emolished,
entirely or in part, and restored again.

In the village of Ford, the walls of the schoolroom are decorated by a
series of pictures of the children of Scripture story, for whose
portrayal it is said the Marchioness of Waterford, the artist, took the
village children as models. The late Vicar of Ford, the Rev. Hastings
Neville, has laid all who are interested in the rural life of
Northumberland, and the quaint and traditional manners and customs of
the North-country which are so fast disappearing, under the greatest
obligation to him for his interesting and entirely delightful little
book, "A Corner in the North." Historical records, and matters of
business, ownerships, etc., connected with any special area can always
be turned up for reference when required; but the manner of speech, the
customs of daily life, the quaint survivals of former usages and
half-forgotten lore, being entirely dependent on individual memory and
oral tradition, only too often disappear before any adequate record can
be made. Hence it is a matter for congratulation that such a book should
have been written.

Etal, Ford's pretty neighbour, also boasts a castle, built only two
years after that of Ford and by the same masons. A considerable portion
of the ruins remains, but, unlike Ford Castle, it was never restored
after James the Fourth's drastic handling of it, but was left to decay.
Opposite Ford and Etal, on the left bank of the Till, is Pallinsburn
House, referred to in another chapter, and the village of Crookham; and
beyond the woods of Pallinsburn, Flodden ridge, with its memories of the
disastrous field on which James was slain.

The mansion house of Tillmouth Park, owned by Sir Francis Blake, is
built of stones from the ruins of Twizell Castle, on the northern bank
of the Till; the castle was begun by a former Sir Francis Blake but
never finished. Between the two buildings the Berwick Road crosses the
Till by Twizell Bridge, over which Surrey marched his men southward on
the morning of Flodden. Not far from this bridge, to the westward, is
St. Helen's Well, alluded to by Scott in his account of the battle, in
"Marmion"--

"Many a chief of birth and rank,
St. Helen, at thy fountain drank."

Sibyl's well, from which Lady Clare brought water to moisten the lips of
the dying Marmion, is beside the little church at Branxton. Tillmouth,
however, has older memories still; for it was to the little chapel there
that St. Cuth