_31st May_, 1913.




NORTHUMBERLAND YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY


CHAPTER I.


THE COAST OF NORTHUMBERLAND.

"We'll see nae mair the sea banks fair,
And the sweet grey gleaming sky,
And the lordly strand of Northumberland,
And the goodly towers thereby."

--_A.C. Swinburne_.


Wild and bleak it may be, hard and cruel at times it undoubtedly is,
but, nevertheless, this north-east coast of ours is at all times
inspiring, whether half-hidden by storm-clouds, its cliffs and hollows
lashed by the "wild north-easter," or seen calmly brooding in the warm
haze of a summer's day, its grey-blue water smiling beneath the
grey-blue sky, and its stretches of sand and bents edging the sea with a
border of gold and silver.