The south is the well-dowered matron, the north a bare-headed gipsy-lass, freckled with sun and wind, who ‘fends’ for her living with strategies of hand and head.
Still, in the northern blood, the heritage of the ‘raid’ and the ‘foray’ abides, and still, as of old, are the children of the Borderland nursed by the keen wind of the moorland and the sea. ‘Hard and heather-bred’ ran the ancient North-Tyne slogan; ‘hard and heather-bred—yet—yet—yet.’
‘A LONG MAIN’
‘So you’re a county family?’ I echoed, and, though it may have been impolite, I could not forbear a smile, for never had I seen County Family so well disguised before.
‘Ay,’ replied Geordie Crozier, ‘I is,’ and forthwith proceeded to search in the pocket of his pit-knickerbockers for his ‘cutty.’ He had just come up to ‘bank’ from the ‘fore-shift,’ and was leaning on a waggon on the pit-heap, about to have a smoke before going home for a ‘wesh,’ dinner, and bed. ‘The last ov us,’ he continued, having lit his pipe, ‘that had Crozier Hall was grandfeythor—Jake Crozier, of Crozier Hall, was his name an’ address, an’—an’—I’s his relics.’
I glanced at the ‘relics’ afresh—six foot two if he was an inch, and broad in proportion, a magnificent pair of arms—he was champion hewer at the colliery—with legs to match, though slightly bowed through the constant stooping underground. Under the mask of coal-dust his eyes gleamed like pearls, and a thrusting lower lip, backed by a square jaw, gave evidence of determination and the faculty of enjoyment. A short, well-trimmed beard put the finishing touch to ‘the Squire,’ for so his friends styled him, half in jest.
‘Well, and how was it lost?’ said I. ‘Was “cellar and stable,” the good old Northumbrian motto, his epitaph? Or did your grandfather take an even quicker road to the bailiffs?’
‘Grandfeythor was like us, I b’lieve; he was a fine spender but an ill saver, an’ he had a h—— ov a time till the mortgages gave oot, for he was a tarr’ble tasteful man—lasses, greyhounds, an’ horses, racin’, drinkin’, cockin’, an’ card-playin’ were aal hobbies ov his at one time or another, but what was warse than aal this put togither was that he never wud be beat. Everything he had must be the best, an’ the fact that anythin’ belonged to him was quite enough to prove to him it was the best o’ the sort i’ the county. Well, for a while as a young man things went well o’ him. He win the Plate[1] two years runnin’, an’ many was the cock-fight an’ coursin’ match he pulled off wiv his cocks an’ his hounds; but there was a chap came oot o’ Aadcastle who was one too many for him at the finish. This chap had made a vast o’ brass i’ the toon at ship-buildin’ or such like, an’ bein’ wishful to set hisself up as a big pot, had hired a big place next grandfeythor’s i’ the country. Well, grandfeythor couldn’t abide him, for, bein’ a red-hot Tory, he didn’t believe i’ one man bein’ as good as another at aal, an’ when, as happened shortlies, his neighbour’s son came sweetheartin’ his daughter, he says, “No Crozier lass ever yet married a shopkeeper’s son, an’ they never shall as long as I’m above ground—orffice boys mun marry wi’ orffice gals,” says he.
‘Well, the lad’s feythor was tarr’ble vext at this, an’ he swears he’ll have his revenge on the Squire—an’ it wasn’t long before he got his opportunity.