, who built across those hills that long line of
wall, which stands yet in parts solid and strong, for centuries the
countryside was lawless and unruly, the inhabitants "ill to tame," and
every man a freebooter. The Thirlwalls, the Ridleys, the Howards of
Naworth, the wild men of Bewcastle; the Armstrongs, Elliots, Scotts, and
others across the Border, they were all of them--they and their
forebears to the earliest times--of the stuff that prefers action,
however stormy, to inglorious peace and quiet, and the man who "kept up
his end" in their neighbourhood could be no weakling.

Whether the Blenkinsopps were strong enough permanently to hold their
property intact among such neighbours one does not know, but at any
rate, in 1488 John de Blenkinsopp and his son Gerrard committed the
castle to the custody of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, Warden of
the East and Middle Marches. Percy's care of the building, however, does
not seem to have been particularly zealous, or else "the false Scottes"
had again, as was their wont, proved themselves to be unpleasant
neighbours, for in 1542 the place is described as "decayed in the Roof,
and not in good reparation."

Before this date, however, there had been at least one of the
Blenkinsopp family on whose reputation for daring and strength no man
might cast doubt. Far and wide, Bryan de Blenkinsopp was known for his
deeds in war; he was counted gallant and brave even amongst the bravest
and most gallant, and his place in battle was ever where blows fell
thickest. But it is said that he had one failing, which eventually
wrecked his life--he was grasping as any Shylock. Love of money was his
undoing.

In spite of many chances to do so, in spite of the admiration in which
he was universally held, Bryan de Blenkinsopp had never married. He was
greatly admired, and yet, for a certain roughness and brutality in him,
greatly feared, by many women, and he had been heard many a time
scoffingly to say that only would he bring home a wife when he had found
a woman possessed of gold sufficient to fill a chest so large that ten
of his men might not be able to carry it into his castle. Brides of this
calibre did not then grow in profusion on either side of the Border, and
had he continued to live uninterruptedly in his own country, no doubt
Bryan de Blenkinsopp might have remained to the end unmarried. But:
"When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till
I was marri