One who knew him well has written of him, “His mind was at the same time original and strictly practical; he noticed with a penetrating observation, and drew conclusions with intuitive genius. Abstract speculation had no charm for him; he never cherished wild dreams or extravagant ideas. But if his conception was thus wisely restricted, his execution of an idea was unrivalled in its thoroughness. Whether he was founding an industrial establishment, or building a house, or making a road, the hand of the man is quite unmistakable. There is the same solid basis, the same enduring superstructure. Every stone that is laid at Cragside or Bamburgh seems to be stamped as it were with the impression of his great personality, and the thoroughness of his work.” All his life long, the thoroughness with which he was able to concentrate his mind on the one subject which occupied it at the time, was a marked feature of Lord Armstrong’s character.
In the early period of his career, while he was still in a solicitor’s office, and when the study of hydraulics was absorbing all his leisure hours, he was quizzically said to have “water on the brain.” Electrical problems also engaged his attention, and in 1844 he lectured at the Lit. and Phil. rooms on his hydro-electric machine, on which occasion the lecture room was so tightly packed that he had to get in through the window. In the following year he explained to the same society his hydraulic experiments and achievements; in 1846 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; and the next summer, 1847, saw the Elswick Works begun.
It is difficult to realize the fact, brought home to us on looking at dates like these, that Lord Armstrong and Robert Stephenson were contemporaries, and that both great engineers were engaged at the same time on the works which were to bring them lasting fame. The life and work of Robert Stephenson seem so remote, so much a part of bygone history, that it strikes the mind with an unexpected shock to realise that here is a life which began about the same time, yet has lasted until quite recent years; for Lord Armstrong’s long and successful career only closed with the closing days of the nineteenth century.
In the later years of his life he was greatly interested in repairing and partly re-building the historic castle of Bamburgh, which Mr. Freeman calls “the cradle of our race,” and which Lord Armstrong purchased from Lord Crewe’s Trustees. Of his personal character, the writer above quoted says, “Apart from his intellectual gifts, Lord Armstrong’s character was that of a great man. His unaffected modesty was as attractive as his broad-minded charity. In business transactions, he was the soul of integrity and honour, while in private life his mind was far too large to regard accumulated wealth with any excessive affection. He both spent his money freely and gave it away freely. His benefactions to Newcastle were princely, and his public munificence was fit to rank with that of any philanthropist of his time.”
Princely, indeed, were his gifts to his native town, as the list of them will show; they embraced either large contributions to, or the entire gift of, Jesmond Dene, the Armstrong Park, the Lecture Theatre of the Literary and Philosophical Society, St. Cuthbert’s Church, the Cathedral, St. Stephen’s Church, the Infirmary, the Deaf and Dumb Institution, the Children’s Hospital, the Elswick Schools, Elswick Mechanics’ Institute, the Convalescent Home at Whitley Bay, the Hancock Museum—to which he and Lady Armstrong contributed a valuable collection of shells, and £11,500 in money—the Armstrong Bridge, the Armstrong College, and the Bishopric Endowment Fund.
CHAPTER VI.
THE CHEVIOTS.
From the crowded, bustling scenes of Tyneside to the solitude of the Cheviot Hills is a “far cry,” even farther mentally than in actual tale of miles. Yet the two are linked by the same stream, which begins life as a brawling Cheviot burn, having for its fellows the head waters of the Rede, the Coquet, and the Till, with the scores of little dancing rills that feed them.
Nowhere in this land of swelling hills and grassy fields can one get out of either sight or sound of running water. Every little dip in the hills has its watercourse, every vale its broader stream, and the pleasant sound of their murmurings and sweet babbling fills in the background of every remembrance of days spent upon the green slopes of the Cheviots. You may hear in their tones, if you listen, the shrill chatter and laughter of children, soft cooing voices, and the deeper notes of manhood, and might fancy, did not your sight contradict the fact, that you were close to a goodly company, whose words met your ear, but whose magic language you could not understand.
One little burn of my acquaintance, which runs through field and dell to join the Till, I have hearkened to again and again for hours, unable to break away from the spell of its ever-varying, yet constant music—a sort of wilder, sweeter version of Mendelssohn’s Duetto, with the voices of Knight and Lady alternating and intermingling amidst a rippling current of clear bell-like undertones.
Down from Cheviot itself, the lovely little Colledge Water splashes its way, issuing from the wild ravine called the Henhole, where the cliffs on each side of the rocky gorge rise in some places to a height of more than two hundred feet. Concerning this ravine, there is a legend that a party of hunters, long ages ago, were deer-stalking in Cheviot Forest, when on reaching the Henhole their ears were greeted by the most ravishing music they had ever heard. Allured by the enchanting sounds, they followed the music into the ravine, where they disappeared, and were never again seen.