356 Mr Hardy on Langleyford Vale and the Cheviots. 



The pristine name of Earle is " Yardhill," "Yerdhill," 

 " Eardle," &c., still traceable in the country pronunciation, 

 " Yer-ill." It may either signify guard-hill, or the hill with 

 enclosures on it j or the name may refer to the ancient British 

 dike crossing by Earle Hill-head. Some other symptoms of 

 British occupancy have been revealed. On March 12th, 

 1814, "as some labourers were at work on the summit of a 

 green hill, on the farm of Old Earle, they struck into a com- 

 plete urn of baked clay, unglazed, inverted on a flat stone, 

 a little inclined. Some fragments of a human skull, and 

 other bones in a sound dry state, and a thin piece of flint, 

 were found under the urn. The small end of the urn was 

 not a foot below the surface, with a few stones remaining 

 over it*." About 1825, another urn, of similar composition, 

 was disinterred, which the field workers broke. 



Gaining the ascent above Middleton Hall, we attain our 

 first view of the giant masses of Cheviot and Hedgehope, 

 recumbent guardians of the great lone moorland. Now they 

 approach us, dark-brown, blue, or sombre black, symptom- 

 atic of a moist atmosphere. Especially if the mists troop, or 

 cling to the summit, or form a ragged bridge from hill-top to 

 hill-top across the valley, may we augur spiteful showery 

 weather farther up — not always, however, descending to the 

 base ; for coming out of a dense mist, and the society of 

 plaining plovers, you are sometimes surprised with gladden- 

 ing sunshine, and the singing of cheerful birds, and the 

 undimmed portraiture of the lower landscape. At other 

 times the hills lie farther off, but still extended in all their 

 vastness — dressed up in lighter tints, or dappled robes, and 

 with winning smiling features, gilded over with sunshine. 

 Towering white clouds gather up beyond the ridges, that 

 seem to float over another and brighter sphere, enticing us to 

 climb up the long hill steep to participate in what proves but 

 a visionary prospect. In autumn, however fair and well- 

 determined the outlines of things stand out in the light of 

 dawn, broad shadows cast a gloom over the mountain sides 

 long before night-fall, and in the deep hollows and the woods 

 the light speedily becomes crepuscular. In that season every 

 cloud paints its inky shadow on the desolate moors. Thence 

 too — from this spot where we gaze — in winter time, when all 

 is comparatively temperate in the lower world, we may 



* Local Papers, in " Local Historian's Table Book," III., p. 135. 



