ld serve equally
well.

The Charltons, Robsons (possibly the lineal descendants of "Hroethbert"
of the ancient cross) and Armstrongs, held almost undisputed sway over
this region, and the district teems with reminders of their prowess and
traditions of their exploits. The men of Tynedale (the North Tyne) and
Redesdale were known as the fiercest and most lawless in all that wild
district. Redesdale is a district of monotonous, almost dreary,
moorlands, and wild, bare fells, where sheep graze on what scanty
provender the bleak hills afford, finding better fare, however, in the
valleys near the river banks, where the pasture is fresh and green.

Bellingham is to-day the most considerable village of the neighbourhood;
it stands conveniently at the foot of the hills where the little Belling
Burn, or Hareshaw Burn, joins the main stream. In Hareshaw woods is the
beautiful Hareshaw Linn, where the stream falls down through a break in
the sandstone cliffs, and forms a picturesque waterfall, fringed with
ferns and trees and cool mosses. It well repays one for the walk of a
mile or so through tangled underwoods by the side of the burn.
Bellingham gives its mime to the family of de Bellingham, whose chief
seat, however, is now in Ireland and no longer in the little
north-country town.

The massive church here, with its roof of stone, bears eloquent
testimony to the need for fireproof buildings in a village so near to
Scotland in the days of Border warfare. Outside the churchyard wall is
the well of St. Cuthbert, or "Cuddy's Well," which was greatly venerated
in early days, and many stories are told of the miraculous power of its
waters. Inside the churchyard a grave is pointed out as the burial place
of the robber whose tragic end was told by James Hogg in his gruesome
story of "The Long Pack."

The village itself is plain and bare, as might be expected from a
settlement which would probably find that unattractiveness in either
wealth or appearance was a tolerable safeguard.

Below Bellingham the North Tyne is joined by its longest and most noted
tributary, the Rede Water, which also rises in the Cheviots. Rising in
the hills north of Carter Fell, it flows south-east, through a wild
region, passing, while still high up amongst the hills, the little
village of Byrness, and the new reservoir at Catcleugh, where a supply
of pure water is stored for the use of the dwellers in distant
Newcastle. On its way to the Tyne, it passes