North Tyne at Redesmouth, a little below the
pleasant market-town of Bellingham. The chief towns are Berwick and
Alnwick, Hexham being outside our present delimitation. Many of the
smaller places, and the villages, are models of their kind. Wooler, at
the base of the Cheviots, is a choice mountaineering and angling centre,
from which, by way of Langleeford, is the favourite route to Cheviot
top. It was at the Whitsun Tryst or Wooler sheep fair, that Scott's
grandfather spent his old shepherd's thirty pounds in buying a horse
instead of sheep, but with such happy results in the sequel. And hither
came Scott himself in August, 1791, to imbue his mind with the legends,
the history, and scenery of the neighbourhood. "Behold a letter from the
mountains," he writes to his friend William Clerk, "for I am very snugly
settled here, in a farmer's house (at Langleeford), about six miles from
Wooler, in the very centre of the Cheviot hills, in one of the wildest
and most romantic situations, which your imagination, fertile upon the
subject of cottages, ever suggested. 'And what the deuce are you about
there?' methinks I hear you say. Why, sir, of all things in the world,
drinking goat's whey; not that I stand in the least need of it, but my
uncle having a slight cold, and being a little tired of home, asked me
last Sunday evening if I would like to go with him to Wooler; and I,
answering in the affirmative, next morning's sun beheld us on our
journey through a pass in the Cheviots, upon the backs of two special
nags, and man Thomas behind with a portmanteau, and two fishing-rods
fastened across his back, much in the style of St. Andrew's cross. Upon
reaching Wooler we found the accommodation so bad that we were forced to
use some interest to get lodgings here, where we are most delightfully
appointed, indeed. To add to my satisfaction we are amidst places
renowned by feats of former days; each hill is crowned with a tower, or
camp, or cairn; and in no situation can you be near more fields of
battle--Flodden, Otterburn, and Chevy Chase. Ford Castle, Chillingham
Castle, Coupland Castle and many another scene of blood are within the
compass of a forenoon's ride. Out of the brooks with which the hills are
intersected, we pull trouts of half a yard in length, as fast as we did
the perches from the pond at Pennicuik, and we are in the very country
of muirfowl.... My uncle drinks the whey here, as I do ever since I
understood it was brough