Bellingham abound in excellent ironstone. A generation ago, these districts had extensive iron works, but as there were no railways then, the cost of tlie land carriage of the iron was so great as to swallow up the profit.and consequently the furnaces were blown out, and the countryside is to-day an unformed heap of mouldering slag and pit debris. Lead mining in Northumberland centres around Alston Moor and Allendale, high lands in the extreme south of the county, and border- ing upon Cumberland and Durham. Abundant evidence exists to show that the ore was worked during the Roman occupation of Britain. It is rich in silver, and the W.B. lead-the name given to that found in Mr. Beaumont's mines— is famous in all markets. In fact, Northumberland lead is as renowned as the produce of the Cassitendes or Tin Islands of Herodotus, in whose pages we have the earliest notice of our country, and of one of its industries, which is mentioned as being among the marvels of the Father of History. 76 THE LEAD MINERS. A cake of silver fouud in Mr. Beaumont's mines, weighing 12,162 nzs., and valued at £3,344 lis., was shown at the great exhibition in Hyde Park in 1851. These mines are said to yield one-fourth of the lead raised in England, one- sixth of the produce of Great Britain, and one-tenth of all that is produced in Europe, in- cluding the British Isles. Although the earliest method of working the ore appears to have been b}' sinking shafts as in the case of coal mines, horizontal levels or galleries have now been substituted. Rather more than a centurj- ago they were introduced by Sir Walter Blackett, and are sufficiently large to admit of horses travelling in them. The Blackett Level in the Allendale mines extends underground for seven miles. The Northumberland lead miners are a stalwart, healthy, hard}- and prolitic race. They are inventive to a degree, many of them traverse with sure foot the soaring altitudes of pure mathematics, and far beyond coal miners, they often secure success in their craft, not as charlatans by using the divining rod, but by following the evolutions of a recorded experi- ence, and of a far-searching, and often unerring, inner consciousness. EXTEXT OF COALFIELD. 77 The best seams of coal, as niiglit be ex- pected, are met with in the vicinity of Newcastle, and aloD£( the seaboard ; but the coal measures, with more or less regularity, are to be found as far to the west as the Plashetts in North Tyne, and on Hareshaw, Elsdon and Ih-ownrigg, within the water-shed of the river Reed. Hard- headed and deft-handed Northumbrians have successfully tackled many a trouble in these out- lying regions, and brought the black diamonds to the surface which have been eageriy purchased by widely -removed customers. Before Roxburgh- shire was as well served by the railway as it is now, long strings of carts used to come over the Carter Fell to Brownrigg, or Soppit near El.sdon for the purpose of carrying back coals. They had iron axles, and in frosty weather the ring they gave out in passing over the hard roads could be heard at a great distance. Before this time, however, and prior to the twenties, it was common to carry coal from Hareshawhead and Brownrigg over the Carter Fell in sacks balanced on the backs of ponies, which marched in caval- cade. The Roxburghshire seats of the Eari of ilmto and neighbouring gentry were supplied with fuel in this way, and as the men who were onca'^ed in the trade had to camp out on the 78 TOWNS— SEWCASTLE. moors for one night both when going and coming, they often suffered severely from the rigour of the weather. It cannot be said that there are many towns in Northumberland. Of course there is the one big town extending from Wylam to Tynemouth — for that long reach of the Tyne is as much a town as the modern city of Newcastle — but besides this, Wooler, Belford, Rothbuiy, Haltwhistle, Bellingham — all com- paratively small place.s — Alnwick, ilorpeth, Blyth and Hexham, make up the sum total of Northumbrian towns, and each of these places has its own individuality as a distinctive feature in the landscape. Newcastle, situated though it is on the banks of the coaly Tyne, where hundreds of manufactures pour forth clouds of smoke from Monday morning to Saturday afternoon, is a magnificent city. Indeed, it would be difficult to find anything finer than the view that is to be had from the higher parts of the Town Moor on a Saturday afternoon, when the factories are closed for the week, and a brisk wind is blowing from the west. According to contemporary accounts, Newcastle, a centur}- ago, was one of the most picturesque of towns. Orchards and JOHN WESLEY'S LOVE FOR NEWCASTLE. 79 meadows alwunded, and outside the walls there stood the Infirmary with its leafy surroundings, and the Forth with its shaded walks, where Lord Eldon and his schoolfellows used to steal flowers, the former for Bessy Surtees, and the rest for their several sweethearts. Such was New- castle when John Wesley visited it, and made the following eulogistic entry in his diary :— " Lovely place, and lovely company ! Certainly, if I did not believe there was another world I would spend all my summers here, as I know no place in Great Britain comparable to it for pleasantness." St. Nicholas, of course, is the architectural feature of the city. Its lanthorn, whether seen from the railway, Collingwood Street, the top of the Side, or from afar, is a "thing of beauty, and a joy for ever." Grey Street, with the noble monument to Earl Grey, is as fine a thoroughfare as is to be found in Great Britain, while the Close, and the " Chares," and other surroundings of old Newcristle are all enchanted ground to any one who is bound on antiquarian research. To the late Mr. Grainger, who covered large fields with splendid buildings, which now constitute the business part of the city, Newcastle is more indebted than it is possible to say. 80 ysirCASTLE QUAY SIDE. The quaint and never-to-be-forgotten Quay Side is indeed something to be seen. A long range of ofBces, with any amount of broken sky-line in the roofs, and some of the gables abutting on the Quay, after the manner of all seaport towns in the north of Europe ; the swing bridge, and the High Level bridge, used alike bj- pedestrians and equestrians, and car- riages and rollies, and the trains of the Xorth Eastern system : the frowning Hoot Hall to the north, and the rapid flowing and tawny maned Tyne to the south : the forest of shipping : the precipitous banks across the river leading np to the town of Gateshead, which is in the county of Durham ; the polyglot of nationalities — in other words, seamen of all nations moving up and down : crrave-faced merchants, and acnle brokers' clerks who seem to know nothing of danger ; the mendicant lame and halt ajud blind and brazen-faced ; the orange lasses and the apple stalls ; the loading and unloading of vessels, the whistling, and shonting, and screaming and burring : — of all this and of much more is the Quay Side of Newcastle made up. May its shadow never jcrow less ! The Tyne is a noble river now in its lower reaches, and is as useful there as it is picturesque TYNE COMMISSIONERS-WALKER. 81 to the west. The services rendered to Newcastle by Mr. J. C. Stevenson, M.P., and the Tyne Com- missioners in i-emovinjf the Black Middens — those dreaded rocks at the mouth of the river where so many harrowing scenes of shipwreck and whole- sale loss of life have been often witnessed — and in dredging and deepening its bed till it can admit the largest tonnage at any state of the tide, are not to be forgotten. The Tyne Commissioners, equally with the Clyde Trustees, have been the makers of Newcastle and Glasgow as great commercial and industrial centres. But what about Walker ? for " there's ney place like Walker." Walker, together with Wallsend, which is contiguous to it, is the great centre of pits and ship building, and all the allied industries. From the thin clear air of the Cheviots to the smoky atmosphere of Walker and its neighbour is a change indeed, and yet a great number of the workmen have originally come from the highlands and rural districts of the north. The pitman is supposed to have in Walker his Mecca or his Jenisalem, and it is thus the local song makes him sing : — " When aw cam to AValker wark, Aw had ne coat nor ne pit sark, But now aw've getten twe or three, Walker's pifs deun weel for me. 82 TTNESIDE SONGS— NORTH SHIELDS. Byker Hill and Walker Shore, Colliery lads for evermore, There's ney place like Walker." Tyneside songs, which are generally written in the vernacular, are a great treat to anyone who undei-stands Northumbrian. There is an excellent collection, pubhshed originally by Mr. Da\"idson of Alnwick about the year 1S40, and re-published by Mr. Allan of Newcastle in 1889. It is called The Tyneside Songster. A veiy fine illustrated edition beai-s the date 1891. Lower down the river, and quite near its mouth, is North Shields, an old-fashioned town enough, li^^ng, mo\Tng, and ha^"ing its being by means of shipping. Tj-neside sailoi-s are aU proud of this stirring town, and Thompson, the song writer, puts the following patriotic Unes into the lips of one of them :— " A Cockney chep showed me the Thames dmvy fyace Whilk he said was the pride of the nation ; And thowt at their shipping aw'd myek a haze-gaze, But aw whopt ma foot on his noration. Wi" huz, mun, three hundred ships sail iv a tide, We think nowse on't, aw'll myek accydavy, Ye're a gowk if ye did'nt know that the lads of Tyneside, Are the Jacks that myek famish wor navy." TYNEMOriTH— ADMIRAL COLLINGWOOD, 83 Below North Shields, and only a short distance from it, is Tyuemonth. The town stands on a bold rocky bluff, and looks out on the German Ocean. A monument to the brave Collingwood commands the attention of all as they approach the town, and is in every way a fitting memorial, at a fitting spot, of one of Northumberland's bravest and most distinguished sons. A native of Newcastle, and sent to sea as a midshipman at the age of eleven, he mounted the ladder step by step till he assumed the chief command at Trafalgar after Nelson had received his death wound, and completed the triuiiph of the day. He was created a peer of the realm because of his courage, and died at sea in 1810. Admiral Collingwood was a thorough seaman, and never allowed his courage to outrun his judgment. Alike firm and mild in command, his sailors called him their father, while his private virtues and generosity endeared him to all who came in contact with him. The ruins of the Priory, which was burned down by the Danes, are a commanding feature, and are beautiful in decay. As for Tynemouth besides, it is a safe haven for ships since the rocks were removed from the sea-way, and tlie massive pier was run out far into the sea. It is 84 TTyEMOUTH SASDS. eveiywhei'e redolent of the ocean, a favourite seaside resort, and commands a noble stretch of sands, which are well-nigh as crowded during the season as Margate or Easttourne. On the Tynemouth Mai-ine Promenade, as men of yeare look upon the recreations of youth, they may recall to remembrance how they too disported themselves when the world was young: the childi-en build castles in the sand — it is too soon almost for them to build castles in the air — and with that imwearied exercise of limb and lung which makes the sturdy Briton, they are happy as the day is long. NORTHUMBERLAND: ITS PEOPLE. CHAPTER III. The Fisher Folk — Rivers stocked with Salmon — Sally the Mugger, a Scene — Salmon Poachint; and Smuggling — Hinds and Shepherds — A Presbyterian Communion Forty Years Ago — Precentors — Funerals — Education — Keelmen and Pit- men — Visit to a Coal Mine — Northumbrian Sports — The North- umbrian Shibboleth, the Burr — Eminent Natives — Knights of Industry, &c. —L'Envoi — Appendix. ALL the rivers run into the sea, and the long Northnmberland seaboard, extending from Berwick to Tynemouth, is peopled by a hardy and daring race — the fisher-folk. Of these people it may be said, as of Israel of old, that they dwell alone. With the inland population they are on no terms of alliance whatever, save those of sale or barter. No rural swain need ever hope to woo and win a sea-nymph as she rises from the wave. Frys and Armstrongs marry with Frys and Armstrongs, and in process of time all sorts of roundabout phrases have to be used to distinguish one Fry from another, and one blue- eyecl, yellow-haired Armstrong, from his first cousin. A Northumbrian fishing village is just about as much a confused woi'ld's end of a place 86 THE FISHER FOLK. as can be imagined. As for order, there is none, and the inequalities of the ground in front of the cottages are such that one can only suppose it is all of design, and is intended to suit those who go to sea, and whose life on the ocean wave is one of alternating upheaval and depression. No one who has gone through such a village can ever forget it. All kinds of ancient odoui's, pig- styes, gutters, and small garden plots are there. When it is washing day in "the fleet" the flannel duds of generations wave in the breeze, together with other articles of a more modem and attrac- tive description. The village seems to be a maze of nets. When the boats are ofl", the only persons about are white-capped old wives, and barefooted women, and boys and girls — the boys and girls always up to some sort of mischief — and when the boats are in, groups of weather-beaten and furrowed fishermen lounge about, smoking, and either discussing fishing aflairs in an almost inaudible tone, or gazing out far to sea through a spy-glass which they steady on a wall, or giving a stranger the impression that they ai-e "thinking, ye kna." The low-browed cottages are pantiled and white-washed, and between them, and the glowing colours of sea and foreshore, rocky strata and emerald banks, there is that singular inter- FISHERMAN'S COTTAGE. 87 blending of effect which makes the sea shore and the fishing village so dear to the artist's eye and easel. The interiors of the cottages are, as a rule, homely, and present scenes such as a Dutch artist of the seventeenth century would have revelled in. The box -bed, the dresser laden with china and crockery, the plain deal table, the " crackets " or three-legged stools placed before the blazing hearth, the long saddle lounge, the eight-day clock, the highly coloured German chromo-lithographs, a few chairs, and some well-thumbed books, these, together with a few pairs of sea boots, and two or three jerseys and coloured pocket-handkerchiefs hanging on the line above the fireplace, constitute the furnishing of a fisherman's cottage. And here they wed, and bear children, and die. Here they have the happy days, and the oft-recurring dark days. Yes, we think we are right to men- tion dark days in the fishing village. These simple-living, yet astute people, know as much about anxiety, and long waiting, and dool, as most. When the fishing fieet is oft', and the north-east gale comes away in all its furj% when everything turns one universal grey-blue tint, and sea and sky are commingled as if the hour for the crack of doom had come, woe be- tide these tearful women, and sobbing children, 88 A NIGHT WITH THE FISHERMEN. and palsied old folks, who often have only too sure a presentiment, that sons, and husbands, and fathers have sunk, down, down, many fathoms down beneath the North Sea foam. Wh&i a contrast between this day of wrath and the calm summer's eve, when the fishermen's boats set off for the fishing. This is one of the prettiest of sights. For some time, most likely, they have to use the oars, till, rounding the head- land, they catch the breeze, and then quicklj' unfurling the sail they race right merrily to the ground. After the nets are shot, the boats lie by them for the night. Few sounds are heard — save the lapping of the wavelets against the sides of the boat — for our fisher folks are ponderously silent now. But, see, the first streaks of day- break pour down from the east, and in a moment all is commotion ! The fishermen stride about rapidly, ropes are pulled, oars are plied, a chorus of nautical monotones fills the air, the nets are being hauled in, and the wealth of the sea covers the deck of the boat often knee deep. During the herriDjj-fishiDs; season, the silver sheen of that beautiful fish, as they are caught by the gills in the meshes of the net, and as they litter the deck, is beyond all comparison, loveh'. The nets hauled in, it is now, who shall get back first. A B UN DA NCE OP SA LMON. 89 and when the little pier-head is rounded, and the boat made fast, preparations are hurried forward for the wholesale vend and general land-sale ot this " harvest of the sea." Now is the time for the women to come to the front, and it is well known how strong, and agile, and un- tirino- they are. Of many of them it may be said "beasts of burthen they; but they take to the toil with a brave heart and a single-eyed purpose, and all the world over, this converts toil and drudgery into luxury and ease. In the previous chapter, we remarked that the Northumbrian rivers and burns are excellent troutin.- streams. Nor are s^^lmon a-wanting. We do"not say that that noble fish is now as plentiful as it was in the olden time, when the Newcastle apprentices had it entered on their indentures that they were not to be expected to eat salmon more than twice a week ; but still in Tyne, and Reed, and Coquet, and pa^ excellence in the Tweed, salmon abound. In our times the river-watchers keep down autumn and winter poaching pretty successfully no doubt, although, perhaps, after all, the less that is .said about that the better ; but forty and fifty years ago it was thought nothing of, and still there was plenty for everyone. We have not 90 SALMOy POACEIXO. thought it necessary to make ourselves acquainted with the letter of the law as it then existed con- cerning the legalit}^ or the illegality of salmon poaching; but we remember well enough, when we were in a somewhat earlier stage of our existence than we are now, that ever}' one in Redesdale, and Tynedale, and Coquetdale, gentle and simple, thought it no sin to secure a good store of kippered salmon for winter consumption. That these good-hearted, hospitable dalesmen, were sinners above all other men in England, because they got a salmon or two out of season, is not to be supposed, although we rather fear the Xorth- umbrians' record law-ward is not of the best. History testifies that there is no evidence that the written law ever reached Northumberland during the Saxon rule, and since then Northumbrians have never objected to be a law unto themselves in subsidiary matters. No doubt in Saxon times, and in times much later — " The good old rule Sufficed them, the simple plan That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can." But be this as it may, the Muggers used to hawk cartloads of salmon about in the late autumn, and they mostly brought them from the Coquet. SALLY THE MUOQER. 91 Adepts say that the Coquet salmon, instead of being the Salmo salar, or the true salmon, is only the Salmo eriox, or the bull trout ; licnce, perhaps, these midnight raidings were the less reprehensible. In connexion witli the poaching and the vend of salmon, I have a vivid recollection of a strik- incf incident. One afternoon in the late autumn, about tea-time, when all was dark without, and the candles were lighted, wo children were in the parlour. Suddenly we heai-d the kitchen door opened with much noise, and heavy feet making theii- way in. The news soon spread that Sally the Mugger was there with salmon, and in a very short time the parlour was emptied, and the kitchen filled with every one about the manse, except the minister, my father, who upon this occasion remained an unkno-svn quantity. Sally—Sarah Anderson was her baptismal name —was never more en evidence than she was on that occasion so far as I recollect. She was a mighty woman, and of herculean build. She could have felled an ox with her fist at the end of her huge forearm, and she generally managed to keep her consort " Wully," under her thumb. As for figure, she had none. She was square up and down as a Dutchman, and the waist of her 92 SALLl' THE MUGGER. gown was generally somewhere immediately be- neath her armpits.* Her black, or tartan dress was ample in its folds. She was generally bare- necked, if she could be said to have a neck, and a black velvet bonnet hanging far down behind, and exposing the frowsiest head of hair imagin- able, completed her attire, except that she had a pair of heavy laced-up boots as strong as men ever wore. Sally's attire always impressed me profoundly ; but, after all, this was only a faint reflexion of the impression produced by her face. The superficies of this organ was vast, and it generally wore an inflamed hue, due, without a doubt, to the potent eflects produced bj- strong waters. A resolute will, and a fixed determina- tion, was stamped upon Sally's face without any possibility of mistake. She had only to open her lips, when, if not numbers, yet words not to be numbered, flew. One of her eyes, large, and round, and fully orbed as that of the Minotaur, looked direct at the person addressed, and shot out a meaning which brooked no contradiction, while the other, " with a fine frenzy- rolling," was located, not parallel, as is common, but at right * It will interest my fair readers to know that since this description of Sally's gown was written, I have been informed that the short waist such a^ she wure is now the latest fashion. SALLY THE MUGGER. 93 angles to it. With these overpowering organs of "vision, Sally, always, everywhere, and before everyone, held the Held. On the occasion to which I allude, she was in her grandest and most magnificent mood, and, truth to tell, we were all more or less afraid of ber. Dragging a huge salmon after her, she Hung it down on the kitchen table, threw her lordly head back, placed her arms akimbo on her hips, and with a whiskied breath that would kill at half a league, exclaimed, in the tones of a Stentor, to my dear little mother, who stood only as a mole hill beneath this towering mountain, "There's a salmon for you, mistress, hinny. A finer never cam oot o' Cociuet. It's only threepence a puud. Ye'll take't." Before time was given for any reply, Sally whipped out a big gully, brandished it aloft, as if she had been butcher-in-chief to an army in the field, and in far less time than it takes to describe, opened up the Salmo eriox, and prepared it for the kippering. Days speak, it is true, but Sally and Wully. and many of those who were actors in this and other well-remembered scenes, have gone now to that lone and silent land where the weary are at rest.* • See Appendix. 94 SMrOGLiyO. The one illicit sugscests another, and to salmon poaching succeeds smuggling. "Gan' to Boulmer for gin, " used to be a Northumbrian proverb. Boulmer was a noted place for running Hollands ashore, and bands of daring men, with strings of pack-horses, when they received signals that a Dutch lugger was off the coast, ran all risks, and often defied " the guager." Until the duty on spirituous liquore was equalised between Scot- land and England, the Carter Fell used often to be a debatable ground between the exciseman and the smuggler. All manner of expedients were had recourse to, to transfer the usquebaugh from the one country to the other. The Scotch Andrew Fairservices, who happened to reside in Northumberland, thought it no sin to drown the memories of " the sad and sorrowful union " in the potent contraband ; while the English were fain to form a still closer alliance with their ancient Caledonian foes in the matter of social cheer than the hard-riding officers of Inland Revenue were willing to allow. It is told of one borderer on the English side — and his ingenuity was surely deserving of a better fate — that when the dreaded postman, that ■pallida mors, who knocks at every man's door sooner or later, knocked at his, it occurred to NORTHUMBRIAN HINDS. 95 him to have the coffin made at Jedburgli, twelve miles into Scotland over the Carter Fell. In due time the coffin was finished, and having been put into a hearse,it was brought with all becoming decorum across the frontier. It so happened however, that the eagle-eyed exciseman was on the outlook, and the inventive and wily North- umbrian came to grief, for when the officer demanded permission to look into the hearse, he found the coffin well stocked with " grey hens," of another plumage than the grey hens, which with the black cocks, abound in these regions. The carriers between Scotland and England did a good deal of smuggling, but in most cases it was only to their sore hurt in the long run, seeing that, in addition to falling into tippling ways, all their devices for concealment were exposed eventually. The writer has known instances where his father, as a sort of general pacificator, has been employed to use his best offices to secure a reduction of the fine inflicted upon the poor, and for the time being, penitent smuggler. In mostcases,however,Rhadamanthine justice was the truest clemency. To the north and east of the county the class termed hinds mostly belongs ; to the hill sides belong the shepherds. The hinds are 96 NORTHUMBRIAN SHEPffERDS. ploughmen and general workers on the arable farms, and they are an unaccountably migratory class. In deiiance of every law of social and domestic economy, it is said that at least one- third of them change their service every year, not because they secure any pecuniary advantage by so doing, but simply from love of change. The hind has a free house, his coals are led, a thousand yards of potatoes are planted for him, and he receives so much money. In addition to his own labour, he is required during the outfield working year to employ a woman, young or otherwise, who receives from his master a daily wage which runs considerably below the market price. This worker is known by the name of " Bondager," not to signify that she is held in slavery, but that her service is included in the bond between the hind and his employer. With such a custom prevailing, it is easy to understand how it is to the hind's interest to be very much a family man. These sons of the soil are a hard-working, intelligent class, and they are as strong as Hercules. The shepherds are the aristocrats of labour in the highlands of Northumbei'land. Lithe and stalwart in their youth, when age comes upon them their ad\'ice is deferred to on all hands, and SHEPHERDS' PIETY AND COURAGE. 97 in their reverend and hoary age they are, as a rule, the pride of the district where they reside, and in innumerable instances thej* are elders in the Presbyterian Church. What the writer owed to his shepherd elders as a young minister it would be difEcult for him to say. The men to whom he rt^fers were prevailing in prayer, and deeply read as they were in the old Marrow Theology of Boston of Ettrick, Flavel, John Owen, Ralph Erskine, Bunyan, and Doddridge, and all of them with the shorter catechism at their finger-ends, they wei"e always ready to give a reason for the hope that was in them. Trained from their youth up to hill life, the habits of the Cheviot sheep, and the best way of shepherding them, come to these noble men as by instinct. No matter how biting the blast may be, with their legs well-stockinged above the trousers, the shepherd's plaid, either with the neuk or without it, wrapped round them as only a shepherd can, and with a stout stick in their hand, they are ready to sally out wlien duty demands, and many a shepherd of the Cheviots has been found after the tempest was past, smothered in the snow drift, and that, in not a few instances, not far from his own door. To assist them in their work they employ 98 CHURCH GOING. the services of collie dogs — so much affected now by ladies and in town life — it is surely a mistake to take the sagacious collie off the bent and heather and puzzle his wits with a do-nothing town life, a sort of thing that no dog or fellow can understand: and it is amazing how easiij' by a single wave of the hand, or by the distinctive note of command, they will in a very short time secure the end their masters aim at. Many of the shepherds travel several miles to church on Sunday. During the short days in winter they must look through their hirsel when returning, and consequently the dogs accompany them. As long as the service lasts they lie quietlj* in the aisle of the church, or at their master's feet, but no sooner is it over than they shew themselves all anxiety to set out home again. All over the west and north of Xorthum- berland, church-going used to be a most important matter, and, except in the lambing and spaening time, the shepherds were always present, mingling heartily with the farmers and groups of villagers in the service of God. Six, seven, eight, nine, yes, and even ten miles, was thought not too great a distance to travel on horseback or on foot, and as a rule, those furthest from the church were the first to put in an appearance. Many A COMMUNION FORTY YEARS AGO. 99 of them would meet half an hour before service began in front of the church. Of course they talked over the current affairs of farm, and hill, and district, and what harm was there in that, we ask? It was the only chance most of them would have to meet before Sunday came round again. But of all days, a Communion Sunday was the occasion. This used to be preceded by the exercises of a Fast Day on the Thursday, which again were succeeded by a preparatory service on the Saturday, and when the following morning dawned it was soon discovered by all that the Great Day of the Feast had come. From an early hour, the roads were covered with bands of intending worshippers. Where the roads were good, the farmers drove in their con- veyances, while their servant men and women came — for that day — in a long hay cart. The shepherds always walked, unless they were growing old, in which case they rode to Church on their hardy ponies. Where the wide moors had to be crossed, the farmer would ride on his brood mare, while his wife sat behind him on the pillion. It was indeed a sight to gladden every heart to watch these devout men and women pressing forward in all directions to the holy and common meeting place between God and 100 A COilMVyiON FORTY YEARS AGO. man. Tlie summer Communion, as might be expected, was always the best attended. Every one wore the best of their apparel. The older female members invai-iably carried their bibles in their hands, wrapped round with a handkerchief as white as driven snow, and as they generally brought along with them a posy of southernwood, mint, and a red or white rose, the church on that day, and for many days after, was as fragrant as a herbarium. Themorning serviceover — and it lasted between three and four hours — during the short interval that elapsed before the work of the afternoon began, the manse, and the inn, and every house around, provided generous hospitality' for all comers. Monday, again, saw a Thanksgiving Service rendered. At its close the ministers and elders used to dine together at the manse, and thus of old they kept the feast, and held high festival, till after a lapse of sis months another Communion season came round. More exigent times have now greatlj' shortened these holy feasts; but they were seasons of refreshing, and helped to shake the torch of life, and keep the lamp of devotion alive. At a Communion the ordinary minister was invariably assisted by one, and occasionallj- by A COMMUNION FORTY YEARS AOO. 101 several of his neighliours, who often came from a considerable distance, and who in return, were repaid at their own communion seasons for the good offices they had rendered. It may he said without fear of contradiction, that tlie communions of the olden time served the same purpose that the great festivals of the year rendered to the twelve tribes of Israel. They quickened the spiritual life of the people, and what between retrospect and anticipation, they helped a God-fearing people to walk in the light of the Divine countenance. "The Word preached" was highly prized. Though the services, owing to their great length, would prove insupportable to the present generation, the people never seemed to tire. Great value was set by ministers, who, in these preaching tournaments, were supposed to excel in any particular exercise. The .services of preparation, participation, thanks- giving and revision, had their stated place and importance. Tlie minister of the congregation was expected to preach the sermon on the Sunday morning prior to tlie Holy Communion, and this was known by the name of the Action Ser- mon. A venerable and experienced brother was always acceptable when addressing the communi- cants after the sacred emblems had been handed round, and he who on the Sunday afternoon 102 A COMMUNION FORTY YEARS AGO. 01" evening could stimulate to better and fuller life and service was always sure to have an overflowing congregation. Monday's service was one of thanksgi^^ng, and as it generally ended with a review of all that had been done dui-ing the season, abundant opportunity was given to a facile speaker to gather up the fragments that remained, so that nothing might be lost. We have a lively remembrance of these ministers who used to assist our father at the Otterburn Communion. They were godly and venerable men, and in entertaining them, it may be said angels were entertained unawares. Some of them so preached that it might almost be said they chanted their sermons, and when the fervid unction came upon them the effect thej' produced was simply over- powering. Several had all the grace of the courtier about them; others,again, were quaint and full of oddities. They abounded in anecdote, and were not devoid of wit and humour. The names of the Revs. Dr. Xicol, Jedburgh ; Eobert Cranston, Morebattle: John Black, Newcastleton ; John Boyd, Hexham; John Young, Belliugham ; James Muir and John Parker, Sunderland; David Browning, Newcastle: David Donaldson, Alnwick ; Walter Bell and James Robertson, North Middleton, are among the most precious treasures of our memory. COMMUNION HOSPITALITY. 103 It was at these Communion seasons that the kindness of the congregation to the family at the manse was veiy conspicuously shown. luathinly- peopled district, where little ready money was in circulation, the minister's stipend, as might be expected, was never large ; but more or less throughout the year, the contributions in kind formed a very acceptable augmentation fund. In autumn, when the " mart," that is the young ox or heifer, was killed and salted for the winter consumption at the farm house, a joint was certain to find its way to the manse, and throughout the year there were kind and generous souls who never came that way without leavingfarm produce of some sort or other. But when the Communion came round the contributions were multiplied four-fold. The abundant produce of the dairy and the farm-yard was certain to arrive on the Thursday and Saturdaj'. During the interval of serviceontheSundaj',manyof the men accepted the hospitality of the inn, while the female members of the principal families went into the manse, and with a generosit}', the most delicate conceivable, they took care that they should not partake of refreshment at the manse table with- out having first largely contributed to fill it well. Nor were the humbler members of the 104 WILLIE THE PRECENTOR. congregation forgotten at the repast provided in the kitchen. At Communion seasons the book boards in the pews where the Communicants sat were covered with a "decent white cloth," as well as the Com- munion table, and as the Precentor's duties were supp"'sed to be too arduous for anj^ one man, an elder who could sing, or some other singing-man, was associated with him in the box immediately below the pulpit, to the great edification of the general congregation, no doubt, and certainly to the awe and wonder of the juvenile portion of the audience. The Precentors in the olden time were some- times characters. "We recollect two of them well. The first was a knight of the needle, and as nimble as his needle. He could sing like a mavis, was a politician of the deepest dye, and in every conversation circle Willie's voice, facility of utterance, and fund of general information, ruled the roost. Unfortunately he had con- tracted an inveterate liking for strong waters, and when under their influence, not onl}- did he let loose such a Bedlamite tongue as frequently brought severe castigation upon him ; but, as might be expected, he came under the discipline of the Church Session. On these occasions. WILLIE THE PRECENTOR. 103 which freijuently occurred, Willie sat on the stool of repentance with the deepest humility, and vowed many times deep that the cause for offence never should occur again. Alas, however, the flesh was weak, and at last after prolonged endurance, and well-nigh inexhaustible patience, his last suspension passed into deprivation of office, and Willie ever after carried a diminished head. It is only right to mention that his faults were condoned hy the >Session to the extent we have already mentioned, on account of the cir- cumstance that no one could lead the congregation like himself. Poor fellow, he ultimately became stone-blind, and, except about his own door, where he could grope his way with the assistance of his stick, he was led about like a child. To the last day of his life however, his intellect was as keen as ever it had been, and when a chance visitor gave him a dram, his tongue was as rasping as in former days, when it often led him into seas of trouble. In these times the tailor went from house to house to make the clothes, and we boys looked upon it as a day of high jinks when- ever we saw V>'illie seated on the kitchen table, with all the professional paraphernalia of lapboard, goose, yard measure, beeswax, and thread about him. On these occasions we were 106 yED THE PRECENTOR. in clover, for the best of the house was invariably provided for the tailor, and then Willie could always keep the house in a roar when the minister was in his study, or visiting his flock. There was one difficulty, however, which was often hard to overcome, and that was to get Willie to the manse, for he had a rare facultj- for keeping the promise to the ear, but breaking it to the hope. When- ever he got upon " the spree, " it took him two or three weeks to get sobered down, and, at these seasons our impatience grew beyond all bounds, for did it not seem to us that what shoidd have been our new suits were spoiling in the very web ? Nor was it until we saw him seated on the kitchen table that our anxieties were removed. The other Precentor was one of quite a difi'erent type. Willie's form was always attenu- ated. Ned was a man of herculean build. Clumsy withal was he in form, but in every way his was a marked individuality. His beetling eyebrows formed a penthouse, beneath which a troop of fairies could easily have danced a minuet on a moonlight night, and, truth to tell, it is most likely they often did, for Ned had the reputation of ha\ing been a great poacher in his younger NED THE rRECENTOR. 107 days, and many a bonny black cock had found its way into his capacious pockets under the unerring aim of his shooting iron. Growing years, however, brought with them gravity and wisdom, and although al\va3's lazy — the former poaching propensities having probably engendered this vice — he became a respectable, sober-living man and ultimately, Ned, as everyone called him, except the minister, who always addressed him as " Edward," was installed in the Precentor's desk. He filled it well nigh to overflowing, and when on Communion days another was associated with him, the squeeze was manifestly very great. Ned was a hasso 'profunda, and sang with great birr. The act of leading the service of song was evidently a considerable effort, if one might judge from the frequency with which he wiped his spacious face with his red and white pocket handkerchief. And then when the text was given out, and the sermon had begun, he generally covered his bare head with the said pocket handkerchief, and went off sound asleep, secure from the minister's eye beneath his canopy of fringe. Willie was a tailor, and Ned was a cobbler, and many an hour have we spent in his shop, listening to the stirring tones of " Johnny Cope," delivered with a re-echoing force, enough lOS A SryDAY AT ELSDOS CHURCH. to raise the dead, and to his wonderful stories about men and things in Reedwater. He had a large family, and was always impecunious. Owing to this circumstance it generally happened that verj- little of his salary, which consisted of two half-yearly collections, remained to be lifted when pay day came round. Xed was a frequent visitor at the manse. When the shades of night fell — unless he had sent his little hard-working wife as a deputy during the day — he used to walk into the kitchen with a big plaid wrapped about him, and when our mother had been brought in — for he always transacted his dealings with her — the sentence was sure to come sooner or later : — '■ Just another half-croon, mistress, if ve can." The pittance being forth- coming, Xed treated us all to a few songs, rendered in his veiy best style, and then the poor fellow — we should have called him good- natured had he not had the reputation of being a domestic tyrant — went again into the darkness, and crossed the fields to his humble cottage. When the minister had to repay his com- munion debts of service elsewhere, it was common to announce that there would be do service on the following Sunday, and for us, there was left the option of going to the Presbyterian Church RICV. PERCY GILP/y. 109 at Bird-hope-Craig, five uiiles away, or to the Parish Church at Elsdon, three miles distant. For ourselves, we preferred to go to Elsdon, not so much on account of the distance being shorter than to Bii'd-hope-Craig, but because the Elsdon Church Choir ofl'ered great attractions. The big fiddle, and the violin, and the clarionet, were all emploj-ed in the service of song, the vocal music was good and led by enthusiasts, and we had never heard anything like it before. And then, there was the warm-hearted, if eccentric rector, the Rev. Percy Gilpin — always the friend of the manse and every one in it — to listen to and wonder at when he was attired in his surplice, an ecclesiastical robe we never saw at any other time, and so unlike the Greneva gown our father wore. It always filled us with astonishment that Mr. Gilpin left the reading desk at one portion of the service wearing his surplice, and returned to pi'each in his black gown. What this change of Sfarments meant we never could make out. Mr. Gilpin was a great walker ; as he hurried along he used to twirl his walking stick around his fingers, and styling one of his legs " Percy," and the other " Gilpin," he used to keep on saying : — " Come along Percy, Gilpin will beat you. Come along Gilpin, Percy will beat you." 110 LO\'E OP LEARNING. Next to spiritual life is that of the under- standing:, and the Xorthumbrian's love of learning is proverbial. Diu'ing the last half of this century it has been the rarest thing to meet with man or woman who could not write and read and cypher well — thorough masters of the three Rs — and in spite of almost insurmountable disad- vantages, pitboys and ploughmen, shepherds and farmers' sons, have won for themselves the patent of culture by plodding away at the night-school through the long winter months. After finishing their day's work,we have known these lads come many miles to attend a minister's class for the study of Latin, geography, and grammar, and to-day the bulk of them hold positions of honour, and some of them positions of eminence, not in one but in many lands. In a past generation the travelling schoolmaster was in great request. He was very often lame in limb but bright in intelli- gence, and after staying at one farmer's house for three months or so, he would move on to another a few miles distant. In this waj% the chiklren in remote districts received their education, and in three points they excelled, in penmanship, arithmetic, and all branches of mathematics. Northumbrian youths excel in these departments to this day. FUNERALS. Ill Every county has its local customs, and the long-continued Northumbrian method of con- ducting a funeral is well-nigh extinct. The caller went his rounds inviting guests to the ceremony on a certain day, and the cortege was invariably three or four houi's late in starting for the churchyard. If we take Elsdon as an in- stance — a wide parish, twenty miles in length l)y ten in breadth — the order was somewhat as follows, say in the case of a much respected farmer : — A long procession, mostly on horseback, though some would be on foot, left the house of mourning as soon as the baked funeral meats were consumed. Following the hearse, each man wearing round his hat a long pendent scarf of crape, they kept that position till within half a mile of Elsdon, when, clapping spurs to the flanks of their steeds they galloped into the village, so as to stable their horses in the several inns, and be at the churchyard gate in time to meet the coffin. And a moving sight it was to see these ruddy-faced, stalwart dalesmen, reverently go through the solemn service, and with awe- iilled faces commit the body of a friend and neighbour to the tomb. It was the custom to remain at the grave till it was filled in and sodded, which being done, the chief mourner 112 ABBE DCTEXS, RECTOR OP ELSDON. usually said in a loud voice : — " Gentlemen, I thank you for your presence on this occasion." The funeral over, the common thing was to adjoiuTi to one or more of the inns, where each man threw down a shilling, and the value of the lump sum being returned in potable refresh- ment, every one drank to his liking. At a soldier's funeral the band plays Tlie Dead March on the way to the grave, and The Girl I Left Behind Me on the return, and after a funeral at Elsdon, the solemn incoming was oft€n attended with a somewhat hilarious home-going. The potent refreshment gradually drove dull care away. When steeds were mounted, the gentle amble soon passed into the trot, and with an incongruity which was ludicrous, however painful it might be to witness, the trot very of t«n passed into a gallop, in which the horseman pricked forward, his crape scarf flying behind him, and making the pace as if he and his neighbours were hastening to the wedding. But in this brief life which is our portion transitions ai'e often rapid, so there is no room to be censorious. Between 1765 and 1812, Elsdon had for its rector the Abbe Dutens — the rich living is in the gift of the Duke of Northumberland. Unfor- tunately for Elsdon, the Abbe was at the same CHURCHES AND CHURCHYARDS. 113 time Chaplain to the British Embassy at Turin, and consequently his northern flock but seldom looked upon his face. Perhaps that mattered the less, as his broken English was well nigh unin- telligible to them, but anyhow, the congregation was always small. Full of a quiet and ready wit, the Abbe determined to put himself on as good relations as possible with his parishioners, and going round his principal farmers he invited them to dine at Elsdon Castle on a certain day. A sumptuous feast was provided, and not one guest was absent. Then was the Abba's chance. Addressing them, he said : — " You say you no understand vat I say ven I do preach, but you com- prehend clear enough ven I invite you for to dine." The wit and spell did their work, and from that day the Abbe had a better congregation. Many of the Northumbrian churches arc very old, and most of them are now in an excellent state of repair. Occasionally an ancient peel is built into the church. The people hold the churchyards in reverential esteem, and in not a few instances the remains of deceased persons are brought from a long distance that they may lie side by side with the ashes of their forefathers. It is unnecessary to i-emark that the usual eccentricities to be met with in 114 THE NORTHUMBRIAN TEMPER. tombstone inscriptions are not wanting, and that the halting feet of the lapidary's poet are not unknown. Close by the door of Elsdon Church, and in such a position that it must be seen by everyone who enters, the following rhyming apostrophe occurs : — " Weep not for me my wife and children dear, I am not dead, but sleepeth here ; My debt is paid, my grave you see, Prepare yourselves to follow me." It is sometimes alleged that the Northumbrian spirit is not the best, nor the temper the sweetest in the world. Perhaps not, only it is better that they who live in glass houses should not throw stones. Well, men say of Northumbrians, that as a rule they are suspicious ; that they keep up grudges to the end of the chapter ; that they dearly love to have a bit law plea on hand once and again ; are utterly opposed to any change or improvement at first, but if they are given time to think it over, follow as meekly as a lamb ; tliat they are plodding, but non-assertive, and are lacking in that perfervidum ingeniuvi which is so marked ii feature in their Scottish neighbours. Burns sang : — " wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us V THE KEELMEN. 116 In the above description we hold up a mirror fashioned by other hands than our own, into which Northumbrians need not be afraid to look, and from which they will, no doubt try to profit as best they may. The Northumberland pitman, of course, is a far-famed toiler, and only less so is his coadjutor on the Tyne, the keelmau, who to a greater extent formerly than now, transported the coals from the drop at the river side to the colliers lying down the river. The keelman is perhaps the most muscular workman in all Northumberland, and we have his activity, and his frank and manly independence rehearsed as follows in the well- known local song " The Keel Row." THE KEEL ROW. Whe's like my Johnuy, Sae leish, sae bUthe, .sae bonny ? He'.s foremost 'mang the mony Keel lads o' coaly Tyne. He'll set or row so tightly, Or in the dance so sprightly, He'll cut and sliufBe sightly, 'Tis true — were he not mine. Chorus — Weel may the Keel row, Ac. 116 TBE PITMES. He's ne mair learning Than tells his weekly earning, Yet reet frae wrang discerning, Tho' brave, ne bruiser, he. Tho' he no worth a plack is, His awn coat on his back is, An' nane can say that black is The white o' Johnnys e'e. Chorus — Weel may the Keel row, ifec. The pitmen, as might be expected, are a class by themselves, and they are one of which North- umberland may well be proud. In former times — which, be it remembered, were rougher and ruder than the present — they may have acquired a somewhat sinister reputation from the violent, or enthusiastic way in which they engaged in their sports, and from their cock and dog fighting propensities, but such things now no longer exist The pitman, as a rule, is a quiet-living, religious, and godly man, and entei"s with the greatest heartiness into all the religious exercises of his communion, which is generally one of the many Methodist bodies, and par excellence the Primi- tive. The terrible colliery accident at Hartley, near Bedlington, in January, 1862, when go many pitmen died a lingering death after their " jowling " or knocking had been heard for some HA R TLE Y CA LA MIT Y— THE Q UEElSrs LETTER. 1 1 7 days by the rclievinff parties who could not get near them, as the shaft had been blocked up by the half of the broken beam, is not yet forgotten by Northumbrians. Nor is the other touching fact forgotten, that when the workings were reached, and the long lines of dead bodies discovered, it was found that the doomed men, anticipating what their fate must be, had chalked on manj'- parts of the woodwork of the pit, passages from the Word of God alike solemn and full of comfort. Those who have reached middle age will re- member how our Queen, who herself had become a widow on the fourteenth of the preceding month addressed words of most kindly sympathy to the widows of those who lost their lives in the disaster, whereupon Mr. Spurgeon, in his own eloquent way, described Her Majesty as " The Empress of Sorrow," comforting the mourning. Two hundred and four men and boys lost their lives in the Hartley calamitJ^ and a subscription which was set on foot realised a large sum for the relief of the widows and orphans.* Edward Corvan, a Tyneside poet, alike comic and sentimental, but mostly pursuing the comic vein, wrote a piece called "The Queeu has sent a Letter; or, The * At this date there are 10 widows and 54 adults recipients of tlie Fund. 118 DESCENT OF A COAL PIT. Hartlej- Calamitj'," which went home to every heart in Noi-thumberland at the time. We ex- tract a couple of verses from the song, and to this hour they set all the heart's chords in motion : — " Oh ! bless the Queen of England, who sympathy doth show, Toward our stricken widows amid their grief and woe ; Old England never had her like, nor never will again, Then bless good Queen Victoria, ye loyal-hearted men, She sent a letter stating — "I share your sorrows here," To soothe the aching hearts of all and dry the widow's tear. Oh ! gather round, ye generous band, whose bounty caused a smile To 'Hume the face of dark despair throughout old England's isle, Ye have ta'en the gloom from sorrow where rays of love will fall, On the widow and the fatherless, who prays " Grod bless yon all ! " For the Queen has sent a letter, the' she mourns a husband dear, To soothe the aching hearts of all and dry the widow's tear." The descent of a Northumbrian coalpit may not be a frequent experience to a landsman, but the adventure is worthy of being made by all who can muster up courage to go down. Doffing DESCENl' OF A COALPIT. 119 a portion of his ordinary attire — be it clerical or civilian — and assuming the pitman's flannels and cap, with a stick in one hand, a lantern in the other, and pioneered by a viewer or overman, he is ready for the descent. Once into the cage, the levers are applied, and the downward motion begins. That is swift, silent, and thrilling, and in some way or other, as the novice descends he fancies he is being drawn up to the pit head, and vice versa. Upon reaching the bottom he gets into one of the empty hauling waggons, which, in a train, are let down by a stout wire rope to the working face of the coal, and as he gets in he is repeatedly admonished to stoop well down, lest his head come into collision with the roof, in which case, without a doubt, it would be bad for his head, on the same principle that George Stephenson declared before a Committee of the House of Commons, that it would be "awkward for the coo," if it came into collision with his loco- motive. No sooner do these empty waggons begin to go down the incline than the daring investigator enters upon a new and entirely stiffening ex- perience. The jolting is enough to dislocate every limb in his corpus vile ; with the ever-accelerated speed, the roar in the cavity of the mine rivals that of the tornado as he rushes past the trap 120 DESCENT OF A CO A LPIT. doors, the gnome-like guardiaus, in the shape of boys, stare out into the darkness with penetrating gaze, and by the time he arrives at the end of his journey he feels perfectly limp in limb, and absolutely subdued in spirit. According to the width of the seam, he finds that the half-naked hewers at the " face," are either working in a stooping atitude, or are standing erect. The sharp picks strike the mineral treasure swift as lightning flash, showers of nuts and dross fall thickly around, and anon, large pieces of coal tumble down ; these are shovelled into the corves, and thus the work proceeds until the shift is over. That it is both hard and exhausting is very evident, and as further proof of this fact, it may be mentioned that, so far as meat is concerned, the pitman eats the best and fattest joints, that he may keep himself up to the mai-k. In the recesses of the mine the heat is very great. The men stream with pei-spiration, and the \'isitor, although only present as a spectator, does the same. A visit to the stables where the ponies, which are mostly of the Shetland breed, are stalled is full of interest. These animals are perfectly at home, they are as sagacious as their owners, and know quite well how to avoid danger. They appear to suffer nothing in health from their A PITMAN'S HOUSE. 121 confinement, and arc on such good terms with their drivers, that ponies and boys are often up to astonishing tricks. The ponies in many instances are sent up to grass occasionally ; but in others they have been known to be kept down the pit for a long term of years, and that with- out the slightest detriment. The dooi's to the side-workings are carefully bratticed and guarded, everything is kept in perfect order, and any metal work is as bright down below^ as it is in the engine-room. The economy of the mine is not less perfect than that of any well-ordei"ed establishment above ground, and after the visitor has seen what he can, and learned not a little, all that remains for him to do is to pay his footing- ten or a dozen times over, exchange his pit suit for his own clothes, use so much soap when getting a good scrub that one would say the national revenue must be materially increased thereby, and go away with a lively sense of the importance to the country of the work of so large and industrious a body of toiling men. Accustomed to the darkness of the mine during so may hours, it is not to be wondered that the pitman should like to have a bright and comfortable house well filled with large and sub- stantial furniture. It would do anyone good to 1 22 LO VE OF SPORT— NEWCA STLE RA CES. visit a pitman's house in the afternoon, when the shift is over, and everything is polished up till it shines again. Has thoughtful wife has a roaring fire on the hearth for the bread winners of the family — for the sons generally follow their father's craft — and gives them a singing kinny, the far-famed Northumbrian girdle cake, to their tea. Xor is " Geordie " averse to bright colours as to his attire. When we were boys the pitmen's plush and velvet waistcoats, with ever so many rows of buttons, were to us, never-failing objects of admiration. Of course the women affect colour also,and it isof oneof them that the following story is told : — Going into a shop in Newcastle to pur- chase a shawl, the shopman inquired what colour his customer might prefer, and got the followiDg for his answer : — " Nyen o' your gaady colours for me, gie me bonny reed an' yallow." * The Newcastle Races, and especially the race for the Northumberland Plate — the " Pitman's Derby " as it is called — used to be the miner's annual saturnalia, but the Temperance Festival, which within recent years has been instituted with such gratifying success on the Town Moor, has in a great measure toned down *See Appendix. BEDLINOTON TERRIERS AND UREYHOUNDS. 123 the excesses once so prevalent. In connexion with the mention of the " Northumberland Plate," which is always run for on the Wednesday in race week, and is a much more important event than the race for the " Newcastle Cup," which is run for on the Friday, it will not be out of place to mention that Northumbrians dearly love a bit of sport. Yoi'kshiremen are supposed to rank first in their relish for running horses, but Northumbrians will always be a good second. Throughout the length and breadth of the county Beeswing* and Lanercost, Dr. Syntax and X.Y.Z., have an endui'ing fame, and among old men, the blood grows hot again, and the eyes sparkle, as they recount the triumphs they have won on the turf. Nor will it be counted a crime to mention that next to a race horse, if even that, the Northumbrian eyes with tender regard a "Bedlington terrier," and still more the swift and shapely, and keen-eyed greyhound. The Waterloo Cup — the blue ribbon of the leash — has often gone to Northumberland, while the names of Mr. James Hedley and Tom Bootiman, as Judge and Slipper, are famous throughout the English-.speaking woidd. *See Appendix. 124 qvoiTiso. Amung the favourite sports in Northumber- land, there is no pastime that is more enjoyed by the people iu general than quoiting. The county never has led conspicuously in the cricket field, and although football has always been a popular recreation, still it has never been carried to that degree of excess which is not uncommon in some places, for example, in Yorkshire, where quite recently sis members of the Leeds Parish Church Football Club, were hud up iu the Infirmary at the same time, owing to wounds they had received on the field of battle. Quoiting, a quieter, and less destructive game, abounds over the whole of Northumljerland. Every farm house has its set, every village has its pitch, every colliery has its ground, and there is nothing in which a true- born Northumbrian takes greater pleasure than a friendly main between two villages. When the hush of evening falls upon the hamlet during the summer mouths, youths and men of all ages are certain to be found gathered about the favourite haunt for a game at quoits. The ring of the metal discs can be heard through the still air from afar ; the longer the game continues the greater becomes the excitement ; all the fatigues of the day are forgotten under its spell ; shouts of applause greet the deft-handed player who TBE BURR. 125 oftenest rings the hob ; as the shadows deepen pieces of white paper are placed near the hobs to indicate the goal, and we have witnessed enthusiastic doctors and ministers, blacksmiths and joiners, continue the game by candle light. Any account of Northumbei-land would be in- complete, if no reference was made to its lingual peculiarity, the Burr. This is the Northum- brian shibboleth. " Then said they unto him say now R ; and he said Arr: for he could not frame to proDounce it right." Now this aspirated, or rather much exasperated R is the Northum- brian Burr. In Somersetshire the S becomes Z, " Yez Zur." In Cockneydom, and mere or less through England, the H and the O are most shockingly badly used. Away down in Wessex, the pronouns are all mixed up in inextincable confusion. The Cumbrians have as much diffi- culty with the th as any foreigner, weather, feather, and heather, becoming wedder,fedder,and hedder. And in Northumberland the Burr caps all. Long live the guttural ! "Glororum." "Round and round the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran." Said John Scott, Lord High Chancellor Eldon — a Newcastle man : — " We have His Majesty's commands to pro-rrogue the Pai-liamcnt, and the Parliament is pro-rrogued accordingly," 126 THE BIRR. an Act of Prorogation which is said to liave been as remarkable for its sententious brevity, as for the high Northumbrian dialect in which it was performed. When a Scotch servant girl went to a situation in Newcastle, and on visiting her friends, was asked how she got on with the language, " weel eneuch," she replied, " I just swallow the Rs an' gie them a bit chow i' the middle." During an election petition which was tried in the iloot Hall, at Newcastle, some short time ago, it was reported in the London press that two of Her Majesty's Judges, together with the barristers engaged in the case, had great dilBculty in making out the replies that were given by the witnesses, and that the Ckjurt was often convulsed with laughter on account of the intricacies of the Northumberland dialect. And well they might. Here we have a specimen : — Barrister : " Now will you tell us how long you have lived there ? " Witness — a Northumberland farmer — "From time immemorial, sor."' Educjition and travel, and absence from Northumberland for a time, in some instances enable a man to get rid of this famous Burr, which is an enduring reminder of the Danish invasion in the ninth century, and of the Northumbrian's WORTHIES— BISHOP RIDLEY, ic. 127 weneral intermixture with the Scandinavian races, but this is not invariably so. It was not so with Lord Eldon as we have seen, and wlien Mr. Joseph Cowen- -than whom a more cultured man there cannot be — had a seat in the House of Commons, his speeches were invariably delivered in the broadest of Northumbrian Doric. Mr. Cowen's voice is no longer heard at Westminster ; but in Mr. Thomas Burt, the Pitman il.P. for Morpeth, and Under Secretary to the Board of Trade, Westminster possesses a fine specimen of the thoroughbred Northumbrian, and one who is never ashamed of allowing his shibboleth to be heard. To Northumberland, as might be expected, there attaches many eminent names. For two years John Knox preached in Newcastle ; Bernard Gilpin, the apostle of the north, evangelised the county ; and Willemoteswick, near Hexham, was the birth-place of Nicholas Ridley, the Reformer, who was burned at the stake, oppo.site Balliol College, Oxford, on the 16th of October, 1555. It was to Bishop Ridley that his fellow sufferer, stout Hugh Latimer, the Bishop of Worcester, exclaimed in noble and never to be forgotten words, when the fa;?gots were being kindled :— " Be of good comfort Master Ridley, and play the 1^6 SKEET MARY CCRWEN. man: we shall this day light such a candle, by Cnjds gi-ace, ui England, as I trust shall never be put out." This light never has been put out, and we trust it never shall It is interesting to re- member that there is a link between Northumber- land and Cumberland in connexion with Bishop Ridley. Noi-thumberland has the high honour of claiming him as a native, but Cumberland can also claim him as a descendant of one of her families. Mr. Ridley of Willemoteswick wooed and won Mary Curwen, daughter of the Squii-e of Workington HaU. In due time she became the mother of chili.b"en, one of whom was the father of Bishop Ridlej". Master Tz-ebonius, Luther's schoolmaster, used to doflF his hat when- ever he entered the schoolroom, gi\*ing this as his reason : — " Among these boys are burgo- masters, chancellors, doctors, and magistrates. ' In imagination, we can, even after the lapse of four centuries, see the daughter of the Cur^vens cix)ss the threshold of her father's house to be- come a Northumbrian bride, and the ancestress of the noble bishop who was faithful even unto death, and who as he stood at the stake, thanked Go71949 OEC 2 8 195lt Form L9-;5iii-9.'47lA5''lS 1444 RY (r-Qp^3T4 670 ^...,_._,,. N ort/hmnb ef 0EC2 819&)|,i land 670 n8cU iRfUfiv rim irv D 000 451 005