virtue should ever feel in the discomfiture of vice. Compounding a
felony, we should call it now. And no doubt it was. But in those days,
when the King's writ ran with but halting foot through the wild Border
hills, perhaps least said was soonest mended.

Kingswood lies just across the river from Staward Peel, but Dicky dwelt
generally at the latter place--in former days an almost unassailable
stronghold, standing on a bold eminence overlooking Allen Water, some
miles to the east of Haltwhistle. Here of old, when beacon-fires blazed
on the hill-tops, "each with warlike tidings fraught," flashing their
warning of coming trouble from "the false Scottes," the people of these
regions were wont to hurry for safety, breathlessly bearing with them
whatsoever valuables they prized and had time to save. Many a treasure
is said to lie here, buried, and never again dug up, because those who
alone knew where to look had perished in defence of the Peel. Truly, if
the troubled spirits of those slain ones yet wander, brooding over
hidden chattels and lost penates, they are not greatly to be pitied, for
a spot more beautiful, one less to be shunned if our spirits _must_
wander, it would be hard to find in all Northumberland or in all
England. Not distant would they be, too, from good company, for away to
the north across the Tyne, in a mighty cavern in the rock--below what
once was the castle of Sewing Shields--does not local tradition tell
that Arthur and his knights lie asleep, waiting the inevitable day when
England's dire need shall bring them again to life, to strike a blow for
the land they loved. And along that noble line of wall which spanned
England from sea to sea, might they not perchance foregather--some dark
and stormy night, when snow drives down before a north-east wind--with
the dim forms of armoured men, wraiths of the Roman legions, patrolling
once more the line that they died to defend?