I pushed on up the hill towards Walbottle (A.S. _botel_, an abode; the abode on the Wall), with the Wall-ditch running alongside. At the top there is a beautiful view across the valley of the Tyne. The painter Martin, a native of Haydon Bridge, is said to have made it the basis of his picture, "The Plains of Heaven." Walbottle is now an unattractive colliery village, whatever it may have been in Saxon times. There were many colliers about, for the strike was on, and I saw women and children searching in the rubbish at the pit-heads for scraps of coal. At the Engine Inn at Walbottle I was able to get a bottle of lemonade, and was also plentifully supplied with soap and water in the back-kitchen by the kindly landlady. So I went on my way much refreshed. {50} Soon I came to Walbottle Dene House, a farm-house on the right, in the front garden of which are the splendid remains of the northern gateway of a mile-castle, the first mile-castle to be seen uncovered. The course of the road was altered here to avoid injury to this mile-castle after it had been excavated. The huge stones can be easily seen by looking over the low garden wall. Wall-stones appear in the hedge on the right a little farther on; and then comes Walbottle Dene, a steep little ravine, with paths traversing its tree-covered sides, green with ferns and fresh spring foliage, and the Newburn flowing through at the bottom. In the mining village of Throckley, I saw crowds collected for a funeral. The miners on strike were sitting in rows on the path opposite the house, dressed in their Sunday clothes, to do honour to their neighbour. A late-comer overtook me, and said as he passed: "A hot day." I said: "Yes; I am glad it is fine for your holiday." From that we came to the question of the strike (as I had intended), and the respective claims of the owners and the miners. He told me he had been in every trade you can name, and coal-mining was the worst. I said: "Then why are you in it now?" and he replied: "Because of the pay." He then described to me the unhealthiness and the dangers of a miner's life, and to emphasize it he said: "You {51} should compare what these men are now with what they looked like six weeks ago; why, they are not the same men!" He drew such a vivid picture of the hardships, that I said, in all good faith: "Oh, if only a substitute could be found for coal!" But there I found he did not agree with me at all, any more than the owners would have done.