If you have read the ballad of The Felon Sow, we will remember it while repassing the park:
“She was mare than other three,
The grisliest beast that e’er might be,
Her head was great and gray:
She was bred in Rokeby wood,
There were few that thither goed,
That came on live away.
“Her walk was endlong Greta side,
There was no bren that durst her bide,
That was froe heaven to hell;
Nor ever man that had that might,
That ever durst come in her sight,
Her force it was so fell.
“If ye will any more of this,
In the Fryers of Richmond ’tis
In parchment good and fine;
And how Fryar Middleton that was so kend,
At Greta Bridge conjured a feind
In likeness of a swine.”
I got back to Barnard Castle in time for the omnibus, which starts at half-past five for Middleton-in-Teesdale, nine miles distant on the road to the hills. I was the only passenger, and taking my seat by the side of the driver, found him very willing to talk. The road ascends immediately after crossing the bridge to a finely-wooded district, hill and dale, rich in oak, ash, and beech. Deepdale beck yawns on the left, and every mile opens fresh enjoyment to the eye, and revives associations. Lartington is a pretty village, which hears night and morn and all day long the tremulous voice of innumerable leaves. “Them’s all Roman Catholics there,” said the driver, as we left it behind; and by-and-by, when we came to Cotherstone—Cuthbert’s Town—“Here ’tis nothin’ but cheese and Quakers.” There is, however, something else, for here it was
“——the Northmen came,
Fix’d on each vale a Runic name,
Rear’d high their altar’s rugged stone,
And gave their gods the land they won.
Then, Balder, one bleak garth was thine,
And one sweet brooklet’s silver line,
And Woden’s Croft did title gain
From the stern Father of the Slain;
But to the Monarch of the Mace,
That held in fight the foremost place,
To Odin’s son, and Sifia’s spouse,
Near Stratforth high they paid their vows,
Remembered Thor’s victorious fame,
And gave the dell the Thunderer’s name.”
A delightful day might be spent hereabouts in exploring the glen of the Balder, and the romantic scenery where it flows into Tees; the Hagg crowned by fragments of a stronghold of the Fitzhughs; and the grand rock on the river’s brink known as Pendragon Castle. The whole region for miles around was once thickly covered by forest.
The pace is sober, for some of the hills are steep. We come to Romaldkirk, and the folk, as everywhere else along the road, step from their houses to inquire for parcels or replies to messages, and the driver has a civil word for all, and discharges his commissions promptly. He is an important man in the dale, the roving link between the villagers and the town—“Barn’d Cas’l’,” as they say, slurring it into two syllables. It does one good to see with how much good-nature the service can be performed.
Hill after hill succeeds, the woods are left behind, the country opens bare and wild, rolling away to the dark fells that look stern in the distance. Big stones bestrew the slopes; here and there a cottage seems little better than a pile of such stones covered with slabs of slate or coarse thatch. “Poorish wheat hereabouts,” says the driver, as he points to the pale green fields. The farms vary in size from seventy to one hundred and fifty acres; and he thinks it better to grow grass than grain. Then we come in sight of Middleton, and presently he pulls up, while a boy and girl get inside, and he tells me they are his children, who have come out half a mile to meet him.