Here his dwelling-place, scooped out of the living rock, remains almost as perfect as when he left it. It can only be reached from the river by a long flight of steps. Over the entrance linger the traces of the original inscription, ‘_Sunt mihi lachrymæ meæ cibo interdiu et noctu_.’ The first cell is a miniature chapel, complete in all its details, with a raised altar at the east end; and on a recessed altar tomb beside it is the effigy of a woman, very delicately designed, but now broken and timeworn, lying with her head towards the east, and her arms slightly raised, showing that her hands have been folded in prayer. At her feet in a niche cut in the stone, the figure of the Hermit kneels in eternal penitence, his head resting on his hand. Beyond this, reached through a doorway, bearing on a shield the Crucifixion and the emblems of the Passion, is a still smaller oratory, used by the Hermit as a sleeping-place; with a similar altar at the farther end, and near it a narrow ledge hewn out of the rock for his couch. Neither by night nor by day did he ever lose sight of the beloved effigy in the adjoining chapel; for at the altar a window is contrived through which he could see it as he knelt at his devotions; and when lying on his bed, a niche cut slantwise through the partition wall still enabled him to rest his faithful eyes upon it. No one knows for how many sorrowful years he lived here in penance and contrition, nor when death came to his release. Such is the touching story of the Hermit of Warkworth, who was of our blood, as it is related in the “Battle Abbey Roll” which I have so often quoted. Bertram’s friend, Lord Percy, kept his memory green by paying for Masses to be sung in the Chapel, and the allowance for the purpose was continued until the Suppression of the Monasteries, and according to Hutchinson, “the patent is extant which was granted to the last hermit in 1532 by the Sixth Earl of Northumberland.” * * * * * So the elder branch of the Bertrams disappeared in 1311, and with them the name, for the Lords of Bothal speedily called themselves de Mitford, which from that time forth became the family patronymic. “Happy the minister who does not make history” is an old saying which may well be applied to families, for if in the centuries during which our people have been Lords of Mitford, though they produced no great soldier, no great statesman, no Raleigh, no Drake, no Frobisher, no Sir Thomas More, no King’s favourite, at any rate they kept their heads upon their shoulders. Political ambition was apt to be a very deadly disease, and they had it not. They were contented to live held in respect by their neighbours, to act as high sheriffs when called upon to do so, and sometimes to represent their county in Parliament.