was a lover of horses--as who in Northumberland is not?--than from a
partisan of Lowes. However, the feud ran on, year in, year out, as is
the custom of such things, and no doubt it might have been bequeathed
from father to son, like a property under entail, had it not been for
the intervention of Frank Stokoe. Lowes and Leehall, it seems, had met
by chance near Sewing Shields, with the usual result. Only, upon this
occasion, the former was possibly not on the back of an animal the
superior in speed and stamina of the horse on which Leehall was mounted.
At least, Lowes was captured.
But, having got him, his enemy did not proceed to cut him into gobbets,
or even to "wipe the floor" with him. Something lingering and long was
more to his taste; he would make Lowes "eat dirt." With every mark,
therefore, of ignominy and contempt, he dragged his fallen foe home to
Leehall, and there chained him near to the kitchen fire-place, leaving
just such length of chain loose as would enable the prisoner to sit with
the servants at meals. The position can scarcely have been altogether a
pleasing one to the servants, to say nothing of the prisoner. Doubtless
the former, or some of them, may have found a certain joy in baiting,
and in further humiliating, a helpless man, their master's beaten enemy.
Yet that pleasure, one would think, could scarcely atone for the
constant presence among them of an uninvited guest--a guest, too, who
had not much choice in the matter of personal cleanliness. However,
trifles of that nature did not greatly embarrass folk in days innocent
of sanitary science. As for Lowes, it must have been difficult so to act
consistent with the maintenance of any shred of dignity, or of
conciliatory cheerfulness. If, for example, the cook should happen of a
morning to have got out of bed "wrong foot first," how often must the
attentions of that domestic have taken the form of a pot or a pan, or
other domestic utensil, flung at his head. Here, no soft answer would be
likely to turn away wrath. On the spur of the moment, when a pot, or an
iron spit, has caught one on elbow or shins, it might not be altogether
easy to think promptly of the repartee likely to be the most
conciliating. And he could not "make himself scarce." The situation was
embarrassing.
Now, the law, in those breezy times, took small cognisance of such
little freaks as this; the law, indeed, was pretty powerless up among
those wild hills. It wanted some force stronger, or, at all events, some
force less magnificently deliberate, than that of the law.
Frank Stokoe was that force. To him went the friends of Lowes; and next
morning saw the peel tower of Leehall besieged. Frank demanded the
surrender of Lowes, uninjured. Leehall retorted that he might take
him--if he could. But Leehall had reckoned without his retainers; they
dared not fight against Frank Stokoe. So they said. But was it not, in
reality, a sort of incipient Strike? Did they, perhaps, being wearied of
the somewhat tame sport of baiting him, think the opportunity a fitting
one to get rid of their uninvited guest for good and all? In any case,
before an hour had passed, Leehall found it convenient to hand Lowes
over to Stokoe, who safely deposited him by his own fireside at
Willimoteswick, and the feud was pursued no further.
Whether or not Leehall was content to have thus played second fiddle,
one does not know. Perhaps it was his men who, a year or two later, paid
a nocturnal visit to Stokoe's peel tower. Frank was roused from sleep
one winter night by his daughter, who told her father that some one was
attempting to force the outer door. Stokoe stole quietly downstairs, to
find that some one outside was busy with the point of a knife trying
gently to prise back the great oaken bolt which barred his door. A very
little more, a few minutes longer of work, and the beam would have been
slid back, the door would have been quietly opened, and the throats of
all the occupants of the house might have been cut. Whispering to his
daughter to stand behind the door, and softly to push back the bolt each
time the attempt was made to prise it open, Frank snatched down, and
loaded with slugs, his old musket. Then very quietly he let himself down
through the trap-door into the cow-house, which in all, or nearly all,
old peel towers formed the lower story of the building. Cautiously
unclosing the door of the cow-house, which opened on the outer air close
to the flight of stone steps leading up to the main door of the tower,
he stepped out. There, plainly to be seen at top of the stair, were
several men, busily employed in trying to gain an entrance.
"Ye bluidy scoundrels," roared Stokoe, "I'll knock a hole in some o' ye
that the stars will shine through."
And with that he let drive at the nearest, the charge, at so close a
range, literally "knocking a hole" in him. Like a startled covey of
partridges the remaining robbers fled, not only without attempting
reprisals, but without even waiting to use the steps as an aid to
escape; they simply flew through the air to mother earth and made tracks
towards safety, anywhere, out of the reach of Frank Stokoe's vengeance;
which perhaps was the wisest thing they could have done, for Stokoe was
the kind of man who in a case such as this would willingly have knocked
a hole in each one of them. In those days people were not very
squeamish, and Stokoe seems to have gone quietly back to bed without
greatly troubling himself about the slain robber; but the man's friends
must have stolen back during the night, for in a copse near by, in a
shallow grave hastily scooped out of the frozen earth, the dead body was
found next day.
It is almost needless to say that Frank Stokoe was of those who would be
certain to concern themselves in an enterprise such as the Rising of
1715. His sympathies were entirely with the Stuart, and against the
Hanoverian King. Moreover, though he owned his peel tower and the land
surrounding it, he was yet, as regards other land, a tenant of the Earl
of Derwentwater, as well as being a devoted admirer of that nobleman.
Naturally, therefore, when the Earl took the field, Stokoe followed him;
and had all been of his frame of mind, there had been no ignominious
surrender at Preston. Whilst fighting was to be done, no man fought so
hard, or with such thorough enjoyment, as Stokoe. "Surrender" was a part
of the great game that he did not understand; he was not of the stuff
that deals in "regrettable incidents." At Preston that day, when all was
done, there stood King George's men on either side, as well as in his
front; in his rear a high stone wall, even to a man less heavily
handicapped than he by weight, an obstacle almost insurmountable. But
his horse was good--Stokoe's horses _had_ to be good--and it knew its
master. Never hitherto had the pair refused any jump, and they were not
like to begin now. With a rush and a scramble, and the clatter of four
good feet against the stone coping, they were over; over and away,
galloping hard for the North Countrie, the free wind whistling past
their ears as they sped, Stokoe throwing up his arm and giving a
mocking cheer as each ineffective volley of musketry from the troops
spluttered behind him; and the great roan horse snatched at his bit, and
snorted with excitement.
Yes, that part of it was worth living for, and the blood danced in the
veins of horse and man while the chase lasted. But what of it when once
more the hills of Northumberland were regained, when the great moors
that lay grim and frowning under the dark November skies were again
beneath his horse's feet? It was a different matter then, for the hue
and cry was out, and the earths all stopped against this gallant fox.
Chesterwood was closed to him, no friend dared openly give him shelter.
"He had fled, had got clear away to France," was the story they gave
out. But Frank Stokoe all the time lay snug and safe in hiding, not so
very far from his own peel tower. And he was one of those who,
disguised--perhaps in his case not very effectually--ventured to London,
intent on bringing back the body of their chief, that it might lie at
rest in the grave where sleep the fathers of that noble race.
There, in London, Frank narrowly escaped being taken. As it chanced, at
that time an Italian bravo was earning for himself an unsavoury
notoriety by going about boastfully challenging all England to stand up
before him to prove who was the better man. He would mark his man, pick
a quarrel with him, and the result was always the same. The Italian's
trick of fence was deadly, his wrist a wrist of steel. None yet had been
able to stand long before him; not one had got inside his guard.
As he walked once near Leicester Field in the dusk of an evening,
Stokoe's great figure caught the eye of this little Italian, in whose
mind suddenly arose the irresistible longing to bring this huge bulk
toppling to earth. That would be something not unworth boasting
about--that he, a sort of eighteenth-century David, should slay this
modern Goliath.
No one had ever been able to complain that it was difficult to pick a
quarrel with Frank Stokoe. Not that he was quarrelsome--far otherwise;
but never was he known to shrink from any combat that was pressed on
him, and on this occasion the venomous little foreigner found him most
ready to oblige. It wanted but a slight jostle, an Italian oath hissed
out, a few words in broken English to the effect that big men were
proverbially clumsy, and that bigness and courage were not always to be
found united. Stokoe knew very well who his assailant was, knew his
reputation, and the slender chance the ordinary swordsman might expect
to have against this foreigner's devilish skill, but his weapon was
unsheathed almost before the Italian had ceased to curse. Cautiously
keeping a check on his habitual impetuosity, calling to his aid every
ounce of the skill he possessed, and content meanwhile if he could evade
the vicious thrusts of his enemy, Stokoe for a time kept the fiery
little man well at bay. Irritated at length by the giant's coolness, and
by finding him, perhaps, not quite so easy a conquest as he had
anticipated, unable to draw him on to expose himself by attacking, the
Italian for a moment lost patience. None other in England had given him
so much trouble. It was time this farce ended; he would spit the giant
now. Once, twice, thrice--it was with the utmost difficulty that Stokoe
saved himself from being run through the body, and once the sword of his
enemy went through his clothes, grazing his ribs, and sending a warm
stream trickling down his side. Then, suddenly, again the Italian
lunged. This time it surely had been all over with Stokoe. But the foot
of the hectoring little foreigner slipped, or he stumbled owing to some
slight inequality of the ground. For a single instant the man was
overbalanced and off his guard, and before he could recover, Frank
Stokoe's sword passed through his body, sending out of this world one
who whilst in it had wrought much evil.
"Well done, Stokoe! Old Northumberland for ever!" cried a voice from
amongst the considerable crowd of spectators who had run up before the
fight had been in progress many seconds. "Well done, Stokoe!"
Here was danger greater even than that from which he had but now
escaped. He was recognised! And for him to be recognised in London
probably meant instant arrest, and an almost certain end on the
gallows. He was too deeply involved in the late Rebellion; King George's
Government would show him as little mercy as they had showed to his
chief.
Stokoe glanced round uneasily as he wiped his sword, but it was not
possible to say which in the group of spectators was the man who had
given that compromising cry; it might be one of several who, to Stokoe's
extreme discomposure, seemed to look at him rather intently. Time to be
out of this, thought he; the farther he was from London the more freely
he would breathe just at present, and the less chance was there of that
breathing being permanently stopped. Policemen had not been invented in
those days, and there was not much chance of his being arrested for
duelling, for what was then called "the watch" was singularly
inefficient, and seldom to be found when wanted. Nevertheless, it was
now no easy matter for Stokoe to shake off the little "tail" of admirers
who insisted on following him; it was not every day that they had the
chance of seeing a man killed in fair fight, and they were loth to lose
sight of the man who had done it--a hero in their eyes. However, by dint
of plunging down one narrow street and up some other unsavoury alley,
and repeating the manoeuvre at intervals, blinding his trail as far as
possible, he at length shook off the last persevering remnant of his
admirers, and, without being tracked or shadowed, gained the shelter of
the house where he lodged. A few days saw him and his friends safely out
of London, bearing with them the body of the Earl of Derwentwater, which
was later buried at Dilston.
Frank Stokoe's position was an unfortunate one from now on. He was a
proscribed man; his property had been seized, and those now in
possession threatened if he put in an appearance, or made any attempt to
regain the property, that they would give him up to Government. Times
consequently became hard for poor Stokoe; his affairs went from bad to
worse, and though his name was included in the general pardon which
Government issued some time later, he never got back his land nor any of
his possessions. Part of the land passed with the Derwentwater Estate to
Greenwich Hospital, part, including the peel tower, where he and his
ancestors had lived for generations, remained in the clutches of those
who had seized it. Old age came upon Frank and found him
poverty-stricken; want came, "as an armed man," and found him too weak
to resist. The spirit was there, but no longer the strength that should
have helped the spirit. He sank and died, leaving behind him no shred of
worldly gear.
Another noted Northumbrian who was "out" in the '15 was him whom men
then called "Mad Jack Hall" of Otterburn. Not that he was in any sense
mad, or even of weak intellect--far from it; the name merely arose from
the fiery energy of the man, and from the reckless courage with which he
would face any danger or any odds. As a man, he was extremely popular,
and no one could have been more beloved by his dependents. His fine
estate he managed himself, and managed well, though before he went "out"
misfortunes fell on him which no management could have averted. They
were misfortunes so crushing, and following so immediately on each
other's heels, that amongst the simple country folk they were looked on,
and spoken of, with awe, as manifestly judgments from Heaven for some
fancied sin they supposed him to have committed. He might, people said,
have prevented, but did not prevent, a duel which took place in the
streets of Newcastle, in which a very popular young man was killed. It
was "murder," and no fair fight, folk said; and, whatever the rights of
the case, at least the successful duellist was afterwards hanged for the
murder. Hall's failure to interfere seems to have strained his
popularity for a time. In such circumstances people are prone to assume
that an all-wise Providence, necessarily seeing eye to eye with them,
inflicts some special punishment on the person who has sinned some
special sin, or who has, at all events, done (or not done) something
which, in the popular judgment, he should not have done (or done, as the
case may be). Misfortune or accident comes to some one who has roused
popular clamour. "I told you so," cries the public; "a judgment!"
In this instance, the sin of not interfering to prevent a duel--or a
murder, as popular opinion called it--was punished, firstly, by Hall's
house at Otterburn being burned to the ground, together with all his
farm buildings and great part of his farm stock; and, secondly, this
grievous loss was followed in the time of harvest by a devastating flood
in the Rede, which swept away from the rich, low-lying haughs every
particle of the fat crops which already had been cut, and were now
merely waiting to be carried home.
By such drastic means having apparently been purged of his sin, Mr. Hall
seems to have regained his normal popularity, and an incident which
presently occurred raised it to an even greater height than before. As
far back at least as the time of Cromwell it had been customary to send
offenders against the law, political prisoners and the like who were not
judged quite worthy of the gallows or the block, to what in Charles the
Second's day were called His Majesty's Plantations--our colonies, that
is, in America or the West Indies. Not only were "incorrigible rogues,
vagabonds, and sturdy beggars" thus dealt with, but those also who
attended illegal prayer-meetings found themselves in the same box if
they happened to have been previously convicted of this heinous offence;
and the moss-troopers of Northumberland and Cumberland were treated in
similar fashion when taken--deported from their own heathery hills and
grey, weeping skies, to the hot swamps and savannahs of Jamaica or
Virginia. In the beginning, those sentenced were merely compelled, under
penalty of what Weir of Hermiston called being "weel haangit," to remove
themselves to the Plantations. Later, a custom sprang up under which
criminals of all sorts were delivered over by the authorities to the
tender mercies of contractors, who engaged to land them in the West
Indies or America, it being one of the conditions of the contract that
the services of the prisoner were the property of the contractor for a
given number of years. On landing, these wretched prisoners were put up
to auction and sold to the highest bidder--in other words, they were
slaves. Many men made large sums of money in this inhuman trade,
trafficking in the lives of their fellow-countrymen. The thing at last
reached such a pitch that practically no able-bodied man was safe from
the danger of being kidnapped, sold to some dealer, and shipped off to
slavery in the Plantations. That was the fate of many a young man who
mysteriously disappeared from the ken of his friends in those
seventeenth- and eighteenth-century days. Once shipped to the
Plantations, the chance was small of a man ever returning to his native
land. Fever, brought on by exposure to the hot sun and heavy rain of a
tropical or semi-tropical climate, took care of that; in the West
Indies, at least, they died like flies. Not many had the luck, or the
constitution, of one Henry Morgan, who, kidnapped in Bristol when a boy
and sold as a slave in Barbadoes, lived to be one of the most famous--or
rather notorious--buccaneers of all time, and died a knight,
Lieutenant-Governor of Jamaica, and commander of our forces in that
island.
It was "Mad Jack Hall's" fortune to save from this fate of being
kidnapped and sent to rot in fever-laden swamps of the West Indies a
young Northumbrian at that time in his service. It was the time of year
when Stagshaw Bank Fair was held, and Mr. Hall, meaning to attend the
fair, had instructed this young man to join him there at a certain hour,
and himself had ridden over to Corbridge, there to pass the night. In
the morning, when Jack Hall reached the fair at the appointed hour, he
was astonished to find his servant, very dejected in appearance, being
led away in charge of a man on horseback. Hall questioned the lad, who
brightened up vastly at sight of his master, but could give no
explanation as to the cause of this interference. All he knew was that
as he stood waiting for Mr. Hall, this man had ridden up, claimed him as
a prisoner, and was now marching him off. Hall looked at the mounted
man, and recognised him as one of a family named Widdrington, who
claimed to be invested by the Government of Queen Anne with authority to
arrest from time to time sundry persons who, so far as the general
public knew, were guilty of no crime, but who nevertheless were in the
end sent to the dreaded Plantations. These Widdringtons were greatly
feared throughout the countryside, but as they had always selected their
victims from amongst people who had few friends, and who were little
likely to have the means of making any great outcry, no person of
influence had yet been moved to take the matter up, or to make
troublesome inquiries.
Hall, however, was not the man to let his servant be taken without
protest, even if this Widdrington really had the authority he claimed to
possess. But to all Hall's remonstrances Widdrington merely replied
haughtily that he was accountable to no one, save only to her most
gracious Majesty the Queen; that he was there in the execution of his
duty, and that anyone interfering with him did so at his own peril. The
situation was awkward. On the one hand, if this man really was acting
within his rights and in the execution of his duty, then Hall himself
was likely to get into serious trouble; on the other, he was not going
to see a young man, his own servant, a man, so far as he knew, innocent
of all offence against the law, marched off in this way, if by any means
he might be saved. As mere remonstrances appeared to be of no avail,
Hall hotly pressed his horse close up to Widdrington's, completely
barring his way, and demanded that, if he were really acting within the
law, he should show his authority.
"_This_ is my authority," cried Widdrington, drawing his sword.
"We'll soon prove whether that's strong enough," replied Hall, jumping
from his horse and also drawing his weapon. There was, as it chanced,
close to the lane in which the two had been wrangling, a bit of nice
level ground covered with short, crisp turf, and to this Hall quickly
made his way, followed by Widdrington and by a crowd of people who had
run up from the fair, attracted by the quarrel. A very few minutes
sufficed to prove that Widdrington's "authority" was _not_ strong
enough. He fought well enough for a time, it is true, and his opponent
had need of all the skill he could command, but within five minutes Hall
had caught Widdrington's point in the big basket hilt of his sword, and
with a sudden jerk had sent the weapon flying, leaving the disarmed man
entirely at his mercy. That was enough to satisfy Hall, who was too much
of a man to push his advantage further. But it by no means satisfied the
surrounding crowd of country people. By them these Widdringtons had long
been feared and detested, and only the belief in the minds of those
simple country folk that, in some mysterious way beyond their ken, the
law was on the side of their oppressors, had on more than one occasion
prevented an outbreak of popular fury. Here, now, was one of the hated
brood, proven to be in the wrong, and with no authority to arrest beyond
that bestowed by bluster and brute force. The air grew thick with groans
and savage threats, and a clod flung by a boy gave the mob a lead. In an
instant sticks and stones began to fly. Widdrington was unable to reach
his sword or to get to his horse; there was nothing for it but to take
to his heels, pursued by a crowd thirsting for his blood. That was the
last of the oppression of the Widdringtons; their horrible traffic in
human beings was ended, and none of them ever again dared show their
faces in that part of the country.
As for Hall, henceforward an angel of light could not have been more
highly regarded, and his fate, a very few years later, brought grief on
the county almost as universal as that felt for the Earl of Derwentwater
himself.
Hall was at Preston with Derwentwater, but he did not, like Frank
Stokoe, ride for it when Forster surrendered. One would almost have
expected a man of his fiery, reckless disposition to have made a dash
for it, and to fight his way through or fall in the attempt. Perhaps he
considered it a point of honour to stick by his friends, and share their
fate, whatever it might be. Anyhow, he surrendered with the rest, and
with the rest was condemned to death. Time after time he was reprieved,
owing to the exertions of friends who happened to be high in favour
with the Hanoverian King's Government, but time after time he was
recommitted, and finally Tyburn saw the last of poor "Mad Jack Hall."
They hanged him on the 13th of July 1716.
SEWINGSHIELDS CASTLE, AND THE SUNKEN TREASURE OF BROOMLEE LOUGH