SOME WRITERS ON THE GENTLE CRAFT 193 



towers and park of the old fortress of the Nevilles. 

 He remembers when there were great trout in the 

 Wear under "the Bishop's Corn-mill " that was 

 before the river of St. Cuthbert had been poisoned by 

 mining industry -and one of the first expeditions he 

 describes was to " the beautifully situated village of Roth- 

 bury," and the fascinating pools of romantic Coquet, 

 where it swirls past the ruins of Brinkburn Priory. 

 Setting aside considerations of county patriotism, and 

 the pleasant memories of auld lang syne, we do not 

 wonder at Mr. Henderson's strong attachment to the 

 streams of the " north countree." Even on casual 

 visitors, with their wild variety of feature and changing 

 play of expression, they invariably exercise a lasting 

 fascination ; and the liking that may have originated in 

 legend and song ripens into affection with personal know- 

 ledge. There is the Coquet flowing downwards from 

 Brinkburn through haughs and corn-fields, between 

 hanging copses, and banks of the flowering furze and 

 broom, to the amphitheatre of woods by the hermitage 

 of Warkworth, and the sweep that is dominated by the 

 keep of the Percys ; and the Alne, that runs from the 

 brown moorlands, and steals past the ruins of its abbey, 

 over shelving ledges of rock, under sombre bowers of 

 foliage, through the deer-park and home-park and 

 fragrant shrubberies of his Grace of Northumberland. 

 As you throw the fly, you look back over your 

 shoulder at the battlements of his castle, with their 

 sentinels of stone. You come on grey farm-steadings 

 in sequestered nooks, only accessible by fords or 



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