ALSTON MOOR.
THE TYNE.
CHAPTER II.
THE SOUTH TYNE.
On the “Fiend’s Fell”—Tyne Springs—Garrigill—Alston and the Moors—Knaresdale Hall—The Ridleys—Haltwhistle—Allendale—Haydon Bridge and John Martin—The Arthurian Legends.
We are in Cumberland, amid the wilds. How did St. Augustine contrive to penetrate to such a region as this? The land is desolate, bleak, solitary. A desert of heathery hills; here and there a reed-fringed stream; in front the wild and stern face of Cross Fell! A seldom-trodden height, this Cumberland mountain, seeming to stand sentinel over all the country round. On its lower slopes, the three great commercial rivers of the North have their rise. We have come here in search of the source of the South Tyne, but a short morning’s wandering would lead us also to the sources of the Wear and the Tees. Cross Fell is 2,892 feet above the level of the sea, and to half that elevation we have ascended to reach these moors in which it seems to be set. The “Wizard Fell,” some poet has called it. The “Fiend’s Fell” it was called of old. To reach it from Alston one must trudge wearily afoot, or hire such vehicle as may be obtainable where travellers seldom come. The road winds about over windy uplands, ever rising nearer to the drifting clouds. A lead-miner’s bothie stands beside it here and there, and one is constantly passing places where the miners have “prospected” for ore. All the roadside, indeed, has been explored and broken. The South Tyne is making music all the way, for it flows downward to one’s right, and is constantly tumbling over rocks and forming cascades over little precipices. It becomes a hasty, tumultuous river almost immediately after its birth, increasing in volume with a celerity quite wonderful to see, and seemingly impetuous to lose the cold companionship of these bleak and barren hills, which, despite their sternness, are all aglow with colour, and pulsating with rapid waves of light.
To the right, brown ridges of high moorland; to the left, slopes more broken, strewn over, as it would seem, with masses of light-purple rock; beyond all, the dark ridge of Cross Fell closing-in the lonely valley. A streak of brighter and fresher green than any that is visible on the hillsides indicates where a hidden thread of water percolates the moss. Then there is a glint of silver here and there. Finally, the eye lights upon a sedgy pool, in the centre of which there is perceptible that throbbing movement which tells of the presence of a spring. This, then, is the source of the South Tyne. Before its waters have travelled far from here they will be crossed by a rude, ancient bridge, and swollen by many a little tributary from the hills.
From the summit of Cross Fell at certain seasons the mysterious and terrible “helm wind” blows. When no breeze disturbs the air, and when, over all the country round, there is a clear and bright sky, a line of strangely tortured and curving clouds will form itself along the ridge of the mountain. Then the shepherds will hie to where shelter may be found, for they know that a wind will soon be blowing before which no human creature can stand upright, and that may uproot trees, and unroof houses, and carry dismay into the valleys far below. It was the fiends holding revel, said the early inhabitants of these regions; wherefore St. Augustine erected a cross on the highest part of the fell, collecting his monks around him, and holding a religious service there, whereby if the fiends were made less harmful they were by no means dispossessed. The nearest inhabited place is Garrigill, which is a prominent object in the valley as one ascends the moor from Alston. A Cumberland village is a series of white gleaming spots against the hillside—a collection of whitewashed walls and grey-blue roofs of stone. This of Garrigill is like so many others, except as to the height at which it has been built, and its bright contrast with the gloom of its surroundings. There is a pleasant shadow of trees about its housetops. There is a village inn, and a village green, and a village well. The young river flows past quickly, merrily, with the music of numerous little falls. The people of these hill regions are miners for the most part. Lead was worked in these mountain sides at times so far back as the Roman occupation of Britain, and some of the miners, if they had kept a record of such things, might show a pedigree longer than that of those whose ancestors were engaged in Senlac fight. Their chief quarters are at Alston and at Allenheads, but their bothies are scattered about these moors. The town of Alston is four miles below Garrigill. It is a pretty, white-looking town, high up on the slope of the moors. Of its two principal streets one is parallel with the river Nent, and the other with the South Tyne, the two streams here joining to make a fairly considerable river. At Alston we are again on the track of St. Augustine’s footsteps. He may even have founded a place of worship here, and it is in keeping with the tradition of his having Christianised Cumberland that the church should bear his name.
FEATHERSTONE CASTLE. / FEATHERSTONE BRIDGE.
White Alston, with the wild brown moors beyond it, stands between the broad, open desolateness of the mountain region and a lovely district in which the South Tyne laughs under the threading branches of ancient woods, or broadens out by sunny haughs, as if to rest itself between strife and strife.