NORTHERN COUNTRIES 115 



to <;o out fox-liuntin^f sint^ly and alone — were such a thin<4 

 possible ! 



The average size of these Northumbr.an grazing- 

 grounds cannot be less than twenty acres. Many of the 

 enclosures are double and treble that acreage. Another 

 peculiarity of the Tynedale country is the extent and 

 variety of the views that present themselves as you cross 

 it. Thus on the way to Hallington from the Tyne the 

 eye can roam to the Cheviots on the north (to-day snow- 

 clad to their base), to Crossfell- — one of the Cumberland 

 hills — to the west, and over the river southward to York- 

 shire. In fact you can see to the boundaries of Scotland, 

 Durham, Yorkshire, and Westmoreland ; and yet these 

 uplands are so gently undulating that the country cannot 

 be deemed hilly, as we understand it in Leicestershire or 

 counties next of kin. Northumberland may be a cold 

 county ; but no part of the Tynedale is so high above the 

 sea, for instance, as Naseby's battlefield. 



The Tynedale foxes, again, belong entirely to the cate- 

 gory of wild animals, accustomed to roam and ready to 

 travel — as wild and indigenous, indeed, as the curlew and 

 the blackcock to these green, moorland - like uplands. 

 There are few- — scarcely any — -villages round which they 

 might prowl for poultry or pickings ; and their size of 

 frame and richness of fur bear testimony to their vigour 

 of race and habit. 



The meet on the day which forms my theme, then, 

 was Hallington, a couple of m.iles westward of Kirkheaton, 

 of the. week before ; and the site of Newcastle's main 

 source of water supply. The blackheaded gulls of the 

 eastern coast are accustomed to view these extensive reser- 

 voirs as laid out for their especial benefit, and accordingly 

 flock thither at this season as thickly as Bank-holiday 

 trippers to Epping Forest, or the loungers of Newcastle 

 to their railway depot. But more to the point is it that 

 Hallington is the base frequently chosen whence hounds 

 carry on operations in the far nor'-west, to which a prac- 

 tical limit is marked by the crags of Wannie and heather- 

 clad hills such as only a moss-trooper would care to 

 traverse. 



