"Chesters, Hexham, Sept. 10.—I came here yesterday. My aged hostess, the eldest sister of the Newcastle Clayton family, is of a most tall, weird figure, and speaks in an abrupt, energetic, startling manner, but she is the most perfect lady imaginable, both in feeling and manners, and her kindness and thoughtfulness and consideration for others make her beloved far and wide. Chesters is famous for its liberal unostentatious hospitality, and Miss Clayton always lives here, though it is her brother's place, and he resides at Newcastle. She reads everything, and is ready to talk on any subject, but her great hobby is Roman antiquities, and she is one of the best antiquarians in the North, which is only as it should be, as Cilurnum, one of the finest of the Roman stations, is here in the garden, where there is also a museum of Roman relics. This house is about the size of Hurstmonceaux Place,[216] and most thoroughly comfortable, with wide well-lighted galleries on each storey, filled with water-colour drawings by Richardson, with Roman antiquities, and curiosities of all kinds.
"This morning we were called at six, breakfasted at seven, and at half-past seven in the bright cold morning Miss Clayton herself drove me down to the train at Chollerford. A delightful journey brought me to Kielder, where, under the heather-clad hills, close to the Scottish Border, is the Duke of Northumberland's favourite castle and the scene of the beautiful ballad of the 'Cout of Kielder.' I wandered through the valley:—
"Up to 'the bonny brae, the green,
Yet sacred to the brave;
Where still, of ancient size, is seen
Gigantic Kielder's grave.
'Where weeps the birch with branches green
Without the holy ground,
Between two old grey stones is seen
The warrior's ridgy mound.'
Coming back, I left the train at Bellingham, and walked to Hesleyside, the fine place of the Roman Catholic Charltons, where the celebrated Charlton spur is preserved, which the lady of the house, in time of Border raids, used to serve up at dinner whenever she wished to indicate that her larder needed replenishing."
"Chesters, Sept. 13.—On Thursday Miss Clayton drove me in her Irish car up North Tyne to Chipchase Castle, a noble old Jacobean house on a height, with a Norman tower, and afterwards to Simonburn and Tecket Lynn—a most picturesque waterfall through fern-fringed rocks; a very artistic 'subject,' too little known. Mr. John Clayton and Dr. Bruce arrived in the evening, and Roman antiquities became the order of the next day. We set off in a hurricane of cold wind, in the Irish car, along the Roman Wall, and spent the whole day amongst Roman remains, lunching at Hotbank Farm, where the Armstrongs live—last relics of the great mosstrooping family—inspiring a sort of clannish attachment still, as, when the last farmer died in 1859, two hundred mounted Borderers escorted him across the moorland to his grave.
"The great Roman station of Housesteads (Borcovicus) is a perfect English Pompeii of excavated houses and streets. Hence we clambered across stone walls and bogs for several miles to Sewing Shields, where Arthur and Guinevere and all their knights lie asleep in a basaltic cavern.... The Claytons are indescribably kind, and spare no pains to amuse, interest, and instruct me, and their horses seem as untirable."
"Chesters, Sept. 15.—I am becoming increasingly attached to 'Aunt Saily,' who is always finding out all the good she can in her neighbours and guests, and doing everything possible to make the world bright and pleasant to them: being really so loving and gentle herself, she influences all around her. On Saturday she took me to Houghton Castle, one of the most perfect inhabited feudal fortresses in the county; and to-day to Fallowfield, where there is a Roman inscription on a grey rock—'the Written Rock'—in the moorland."
"Otterburn, Sept. 18.—I left the train at Bellingham, where I found no further means of locomotion except a huge chariot with two horses. So, after going on a vain search for a cart to all the neighbouring farmhouses, I was obliged to engage it; but then there was another difficulty, for the key of the coach-house was lost, and I had to wait an hour till a smith could be brought to break it open. At length I set off in the great lumbering vehicle across the roughest moorland road imaginable—mere blocks of stone, scarcely chipped at all, with gates at every turn, over hideous barren moorland, no heather, only dead moss and blackened rushes and fern. It was like the drive in 'Rob Roy.' At last, in the gloaming, we drove over a rude bridge and up to this gothic castle, with terraces in front sloping down to the sullen Reedwater and barren deserted Fells. My host, Mr. James, has nine sons, of whom the two youngest, Charlie and Christie, are here now, and scamper on two little ponies all over the country. The whole family are inclined to abundant rude hospitality, and delight to entice visitors into these deserts. They have taken me to Elsdon, a curious desolate village in the hills, where the Baillies are rectors, and live in a dismal old castle, built to fortify the rector in mosstrooping times. It is a place quite out of the world, so very high up, that the coming of any chance stranger is quite an event: its people live entirely by keeping sheep and rearing geese in large flocks."
"Matfen, Sept. 20.—We had a very long excursion from Otterburn on Thursday. In these high moorlands, thirty-five miles is thought nothing extraordinary, and we drove in a brilliant morning all up the course of the Reedwater, through rocky valleys and relics of ancient forest, and by the Roman station of High Rochester to the Scottish border, upon the famous Reedswire. Here we carried our baskets up the hills and picnicked just inside Scotland, looking over the Lammermoor Hills and the valley of Jedburgh to Edinburgh far in the hazy distance. I long for my mother in all these moorland scenes—such feasts of beauty to mind and eye. The next morning we walked to Troughend, the grim haunted house of the Border hero Percy Reed.[217] Then I went with 'Christie' to Percy's Cross, where Percy fell in the battle of Chevy Chase, and Witherington fought upon his stumps.[218] Altogether it is an enchanting neighbourhood, full of ballads and traditions.... I much enjoy, however, the comparative rest at Matfen, nine or ten hours being the least time I was out any day at Chesters or Otterburn. Lady Blackett has been telling me a very curious story—from her personal knowledge.