Durham, Ancient Residence of the Earls of Westmoreland, River front 1844, Seal of the Convent of 277 67 351 ANY of the legendary tales with which we have presented our readers relate to events which have long since passed away, leaving no trace behind them, beyond the interest they may afford in the narration or perusal, and the insight they give us into the rude manners of a half civilised age. It is otherwise with the tale with which we commence our present volume. While we hope it will not fall far short of its predecessors in interest, it will at the same time be seen that the transaction which it commemorates has left real and substantial good fruits behind it. The parish of Long Benton, in the county of Northumberland, has only been fortunate enough to obtain one permanently endowed charity. The circumstances in which this benefaction originated are peculiar and worth recording. Early in the last century, Mr. Cuthbert Alder, a gentleman of some consideration, living in a very secluded residence on his own property,* at Low Weetslett, had about the festal season of Christmas, made his usual provision for good cheer, and the exercise of hospitality. Among the viands thus stored up was a goodly range of Goose Pyes. • An estate now belonging to the family of Mr. Ekins, the late rector of Morpeth. The year 1710 was remarkable for the occurrence of a somewhat serious disagreement between the keelmen of the Tyne and their employers, which ended in a steek of long continuance. The keelmen were reduced to considerable difficulties by their long abandonment of their occupation, and many were fain to procure sustenance by pilfering, at first, on a small scale, but at length by a series of depredations, increasing at once in number and enormity until they assumed an aggravated and violent character. A party of the least scrupulous of these marauders, whether concluding from the known hospitable character of Mr. Alder, that his house would yield at this season an ample booty, or guided (as from the sequel appears more probable) by the local knowledge of a confederate, selected the well-stored larder at Weetslett as an object of their plunder. The house as far as regarded numbers was not deficient in its garrison; for Mr. Alder with an equally wise regard to the conservation of the integuments of the outward man as for the well provisioning the inner, had retained the services of a party of tailors; and they were pursuing their operations in the way of making or mending by day, and there took up their quarters at night. But in this, as in many other cases, the strength of the defence consisted not in numerical force. On the first alarm of the burglars the knights of the shears took to flight. They to whom, in the successful exercise of their daily vocation, the goose is so useful an ally, had no stomach for a nocturnal skirmish in defence of goose pye. In fact the tailors sought refuge from danger some in one quarter, some in another, and one it is said did not disdain the warm aperture of the chimney flue as a refuge from the warmer work which already was going on within the invaded domicile. Thus abandoned by the masculine (but not manly) portion of his garrison, Alder still made good his defence, and was worthily seconded by the amazonian heroism of a female servant. Like another "Trulla" she hurried to the rescue, and thinking foul scorn A bold Virago, stout and tall, As Joan of France, or English Mall: Thro' perils both of wind and limb, Thro' thick and thin she followed him At breach of wall, or hedge surprise, HUDIBRAS. |