Chapter Twelve.
At Durham—The British Miner at Home—Gosforth—Among Northumbrian Banks—Across the Tweed.
“March! march! Ettrick and Teviotdale,
Why, my lads, dinna ye march forward in order?
March! march! Eskdale and Liddesdale,
All the blue bonnets are over the border.
Many a banner spread flutters above your head;
Many a crest that is famous in story;
Mount and make ready then,
Sons of the mountain glen:
Fight for your Queen, and the old Scottish glory!”
July 11th.
A six-miles’ drive, through some of the most charming scenery in England, brought us into Durham. The city looks very imposing from the hilltop; its noble old castle, and grand yet solemn looking cathedral. Eight hundred years of age! What a terrible story they could tell could those grey old piles but speak! It would be a very sad one to listen to. Perhaps they do talk to each other at the midnight hour, when the city is hushed and still.
It would take one a week, or even a fortnight, to see all the sights about Durham; he would hardly in that time, methinks, be tired of the walks around the town and by the banks of the winding Weir.
It is a rolling country, a hilly land around here. The people, by the way, call those hills banks. We had a hard day. John’s gloves were torn with the reins, for driving was no joke. I fear, however, the horses hardly enjoyed the scenery.
The streets in Durham are badly paved and dangerously steep. We did not dare to bring the Wanderer through, therefore, but made a sylvan détour and got on the north road again beyond.
If we reckoned upon encamping last night in a cosy meadow once more we were mistaken, we were glad to get standing room close to the road and behind a little public-house.
Miners going home from their work in the evening passed us in scores. I cannot say they look picturesque, but they are blithe and active, and would make capital soldiers. Their legs were bare from their knees downwards, their hats were skull-caps, and all visible flesh was as black almost as a nigger’s.
Many of these miners, washed and dressed, returned to this public-house, drank and gambled till eleven, then went outside and fought cruelly.
The long rows of grey-slab houses one passes on leaving Durham by road do not look inviting. For miles we passed through a mining district, a kind of black country—a country, however, that would be pleasant enough, with its rolling hills, its fine trees and wild hedgerows, were it not for the dirt and squalor and poverty one sees signs of everywhere on the road. Every one and everything looks grey and grimy, and many of the children, but especially the women, have a woebegone, grief-stricken look that tells its own tale.
I greatly fear that intemperance is rampant enough in some of these villages, and the weaker members of the family have to suffer for it.
Here is an old wrinkled yellow woman sitting on a doorstep. She is smoking a short black clay, perhaps her only comfort in life. A rough-looking man, with a beard of one week’s growth, appears behind and rudely stirs her with his foot. She totters up and nearly falls as he brushes past unheeding.
Yonder are two tiny girls, also sitting on a doorstep—one about seven, the other little more than a baby. An inebriated man—can it be the father?—comes along the street and stops in front of them. He wants to get in.
“Git oot o’ t’way!” he shouts to the oldest.
His leg is half lifted as if to kick.
“And thou too,”—this to the baby.
One can easily imagine what sort of a home those poor children have. It cannot be a very happy one.
More pleasant to notice now a window brilliant with flowers, and a clean and tidy woman rubbing the panes.
On and on through beautiful scenery, with peeps at many a noble mansion in the distance. Only the landscape is disfigured by unsightly mine machinery, and the trees are all a-blur with the smoky haze that lies around them.
The country around the village of Birtley is also very pretty. A mile beyond from the hilltop the view is grand, and well worth all this tiring day’s drag to look upon.
Everywhere on the roadside are groups of miners out of work, lying on the grass asleep or talking.
The dust is trying to the nerves to-day; such a black dust it is, too.
We stop at Birtley. I trust I shall never stop there again.
“No, there is no stabling here;” thus spoke a slattern whom I addressed.
“Water t’ hosses. Dost think I’d give thee water? Go and look for t’ well.”
Some drunken miners crowded round.
“For two pins,” one said, “I’d kick the horses. Smartly I would.”
He thought better of it, however.
We pushed on in hopes of getting stabling and perhaps a little civility.
We pushed on right through Gateshead and Newcastle, and three miles farther to the pleasant village of Gosforth, before we found either.
Gosforth is a village of villas, and here we have found all the comfort a gipsy’s heart could desire.
We are encamped on a breezy common in sight of the Cheviot Hills, and here we will lie till Tuesday morning for the sake of our horses if not ourselves.
I shall never forget the kindly welcome I received here from the Spanish Consul.
July 14th.—Down tumbled the mercury yesterday morning, and down came the rain in torrents, the rattling, rushing noise it made on the roof of the Wanderer being every now and then drowned in the pealing of the thunder. But this morning the air is delightfully cool, the sky is bright, the atmosphere clear, and a gentle breeze is blowing.
Left Gosforth early. The country at first was somewhat flat, sparsely treed, well cultivated and clean.
The first village we passed through is called, I think, Three Mile Bridge. It is quite a mining place, far from wholesome, but the children looked healthy, a fact which is due, doubtless, to the bracing, pure air they breathe. All are bare-legged and shoeless, from the lad or lass of fifteen down to the month-old kicking baby.
Came to a splendid park and lodge-gates, the latter surmounted by two bulls couchant; I do not care to know to whom the domain belongs.
I find it is best not to be told who lives in the beautiful mansions I am passing every day in my journey due north. I can people them all in imagination. A name might banish every morsel of romance from the finest castle that peeps through the greenery of trees in some glen, or stands boldly out in the sunshine of some steep hill or braeland.
By eleven o’clock we had done ten miles and entered Morpeth.
Now, O ye health-seekers or intending honeymoon enjoyers! why not go for a month to Morpeth? It lies on the banks of the winding Wansbeck, it is but four miles from the ocean; it is quaint, quiet, curious, hills everywhere, wood and water everywhere; it has the remains of a grand old castle on the hill top, and a gaol that looks like one. Accommodation? did you say. What a sublunary thought, but Morpeth has capital lodging-houses and good inns, so there!
We caught our first glimpse of the sea to-day away on our right.
We had hoped to stay at Felton, a romantic little village on the river. Partly in a deep dell it lies, partly on a hill; rocks and wooded knolls with shady walks by the streamlet-side make it well suited for a summer resort, but it is hardly known. Not to Londoners, certainly.
Stabling we could have here, but so hilly is the place that a flat meadow was looked for in vain. After spending a whole hour searching for accommodation I returned to the glen where I had left the Wanderer, and our poor tired horses had to go on again.
Hills, hills, hills, that seemed as if they never would end; hills that take the heart, and life, and spirit out of the horses and make my heart bleed for them. The beauty of the scenery cannot comfort me now, nor the glory of the wild flowers, nor the blue sea itself. We but lag along, hoping, praying, that a hostelry of some sort may soon heave in sight.
I am riding on in front, having often to dismount and push my cycle before me.
All at once on a hilltop, with a beautiful green valley stretching away and away towards the sea, I come upon the cosiest wee Northumbrian inn ever I wish to see. I signal back the joyful tidings to the weary Wanderer.
Yee, there is stabling, and hay, and straw, and everything that can be desired.
“Hurrah! Come on, Bob, I feel as happy now as a gipsy king.”
July 15th.—The drag began this morning in earnest. We were among the banks of Northumbria. (Bank—a stiff hill.) With a light carriage they are bad enough, but with a two-ton waggon, small in wheel and long ’twixt draughts, the labour, not to say danger, reaches a maximum. The country here is what a cockney would term a mountainous one, and in some parts of it even a Scotchman would feel inclined to agree with him. At one time we would be down at the bottom of some gloomy defile, where the road crossed over a Gothic bridge, and a wimpling stream went laughing over its rocky bed till lost to sight among overhanging trees.
Down in that defile we would eye with anxious hearts the terrible climb before us.
“Can we do it?” That is the question.
“We must try.” That is the answer.
The roller is fastened carefully behind a back wheel, and “Hip!” away we go, the horses tearing, tottering, scraping, almost falling.
And now we are up, and pause to look thankfully, fearfully back while the horses stand panting, the sweat running in streamlets over their hoofs.
The short banks are more easily rushed. It is a long steep hill that puts us in danger.
There is hardly probably a worse hill or a more dangerous hollow than that just past the castle gate of Alnwick.
It needed a stout heart to try the descent. Easy indeed that descent would have been had a horse fallen, for neither the brake, which I now had sole charge of, nor the skid, could have prevented the great van from launching downwards.
But the ascent was still more fraught with danger. It was like climbing a roof top. Could the horses do it this time?
Impossible. They stagger half way up, they stagger and claw the awful hill, and stop.
No, not stop, for see, the caravan has taken charge and is moving backwards, dragging the horses down.
The roller and a huge stone beneath the wheels prevented an ugly accident and the complete wreck of the Wanderer. Twelve sturdy Northumbrians went on behind and helped us up. The road ascends higher and higher after we pass Alnwick, until at last we find ourselves on the brow of a lofty hill. There is an eminence to the right covered with young firs; near it is a square tower of great strength, but only a ruin. The traveller who does not see the country from this knoll misses one of the grandest sights in England. From the lone Cheviot mountains on the left to the sea itself on the far-off right round and round it is all beautiful.
I had stayed long enough in Alnwick to see the town and “sights;” the latter is a hateful word, but I have no better ready.
I was greatly impressed by the massive grandeur of the noble old castle, the ancient home of the Percys. The figures of armed men on the ramparts, some holding immense stones above the head, as if about to hurl them on an assailant, others in mail jackets with hatchet and pike, are very telling. I could not help thinking as I passed through the gloomy gateways and barbican of the many prisoners whose feet had brushed these very stones in “the brave days of old.”