Five hundred Fenwicks in a flock;”
for their old enemies the Grahams kept the Border beyond the fells, and there was not among the Montagues and Capulets such wild and deep enmity as existed between the Tynedale and the Liddesdale men. It must have been ill-marching enough, for the route lay over Deadwater Bog, where, in case of misfortune and retreat, the Fenwicks would have an advantage over their pursuers in their superior knowledge of the sounder spots of ground. In this Deadwater Bog, it is maintained, the North Tyne takes its rise, though here, as in so many cases in which great rivers originate otherwise than in well-defined springs, there is division of opinion and of faith. The Deadwater is a curving silvery thread in a black setting of peat-moss. It belongs wholly to the English side of the Border, and after its leisurely circuit of an almost level plain it ripples into a wider channel and fuller light through a mask of weaving reeds. But between the stations of Saughtree in Scotland and Keilder in England there is a wet ditch within a railway enclosure, and here, say some of the people of the district, and here the Ordnance Survey also asseverates, we must look for the actual origin of the North Tyne. I would gladly debate the question with the Ordnance Survey, if only to prove that the Tyne is an English river up to the remotest spot to which it can be traced; but it is “ill fechtin’” with those who are appointed to settle questions of boundaries, and whose decisions are held to be final however much they may be disputed; and as the little Deadwater and the small stream which insists on counting honours along with it eventually join together and form the indisputable North Tyne, it will be the discreeter course to let the Ordnance Surveyors have their will.
THE COURSE OF THE TYNE.
The Tyne has scarcely become a distinguishable stream when it commences to take toll of its tributaries. First of all it is broadened and deepened by the junction of the Keilder Burn, whereupon it assumes such dimensions that a wooden bridge is thrown over from bank to bank. Keilder is here a name common to some of the chief features of the landscape—Keilder Castle, Keilder Burn, Keilder Moors. The castle is not one of the old Border strongholds, as might be assumed from its situation, but was built in the latter part of the last century by Hugh, last Earl and first Duke of Northumberland. It is approached by a road over the moors, and through a forest of young fir-trees. Its square tower is half hidden in a wood of more ancient date, and it has for background a fair expanse of purple hills. Between the castle and the fells there is a “forest primeval,” as old, it may be, as that which Longfellow describes in the opening of “Evangeline,” and far more strictly preserved; for not even the scant natives of the district are permitted to enter here, lest perchance they might disturb the game.
KEILDER CASTLE.
On Keilder Moors, to the North of Tynehead, three miles hence, there is as good sport as anywhere in South Britain. All varieties of moor-fowl wend thither. The heron may be seen rising, like an arrow shot from a bow, from Keilder Burn; sea-birds wander thus far inland from Holy Island and the Farne Isles, and even make their nests and breed their young at this distance from their kind. The frequent hooting of the owl may be heard here in the night-time, and the distressed cry of the plover resounds all day over these heathery solitudes, where, but for such shrill voices, the silence and the utter loneliness might be felt as a burden, and the bare, desolate country, stretching to the bare, desolate hills, might seem too horribly remote from the kindly haunts of men. But wild as this country now is, and far scattered as are its inhabitants, there must, “in the dark backward and abysm of time,” have been a numerous people here, for there are traces of ancient camps on most of the hills, and within two miles’ compass there must have been at least six settlements of the aboriginal inhabitants of these islands, perhaps of those very Picts whose disorderly valour caused the building of the Roman wall.
GREYSTEAD BRIDGE.