Advancing civilization, again, has, it is to be feared, made havoc of the proud insularity of the Northumbrian squirearchy. No longer are they content, like the Osbaldistones of yore, to devote themselves to cellar and stable, to stay at home, contemptuous of London and its politics, of travel and of new ideas. ‘Markham’s Farriery’ and the ‘Guide to Heraldry’ have lost their pristine charm, and the Northumbrian is, as a consequence, foregoing his ancient characteristics merely to become provincial.
‘Geordie Pitman’ alone makes a stand against all modern innovation. Firm in his pele tower of ancient superiority, he is still convinced of the superiority of all things Northumbrian.
‘Champions’ may have died out elsewhere, and patriotism be decayed in the higher social ranks, but in the pit-village there still lingers an admirable quantity of the old self-love.
In each separate village you may find some half-dozen self-styled ‘champions’ who will match themselves against ‘any man in the world’ for £10 or £15 a side at their own particular hobby or pastime.
Defeat has little effect upon a ‘champion’: like Antæus, he picks himself up the stronger for a fall, and having advertised himself in the papers as ‘not being satisfied’ with his beating, challenges another attempt forthwith.
* * * * *
Now this self-satisfaction—though somewhat decayed of late—is probably one of the oldest strains in the Northumbrian character, having been developed, doubtless, in the first instance, under stress of constant raid and foray, and but little affected thereafter—owing to the remoteness of the county both from the universities and from London—by the higher standards of softer and more civilized centres.
After this, the next most predominant trait is a love of sport, for which the climate, together with the physical conformation of the county, may be held responsible; for the open aspect of the plain, the crown of bare western hills, the wind-swept moorland and the sea, suggest a life of hard endurance and fatigue, the strenuous toil of the hunter, the keen excitements of the chase.
Still, as of old, the wide and spreading grasslands try horse and rider with a tempting challenge, as of one who cries, ‘Come, who will tire first?’ The music of the hounds sweeps down the brae: ‘Yoi—yoi—yoi!’ quivers the cry from the streaming pack. Onward the rider gallops, the plover perchance rising at his horse’s heels, the long note of the curlew sounding in his ears, the breath of the west wind racing in his nostrils; he may see on this side the purple bar of Cheviot, on the other the blue, flat line of the sea, and therewith—if ever in his life—may taste of the primeval joy of living—of the joy of the early hunter who lived with his horse as with a comrade, drew from the sea the ‘sacred fish,’ from the moorland the ‘winged fowl,’ and knew not discontent.
The beauty of the southern counties is not to be met with here.