CLEAR WATERS 



undulating lowlands of Northumberland to the sea. 

 Coquet, it may be said again, holds the affections of 

 Northumbrians, I think, above all their rivers. There 

 is a sort of feeling that it is, even more so than others, 

 their representative stream, partly perhaps because it 

 flows through the heart of the county, and is more 

 familiar than the remoter dales of Tyne. Like them, 

 its glens are rich in story, and thickly strewn with the 

 relics of a fighting age, while it finds its fitting end 

 beneath the great star-shaped keep with eight lofty- 

 clustered towers that was built by Hotspur's father 

 in the third Edward's stirring days. Warkworth was 

 the chief seat of the Percies before Alnwick was restored 

 in the eighteenth century. It is a deathless reminder 

 of two great English victories — Crecy and Neville's 

 Cross ; for it was while the king was winning the 

 former that Henry Percy, Warden of the March, won 

 the latter against the invading Scots, for which the 

 money to build Warkworth was the royal and well- 

 earned reward. Here, too, it will be remembered, 

 Shakespeare lays the opening scene in Henry IV., 

 when Hotspur's wife Kate tries to worm from him the 

 secret of those moody humours and restless nights 

 which ultimately led to the cataclysm at Shrewsbury, 

 and ended there for good. 



The observant railway traveller before invoked 

 will be also familiar with the little seaside town of 

 Alnmouth, clustering picturesquely above the Aln, as 

 well as with the winding course of that river through 

 its green meadows from high-perched embattled 

 Alnwick to the sea. There is a fair run of sea trout 

 and salmon up here, and much of the water is accessible 

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