Blood-red were the northern lights that flashed and shimmered so wildly
in the heavens that night, red as the blood that had soaked into the
sawdust of a scaffold; never before in the memory of living man had
aurora gleamed with hue so startling. But the sorrow in the hearts of
his people passed not away like the fading of the northern lights. His
memory lives still in Northumberland; still, when they see the gleam and
flicker of the aurora, folk there call it "Lord Derwentwater's Light";
and even yet it is a tradition that dwellers by the stream which flows
past Dilston were wont to tell how, on that fatal day, its waters ran
red like blood.

When "a' was done that man could do, and a' was done in vain," there
remained but to convey his headless body, if it might be, to the spot
where his forebears lie at rest.

"Albeit that here in London Town,
It is my fate to die,
O, carry me to Northumberland,
In my fathers' grave to lie."

The Earl's body had been buried at St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and of those
who went to recover it and to bring it home, there was one famous in
Northumberland story, Frank Stokoe of Chesterwood. A remarkable man was
Stokoe, of enormous personal strength and of great height--in stature a
veritable child of Anak--a man without fear, brave to recklessness, a
good friend and a terrible enemy. Added to all this, he was an
extraordinarily expert swordsman. He was a man, too, of much influence
and acknowledged authority in the county--a useful man to have on the
side of the King--one to whom the people listened, and to whom often an