There is yet more of historical and traditional interest to note in this view from the top of Yeavering Bell, which, as I saw it last, lay warm in the glow of a September afternoon. Nennius is our authority for stating that on Milfield Plain took place one of the great conflicts in which King Arthur
“Fought, and in twelve great battles overcame
The heathen hordes, and made a realm, and reigned”
And, as we gazed, the level spaces seemed peopled once more with charging knights, flashing sword and swinging battle-axe, and the intervening centuries dropped away, and Arthur’s call to battle for “our fair father Christ,” seemed curiously befitting that romantic scene. But, as the shadows lengthened, and the streams took on a golden glow in the rays of the September sun, then slowly setting, “the tumult and the shouting of the captains” died away, and the figure of an earnest monk seemed to stand by the riverside, with prince and serf, peasant and warrior for his audience, and the cold bright waters of the Glen dripping from his hand, as he enrolled one after another into the ranks of an army mightier than the hosts of Arthur or Edwin.
Milfield again emerges into notice out of the obscurity of those dark ages, in the days of the Bernician kings who succeeded Edwin; for Bede tells us that “This town (Ad-gefrin) under the following kings, was abandoned, and another was built instead of it at a place called Melmin,” now Milfield. Nothing, however, remains here of the buildings which once sheltered the royal Saxons and their court. In later days, Milfield has a melancholy interest attaching to it from its connection with the battle of Flodden; for, on the heights above, King James fixed his camp, in the hope that Surrey would lead his troops across the plain below. Of the other considerable heights of the Cheviot range, Carter Fell and Peel Fell are the best known; they both lie right on the border line of England and Scotland, between the North Tyne and the Rede Water. As we have already seen, the men of Tynedale and Redesdale bore a reputation for lawlessness in the time of the Border “Moss-trooping” days, and until nearly the end of the eighteenth century the tradesmen and guilds of Newcastle would take no apprentice who hailed from either of these dales. The tracks and passes between the hills, once alive with frequent foray and wild pursuit, are now silent and solitary but for the occasional passing of a shepherd or farmer, and the flocks of sheep grazing as they move slowly up the hillsides. A quaint survival of the remembrances of those days was unexpectedly brought before me one day. A child presented me with a bunch of cotton-grass, gathered on the moors not far from the Roman-Wall. I asked if she knew what they were that she had brought. “Moss-troopers,” she replied.
Many of the Cheviot heights bear most suggestive and interesting names, such as Cushat[[7]] Law, Kelpie[[8]] Strand, Earl’s Seat, Stot[[9]] Crags, Deer Play, Wether Lair, Bloodybushedge, Monkside, etc., etc.
[7] Cushat = a wood-pigeon.
[8] Kelpie = a water-witch.
[9] Stot = a bullock.
In these lonely wilds, which occupy all the northwest of the county, one may travel all day and meet with no living thing save the birds of the air, and a few shy, wild creatures of the moorlands; curve after curve, the rounded hills stretch away into the distance, grass-grown or heatherclad, with occasional peat-mosses; above is the “grey gleaming sky,” and, all around, a stillness as of vast untrodden wastes, and a sense of solitude out of all proportion to the actual extent of this lonely region. The fascination of it, however, admits of no denial, even on the part of those newly making its acquaintance; while those who in childhood or youth roam over its wild fells, and feel the spell of its brooding mystery, retain in their hearts for all time an unfading remembrance of its magic charm.
COLLEDGE WATER.