The woods of Keilder are still in sight when the yet inconsiderable “water of Tyne” is swollen by the broader and more impetuous Lewis Burn, which, after a turbulent career through picturesque glens amid the fells, ploughs its way deep among the pebbly soil of the haughs, and then makes a fatal junction with the more distinguished stream.
“There’s wealth o’ kye i’ bonny Braidlees,
There’s wealth o’ youses i’ Tine,”
says the old ballad. It was the habit of the Borderer to regard other folks’ possessions as his own, as they might be for the taking, and of these “youses” and kye the hardy wooer remarks to her to whom his speech is here addressed, “these shall all be thine.” Here, looking down from the moorlands on the confluence of the Tyne and the Lewis Burn, one sees how this portion of the north country must always have been a rich pastoral land, very alluring indeed to the reivers who lived beyond Peel Fell. The “haughs” are the flat pastures among the hills and by the side of streams. There is a fair, broad prospect of these where the two “waters” come together. Their monotony is here and there broken by dark bands of sheltering trees. Over the sheep and cattle grazing on these lowlands the ancient peel towers kept guard. There were both peels and castles, indeed. The Border peel was a solitary square tower, with stone walls of enormous thickness. Into the lowest of its compartments cattle were driven when there was an alarm of visitors “from over the Border.” To the upper storeys those who fled for shelter and safety ascended by means of a ladder, which they drew up behind them, then defending themselves as best they might until their neighbours could be summoned to the conflict by the fire which on these warlike occasions was always hung from a gable of the roof. It was not only to steal cattle and sheep that the marauders came. There were often deep blood-feuds to avenge. The Robsons, who are declared to have been “honest men, save doing a little shifting for their living,” made a raid on the Grahams of Liddesdale, and brought home sheep which were found to be afflicted with the scab. Their own flocks died in consequence, and the Robsons became very angry therefore, so that they made a second raid into Liddesdale, and brought back seven Grahams as their prisoners, all of whom they incontinently hanged, with the intimation, quite superfluous under such circumstances, that “the neist time gentlemen cam to tak their schepe they were no to be scabbit.” Such acts bred constant retaliation, and in Northumberland to this day there is no very kindly feeling to persons “from the other side of the Border.”
DALLY CASTLE.
The remains of castles and peel towers crowd together somewhat when we have passed the pleasant little village of Falstone, which seems from time immemorial to have been occupied mainly by the Robson clan. At Falstone, where there are two rival but not unfriendly churches nestling among the trees, was discovered, a while ago, a Runic cross raised to the memory of some old Saxon Hrœthbert, from whom, the name being the ancient form of Robert, it is probable enough that the doughty Robsons sprang. There was a peel in the village itself, but this has been long since incorporated with the laird’s house. Another stood a short distance away, on the opposite side of the Tyne, below Greystead—where we reach the first important bridge over the North Tyne; and within a short distance of a point where three valleys unite their streams there stood two castles related to each other by a deadly feud, and two peels made famous by a wild friendship. Dally Castle—there are now but a few low, earth-covered walls remaining—occupies the summit of a hill distant about a mile and a half from the south bank of the Tyne. Tarset Castle—recognisable only as a green mound—stood on the north bank, close to where the river is joined by the Tarset Burn. The popular legends have connected these old Border strongholds by a subterranean passage, which is believed to have been haunted through many generations. Here a vivid superstition has heard carriages rolling underground, and has seen long processions emerge from an opening which no country wit had the skill to find. In Tarset Castle lived that Red Comyn who was slain by Robert Bruce, and of whom one of the Bruce’s friends “made siccar” by thrusting a dagger to his heart when he had been left for dead. Sir Ralph Fenwick occupied Tarset Castle in 1526, but was driven out by the Charltons, though this must then have been one of the strongest places on the Borders. At some other and undetermined period—so the popular legends say—Tarset and Dally Castles were occupied by families which were at feud with each other, but it so fell out that the Lord of Tarset was smitten by the charms of his enemy’s sister, whom he met by stealth in some retired spot on the moorlands. There, one day, he was set upon by the Lord of Dally and killed, and a cross was thereafter set up to his memory—perhaps by the lady for whom he had died—the site of which is pointed out to this day.
Far different from the relations which existed between the lords of Tarset and Dally were those of Barty of the Comb and Corbit Jack, who inhabited neighbouring peels further up the Tarset Burn. Barty awoke one morning to find that all his sheep had been driven over the Border. Straight he repaired to his faithful Corbit Jack, and the two friends set off together over the fells; whence Barty of the Comb returned with a sword wound in his thigh, the dead body of his “fere” on his shoulder, and a flock of the Leathem sheep marching before him. The record of such occurrences is preserved only in the stories of those who rejoice in male prowess, and who relate how Barty “garred a foe’s heid spang alang the heather like an inion;” but that they had a very pathetic side also the touching ballad of “The Border Widow” might help us to understand.
The old feuds were kept up long after all reason for them had ceased to be, and when no more raiders came from the Liddell to the Tyne the men of the neighbouring valleys fought with each other, from lack of more useful employment. It was the wont, for example, of a descendant of this same Barty of the Comb to appear suddenly at Bellingham Fair, with a numerous following of Tarset and Tarret Burn men at his back, and, raising a Border slogan, to behave as if Bellingham had been Donnybrook. This was at the beginning of the present century only, when, according to Sir Walter Scott, the people of North Tynedale were all “quite wild,” a statement which is not borne out by other authorities, though this “muckle Jock” of Tarset Burn can by no means have had such manners as stamp the caste of Vere de Vere.
The home of those Charltons who drove Sir Ralph Fenwick out of Tarset Castle, and even out of Tynedale, “to his great reproache,” observes an old writer, was at Hesleyside, which is nearly two miles from Bellingham northwards. Here a tower was erected in the fourteenth century. There were other powerful Charltons in the immediate neighbourhood—at the Bowere, a mile further up the Tyne, for example, where there lived Hector Charlton, “one of the greatest thieves in those parts,” if old stories tell true. It was Hector who bought off two men that were to be hung, and then let them loose to prey on the King’s lieges, taking for himself, as became a man boastful of his shrewdness, a due share of their spoil. Also it was the lady of Hesleyside who, in place of a sound meal, would sometimes serve up a spur on an otherwise empty dish, by way of hint that the larder had need to be replenished; and Hesleyside, proud of its past, still keeps this spur as an heirloom. But out of strength, as says Samson’s riddle, there cometh sweetness. The later generations of Charltons have been a cultured race, and it was a rare collection of choice books which was dispersed at the Hesleyside sale a few years ago. Of the ancient tower nothing now remains, the present mansion of the family, situated amid woods which are conspicuous for many miles around, having been built at a comparatively recent period.