They came in at Rookhope Head, which is the top of a rocky valley, about five miles long, at the end of which Rookhope Burn empties itself into the river Wear. This valley is as wild and open to-day as it was then. In some four hours they gathered together about six hundred sheep and they were engaged in "shifting" the horses, when the hue and cry was raised by one Rowley, whose horse they tried to take. He was the first man to see them. The cry spread rapidly down Rookhope burn and through Weardale, and word came to the bailiff's house at the East-gate. He was out, but his wife had his horse saddled and sent it to him, together with his sword, spear, and jacket quilted with iron plates, the sort of harness worn by the moss-troopers and other light horsemen of the time. The bailiff had already heard the bad news, and was sorely troubled thereby. His own brother had been attacked three days before by marauders, and lay sick with nineteen wounds. Yet the bailiff shrank not at all, but hied fast after the sheep-stealers, with as many of the neighbours as he could gather to bear him company.
The pursuers overtook the thieves in Nuketon Cleugh, and gave them all the fighting they wanted. Not one of them ever thought to see his wife again. They bore three banners against the Weardale men, "as if the world had been all their own." The fray lasted only an hour, but many a tall man lay weaponless and sore wounded before that hour was done, and four of the Northumbrian prickers were slain, including Harry Corbyl whom they had chosen to be their captain. Eleven of them were taken prisoners. Only one of the Weardale men fell but—
"These Weardale-men, they have good hearts,
They are as stiff as any tree;
For, if they'd everyone been slain,
Never a foot back man would flee.
And such a storm amongst them fell,
As I think you never heard the like;
For he that bears his head on high,
He oft-tymes falls into the dyke.
And now I do entreat you all,
As many as are present here,
To pray for the singer of this song,
For he sings to make blythe your cheer."
Chapter XXXI
Barthram's Dirge
The story of how this ballad came to be preserved to us is a very interesting one. A Mr Surtees, who was very interested in the old ballads, used to give work to a poor old Scotswoman to weed in his garden. Finding that she had learnt ballads in her young days, he encouraged her to talk about them, and this was amongst those which she recited to him. She told him that it referred to a young man named Bertram or Barthrum, who made love to a young lady against the wish of her brothers. The cruel brothers slew him, but the lady had him buried at the very spot where he was wont to come to visit her in the days of their love. Sir Walter Scott thinks that perhaps Barthram was an Englishman and the lady was Scottish, and that the anger of the lady's brothers against him was partly on that account.
It must be remembered that in those stormy days, when Border rivalry was keen, and all the Border chiefs, on both sides, were men of war-like mould, intermarriage between the two races was punishable by Border law. Each side felt equally that such mixed marriages would sooner or later produce a race that was neither loyal English nor loyal Scotch. A spirit of aloofness and rivalry was deliberately encouraged, right up to the time of the union of the two countries under one king.
BARTHRAM'S DIRGE
They shot him dead at the Nine-Stone Rig,
Beside the Headless Cross,
And they left him lying in his blood,
Upon the moor and moss.
* * * * *
They made a bier of the broken bough,
The sauch and the aspin gray,
And they bore him to the Lady Chapel,
And waked him there all day.
A lady came to that lonely bower,
And threw her robes aside,
She tore her long yellow hair,
And knelt at Barthram's side.
She bathed him in the Lady-Well,
His wounds so deep and sair,
And she plaited a garland for his breast,
And a garland for his hair.
They rowed him in a lily-sheet,
And bare him to his earth,
And the Gray Friars sung the dead man's mass,
As they pass'd the Chapel Garth.
They buried him at the mirk midnight,
When the dew fell cold and still,
When the aspin gray forgot to play,
And the mist clung to the hill.
They dug his grave but a bare foot deep,
By the edge of the Ninestone Burn,
And they covered him o'er with the heather-flower,
The moss and the Lady fern.
A Gray Friar staid upon the grave,
And sang till the morning tide,
And a friar shall sing for Barthram's soul,
While the Headless Cross shall bide.[#]
[#] Mr Surtees observes, on this passage, that in the return made by the commissioners, on the dissolution of Newminster Abbey, there is an item of a Chauntery, for one priest to sing daily ad crucem lapideam. Probably many of these crosses had the like expiatory solemnities for persons slain there. They certainly did bury, in former days, near the Ninestone Burn, for Sir Walter Scott found there, lying among the heather, a small monumental cross, with initials, which he reverently placed upright.