Stories of the Border Marches Part 5

And with that he let drive at the nearest, the charge, at so close a range, literally "knocking a hole" in him. Like a startled covey of partridges the remaining robbers fled, not only without attempting reprisals, but without even waiting to use the steps as an aid to escape; they simply flew through the air to mother earth and made tracks towards safety, anywhere, out of the reach of Frank Stokoe's vengeance; which perhaps was the wisest thing they could have done, for Stokoe was the kind of man who in a case such as this would willingly have knocked a hole in each one of them. In those days people were not very squeamish, and Stokoe seems to have gone quietly back to bed without greatly troubling himself about the slain robber; but the man's friends must have stolen back during the night, for in a copse near by, in a shallow grave hastily scooped out of the frozen earth, the dead body was found next day.

It is almost needless to say that Frank Stokoe was of those who would be certain to concern themselves in an enterprise such as the Rising of 1715. His sympathies were entirely with the Stuart, and against the Hanoverian King. Moreover, though he owned his peel tower and the land surrounding it, he was yet, as regards other land, a tenant of the Earl of Derwent.w.a.ter, as well as being a devoted admirer of that n.o.bleman.

Naturally, therefore, when the Earl took the field, Stokoe followed him; and had all been of his frame of mind, there had been no ignominious surrender at Preston. Whilst fighting was to be done, no man fought so hard, or with such thorough enjoyment, as Stokoe. "Surrender" was a part of the great game that he did not understand; he was not of the stuff that deals in "regrettable incidents." At Preston that day, when all was done, there stood King George's men on either side, as well as in his front; in his rear a high stone wall, even to a man less heavily handicapped than he by weight, an obstacle almost insurmountable. But his horse was good--Stokoe's horses _had_ to be good--and it knew its master. Never hitherto had the pair refused any jump, and they were not like to begin now. With a rush and a scramble, and the clatter of four good feet against the stone coping, they were over; over and away, galloping hard for the North Countrie, the free wind whistling past their ears as they sped, Stokoe throwing up his arm and giving a mocking cheer as each ineffective volley of musketry from the troops spluttered behind him; and the great roan horse s.n.a.t.c.hed at his bit, and snorted with excitement.

Yes, that part of it was worth living for, and the blood danced in the veins of horse and man while the chase lasted. But what of it when once more the hills of Northumberland were regained, when the great moors that lay grim and frowning under the dark November skies were again beneath his horse's feet? It was a different matter then, for the hue and cry was out, and the earths all stopped against this gallant fox.

Chesterwood was closed to him, no friend dared openly give him shelter.

"He had fled, had got clear away to France," was the story they gave out. But Frank Stokoe all the time lay snug and safe in hiding, not so very far from his own peel tower. And he was one of those who, disguised--perhaps in his case not very effectually--ventured to London, intent on bringing back the body of their chief, that it might lie at rest in the grave where sleep the fathers of that n.o.ble race.

There, in London, Frank narrowly escaped being taken. As it chanced, at that time an Italian bravo was earning for himself an unsavoury notoriety by going about boastfully challenging all England to stand up before him to prove who was the better man. He would mark his man, pick a quarrel with him, and the result was always the same. The Italian's trick of fence was deadly, his wrist a wrist of steel. None yet had been able to stand long before him; not one had got inside his guard.

As he walked once near Leicester Field in the dusk of an evening, Stokoe's great figure caught the eye of this little Italian, in whose mind suddenly arose the irresistible longing to bring this huge bulk toppling to earth. That would be something not unworth boasting about--that he, a sort of eighteenth-century David, should slay this modern Goliath.

No one had ever been able to complain that it was difficult to pick a quarrel with Frank Stokoe. Not that he was quarrelsome--far otherwise; but never was he known to shrink from any combat that was pressed on him, and on this occasion the venomous little foreigner found him most ready to oblige. It wanted but a slight jostle, an Italian oath hissed out, a few words in broken English to the effect that big men were proverbially clumsy, and that bigness and courage were not always to be found united. Stokoe knew very well who his a.s.sailant was, knew his reputation, and the slender chance the ordinary swordsman might expect to have against this foreigner's devilish skill, but his weapon was unsheathed almost before the Italian had ceased to curse. Cautiously keeping a check on his habitual impetuosity, calling to his aid every ounce of the skill he possessed, and content meanwhile if he could evade the vicious thrusts of his enemy, Stokoe for a time kept the fiery little man well at bay. Irritated at length by the giant's coolness, and by finding him, perhaps, not quite so easy a conquest as he had antic.i.p.ated, unable to draw him on to expose himself by attacking, the Italian for a moment lost patience. None other in England had given him so much trouble. It was time this farce ended; he would spit the giant now. Once, twice, thrice--it was with the utmost difficulty that Stokoe saved himself from being run through the body, and once the sword of his enemy went through his clothes, grazing his ribs, and sending a warm stream trickling down his side. Then, suddenly, again the Italian lunged. This time it surely had been all over with Stokoe. But the foot of the hectoring little foreigner slipped, or he stumbled owing to some slight inequality of the ground. For a single instant the man was overbalanced and off his guard, and before he could recover, Frank Stokoe's sword pa.s.sed through his body, sending out of this world one who whilst in it had wrought much evil.

"Well done, Stokoe! Old Northumberland for ever!" cried a voice from amongst the considerable crowd of spectators who had run up before the fight had been in progress many seconds. "Well done, Stokoe!"

Here was danger greater even than that from which he had but now escaped. He was recognised! And for him to be recognised in London probably meant instant arrest, and an almost certain end on the gallows. He was too deeply involved in the late Rebellion; King George's Government would show him as little mercy as they had showed to his chief.

Stokoe glanced round uneasily as he wiped his sword, but it was not possible to say which in the group of spectators was the man who had given that compromising cry; it might be one of several who, to Stokoe's extreme discomposure, seemed to look at him rather intently. Time to be out of this, thought he; the farther he was from London the more freely he would breathe just at present, and the less chance was there of that breathing being permanently stopped. Policemen had not been invented in those days, and there was not much chance of his being arrested for duelling, for what was then called "the watch" was singularly inefficient, and seldom to be found when wanted. Nevertheless, it was now no easy matter for Stokoe to shake off the little "tail" of admirers who insisted on following him; it was not every day that they had the chance of seeing a man killed in fair fight, and they were loth to lose sight of the man who had done it--a hero in their eyes. However, by dint of plunging down one narrow street and up some other unsavoury alley, and repeating the manoeuvre at intervals, blinding his trail as far as possible, he at length shook off the last persevering remnant of his admirers, and, without being tracked or shadowed, gained the shelter of the house where he lodged. A few days saw him and his friends safely out of London, bearing with them the body of the Earl of Derwent.w.a.ter, which was later buried at Dilston.

Frank Stokoe's position was an unfortunate one from now on. He was a proscribed man; his property had been seized, and those now in possession threatened if he put in an appearance, or made any attempt to regain the property, that they would give him up to Government. Times consequently became hard for poor Stokoe; his affairs went from bad to worse, and though his name was included in the general pardon which Government issued some time later, he never got back his land nor any of his possessions. Part of the land pa.s.sed with the Derwent.w.a.ter Estate to Greenwich Hospital, part, including the peel tower, where he and his ancestors had lived for generations, remained in the clutches of those who had seized it. Old age came upon Frank and found him poverty-stricken; want came, "as an armed man," and found him too weak to resist. The spirit was there, but no longer the strength that should have helped the spirit. He sank and died, leaving behind him no shred of worldly gear.

Another noted Northumbrian who was "out" in the '15 was him whom men then called "Mad Jack Hall" of Otterburn. Not that he was in any sense mad, or even of weak intellect--far from it; the name merely arose from the fiery energy of the man, and from the reckless courage with which he would face any danger or any odds. As a man, he was extremely popular, and no one could have been more beloved by his dependents. His fine estate he managed himself, and managed well, though before he went "out"

misfortunes fell on him which no management could have averted. They were misfortunes so crus.h.i.+ng, and following so immediately on each other's heels, that amongst the simple country folk they were looked on, and spoken of, with awe, as manifestly judgments from Heaven for some fancied sin they supposed him to have committed. He might, people said, have prevented, but did not prevent, a duel which took place in the streets of Newcastle, in which a very popular young man was killed. It was "murder," and no fair fight, folk said; and, whatever the rights of the case, at least the successful duellist was afterwards hanged for the murder. Hall's failure to interfere seems to have strained his popularity for a time. In such circ.u.mstances people are p.r.o.ne to a.s.sume that an all-wise Providence, necessarily seeing eye to eye with them, inflicts some special punishment on the person who has sinned some special sin, or who has, at all events, done (or not done) something which, in the popular judgment, he should not have done (or done, as the case may be). Misfortune or accident comes to some one who has roused popular clamour. "I told you so," cries the public; "a judgment!"

In this instance, the sin of not interfering to prevent a duel--or a murder, as popular opinion called it--was punished, firstly, by Hall's house at Otterburn being burned to the ground, together with all his farm buildings and great part of his farm stock; and, secondly, this grievous loss was followed in the time of harvest by a devastating flood in the Rede, which swept away from the rich, low-lying haughs every particle of the fat crops which already had been cut, and were now merely waiting to be carried home.

By such drastic means having apparently been purged of his sin, Mr. Hall seems to have regained his normal popularity, and an incident which presently occurred raised it to an even greater height than before. As far back at least as the time of Cromwell it had been customary to send offenders against the law, political prisoners and the like who were not judged quite worthy of the gallows or the block, to what in Charles the Second's day were called His Majesty's Plantations--our colonies, that is, in America or the West Indies. Not only were "incorrigible rogues, vagabonds, and st.u.r.dy beggars" thus dealt with, but those also who attended illegal prayer-meetings found themselves in the same box if they happened to have been previously convicted of this heinous offence; and the moss-troopers of Northumberland and c.u.mberland were treated in similar fas.h.i.+on when taken--deported from their own heathery hills and grey, weeping skies, to the hot swamps and savannahs of Jamaica or Virginia. In the beginning, those sentenced were merely compelled, under penalty of what Weir of Hermiston called being "weel haangit," to remove themselves to the Plantations. Later, a custom sprang up under which criminals of all sorts were delivered over by the authorities to the tender mercies of contractors, who engaged to land them in the West Indies or America, it being one of the conditions of the contract that the services of the prisoner were the property of the contractor for a given number of years. On landing, these wretched prisoners were put up to auction and sold to the highest bidder--in other words, they were slaves. Many men made large sums of money in this inhuman trade, trafficking in the lives of their fellow-countrymen. The thing at last reached such a pitch that practically no able-bodied man was safe from the danger of being kidnapped, sold to some dealer, and s.h.i.+pped off to slavery in the Plantations. That was the fate of many a young man who mysteriously disappeared from the ken of his friends in those seventeenth- and eighteenth-century days. Once s.h.i.+pped to the Plantations, the chance was small of a man ever returning to his native land. Fever, brought on by exposure to the hot sun and heavy rain of a tropical or semi-tropical climate, took care of that; in the West Indies, at least, they died like flies. Not many had the luck, or the const.i.tution, of one Henry Morgan, who, kidnapped in Bristol when a boy and sold as a slave in Barbadoes, lived to be one of the most famous--or rather notorious--buccaneers of all time, and died a knight, Lieutenant-Governor of Jamaica, and commander of our forces in that island.

It was "Mad Jack Hall's" fortune to save from this fate of being kidnapped and sent to rot in fever-laden swamps of the West Indies a young Northumbrian at that time in his service. It was the time of year when Stagshaw Bank Fair was held, and Mr. Hall, meaning to attend the fair, had instructed this young man to join him there at a certain hour, and himself had ridden over to Corbridge, there to pa.s.s the night. In the morning, when Jack Hall reached the fair at the appointed hour, he was astonished to find his servant, very dejected in appearance, being led away in charge of a man on horseback. Hall questioned the lad, who brightened up vastly at sight of his master, but could give no explanation as to the cause of this interference. All he knew was that as he stood waiting for Mr. Hall, this man had ridden up, claimed him as a prisoner, and was now marching him off. Hall looked at the mounted man, and recognised him as one of a family named Widdrington, who claimed to be invested by the Government of Queen Anne with authority to arrest from time to time sundry persons who, so far as the general public knew, were guilty of no crime, but who nevertheless were in the end sent to the dreaded Plantations. These Widdringtons were greatly feared throughout the countryside, but as they had always selected their victims from amongst people who had few friends, and who were little likely to have the means of making any great outcry, no person of influence had yet been moved to take the matter up, or to make troublesome inquiries.

Hall, however, was not the man to let his servant be taken without protest, even if this Widdrington really had the authority he claimed to possess. But to all Hall's remonstrances Widdrington merely replied haughtily that he was accountable to no one, save only to her most gracious Majesty the Queen; that he was there in the execution of his duty, and that anyone interfering with him did so at his own peril. The situation was awkward. On the one hand, if this man really was acting within his rights and in the execution of his duty, then Hall himself was likely to get into serious trouble; on the other, he was not going to see a young man, his own servant, a man, so far as he knew, innocent of all offence against the law, marched off in this way, if by any means he might be saved. As mere remonstrances appeared to be of no avail, Hall hotly pressed his horse close up to Widdrington's, completely barring his way, and demanded that, if he were really acting within the law, he should show his authority.

"_This_ is my authority," cried Widdrington, drawing his sword.

"We'll soon prove whether that's strong enough," replied Hall, jumping from his horse and also drawing his weapon. There was, as it chanced, close to the lane in which the two had been wrangling, a bit of nice level ground covered with short, crisp turf, and to this Hall quickly made his way, followed by Widdrington and by a crowd of people who had run up from the fair, attracted by the quarrel. A very few minutes sufficed to prove that Widdrington's "authority" was _not_ strong enough. He fought well enough for a time, it is true, and his opponent had need of all the skill he could command, but within five minutes Hall had caught Widdrington's point in the big basket hilt of his sword, and with a sudden jerk had sent the weapon flying, leaving the disarmed man entirely at his mercy. That was enough to satisfy Hall, who was too much of a man to push his advantage further. But it by no means satisfied the surrounding crowd of country people. By them these Widdringtons had long been feared and detested, and only the belief in the minds of those simple country folk that, in some mysterious way beyond their ken, the law was on the side of their oppressors, had on more than one occasion prevented an outbreak of popular fury. Here, now, was one of the hated brood, proven to be in the wrong, and with no authority to arrest beyond that bestowed by bl.u.s.ter and brute force. The air grew thick with groans and savage threats, and a clod flung by a boy gave the mob a lead. In an instant sticks and stones began to fly. Widdrington was unable to reach his sword or to get to his horse; there was nothing for it but to take to his heels, pursued by a crowd thirsting for his blood. That was the last of the oppression of the Widdringtons; their horrible traffic in human beings was ended, and none of them ever again dared show their faces in that part of the country.

As for Hall, henceforward an angel of light could not have been more highly regarded, and his fate, a very few years later, brought grief on the county almost as universal as that felt for the Earl of Derwent.w.a.ter himself.

Hall was at Preston with Derwent.w.a.ter, but he did not, like Frank Stokoe, ride for it when Forster surrendered. One would almost have expected a man of his fiery, reckless disposition to have made a dash for it, and to fight his way through or fall in the attempt. Perhaps he considered it a point of honour to stick by his friends, and share their fate, whatever it might be. Anyhow, he surrendered with the rest, and with the rest was condemned to death. Time after time he was reprieved, owing to the exertions of friends who happened to be high in favour with the Hanoverian King's Government, but time after time he was recommitted, and finally Tyburn saw the last of poor "Mad Jack Hall."

They hanged him on the 13th of July 1716.

SEWINGs.h.i.+ELDS CASTLE, AND THE SUNKEN TREASURE OF BROOMLEE LOUGH

The old castle of Sewings.h.i.+elds is one of which there are many legends.

If local tradition might be accepted as a guide, we should find that Arthur the King lived there once on a time. But surely another Arthur than him of whom Tennyson sang. One,

"Not like that Arthur, who, with lance in rest, From spur to plume a star of tournament, Shot through the lists at Camelot, and charged Before the eyes of ladies and of kings,"

but a being even more mythical than that Arthur to whom, with his knights, legend a.s.signs so many last resting-places--in that vast hall beneath the triple peak of Eildon, here in a cavern below the rocks at Sewings.h.i.+elds, and in many a spot besides. This Arthur of Sewings.h.i.+elds in his feats was indeed more akin to the old Norse G.o.ds and heroes. And it is told that, as he talked with his Queen one day when they sat on those great rocks to the north of the castle, which still bear as names the King's and the Queen's Crag, Guinevere chanced to let fall a remark which angered Arthur; whereupon he, s.n.a.t.c.hing up a rock that lay ready to his hand, hurled it at his royal consort. Now, Guinevere at the moment was combing her long, fair locks; but she saw the stone come hurtling through the air, and, with remarkable presence of mind and dexterity, with her comb she fended off the missile, so that it fell between them, doing no harm. And if anyone should presume to disbelieve this tale, there lies the rock to this day, and the marks of the teeth of the Queen's comb are on it still for all to see. The distance that the King hurled this missile is not above a quarter of a mile, and the pebble itself may weigh a trifle of twenty tons or so.

Local tradition tells also how once on a time there came to Sewings.h.i.+elds, to visit Arthur, a great chieftain from the wild north, one named c.u.min. And when c.u.min departed from the castle to go back to his own land, he bore with him a certain gold cup that Arthur, in token of friends.h.i.+p, had given to him. But sundry of the King's retainers, having learned that the Scot was bearing away with him this cup, greatly desired that they might themselves possess it, and they pursued c.u.min, and slew him ere he had gone many miles. Wherefore Arthur caused a cross to be erected there on the spot where the slain man fell; and the place is called c.u.mming's Cross to this day.

Of the building of the castle of Sewings.h.i.+elds, or Seven-s.h.i.+elds, there is the legend told in _Harold the Dauntless_:

"The Druid Urien had daughters seven, Their skill could call the moon from heaven; So fair their forms and so high their fame, That seven proud kings for their suitors came.

King Mador and Rhys came from Powis and Wales, Unshorn was their hair, and unpruned were their nails; From Strath-Clywd came Ewain, and Ewain was lame, And the red-bearded Donald from Galloway came.

Lot, King of Lodon, was hunchback'd from youth, Dunmail of c.u.mbria had never a tooth; But Adolph of Bambrough, Northumberland's heir; Was gay and was gallant, was young and was fair.

There was strife 'mongst the sisters, for each one would have For husband King Adolph, the gallant and brave; And envy bred hate, and hate urged them to blows, When the firm earth was cleft, and the Arch-fiend arose!

He swore to the maidens their wish to fulfil-- They swore to the foe they would work by his will, A spindle and distaff to each hath he given, 'Now hearken my spell,' said the Outcast of Heaven.

'Ye shall ply these spindles at midnight hour, And for every spindle shall rise a tower, Where the right shall be feeble, the wrong shall have power, And there shall ye dwell with your paramour.'

Beneath the pale moonlight they sate on the wold, And the rhymes which they chaunted must never be told; And as the black wool from the distaff they sped, With blood from their bosom they moisten'd the thread.

As light danced the spindles beneath the cold gleam, The castle arose like the birth of a dream-- The seven towers ascended like mist from the ground, Seven portals defend them, seven ditches surround.

Within that dread castle seven monarchs were wed, But six of the seven ere the morning lay dead; With their eyes all on fire, and their daggers all red, Seven damsels surround the Northumbrian's bed.

'Six kingly bridegrooms to death we have done, Six gallant kingdoms King Adolf hath won; Six lovely brides all his pleasure to do, Or the bed of the seventh shall be husbandless too.'

Well chanced it that Adolf the night when he wed Had confessed and had sain'd him ere boune to his bed; He sprung from the couch, and his broadsword he drew, And there the seven daughters of Urien he slew.

The gate of the castle he bolted and seal'd, And hung o'er each arch-stone a crown and a s.h.i.+eld; To the cells of St. Dunstan then wended his way, And died in his cloister an anchorite grey.

Seven monarchs' wealth in that castle lies stow'd, The foul fiends brood o'er them like raven and toad.

Whoever shall questen these chambers within, From curfew to matins, that treasure shall win.

But manhood grows faint as the world waxes old!

There lives not in Britain a champion so bold, So dauntless of heart, and so prudent of brain, As to dare the adventure that treasure to gain.

The waste ridge of Cheviot shall wave with the rye, Before the rude Scots shall Northumberland fly, And the flint cliffs of Bambro' shall melt in the sun Before that adventure be perill'd and won."

Long afterwards, when Harold the Dauntless entered the castle, the seven s.h.i.+elds still hung where Adolf had placed them, each blazoned with its coat of arms:

"A wolf North Wales had on his armour coat, And Rhys of Powis-land a couchant stag; Strath Clwyd's strange emblem was a stranded boat; Donald of Galloway's a trotting nag; A corn-sheaf gilt was fertile Lodon's brag; A dudgeon-dagger was by Dunmail worn; Northumbrian Adolf gave a sea-beat crag; Surmounted by a cross,--such signs were borne Upon these antique s.h.i.+elds, all wasted now and worn."

And within the castle, in that chamber where Adolf repelled the embarra.s.sing advances of that most unmaidenly band of sisters, and did "a slaughter grim and great":

"There of the witch brides lay each skeleton, Still in the posture as to death when dight; For this lay p.r.o.ne, by one blow slain outright; And that, as one who struggles long in dying; One bony hand held knife, as if to smite; One bent on fleshless knees, as mercy crying; One lay across the floor, as kill'd in act of flying."