There is a pretty flavour of romance—compact, it is true, of the most unpromising materials, like the voluptuous scents which modern science extracts from coal-tar—still clinging to Sandhill. Just where a group of curious old houses, very old, very tall, and nearly all windows, remains, the explorer will perceive a memorial tablet let into one of the frontages, setting forth that “From one of the windows of this house, now marked with a blue pane of glass, Bessie Surtees eloped with John Scott, afterwards Lord Chancellor Eldon, November 18th, 1772.” John Scott was twenty-one years of age at the time, and was at home on vacation from Oxford. His father, a successful coal-fitter, had sent him, as he had already done his elder brother, William, afterwards Lord Stowell, to the University. He had already gained a fellowship there, which he forfeited on his elopement with, and marriage to, his Bessie. She descended from her casement by the aid of a ladder hidden by an accomplice in the shop below, and they were over the Border and wedded by the blacksmith at Blackshields before any one could pursue. Bessie’s relatives were bitterly opposed to the match, and so, nearly without resources, the pair had to resort to London and live frugally in Cursitor Street while he studied hard at law, instead of, as originally intended, for the Church. His first year’s earnings scarce amounted to enough to live on. “Many a time,” said he in after years, “have I run down from Cursitor Street to Fleet Market, to buy sixpennyworth of sprats for our supper.” The turning-point in his career occurred in a case in which he insisted on a legal point against the wishes of his clients. The case was decided against him, but was reversed on appeal on the point he had contested. From that time continued success awaited him, and he eventually became Lord Chancellor. The clashing Romeo of an earlier day became, however, a very different person in after years. Much poring over parchments and long-continued professional strife took all the generous enthusiasm out of him, and by ways not the most scrupulous he amassed one of the greatest fortunes ever scraped together by a successful lawyer. Bessie, meanwhile, had become quite as much of a handful as she had been an armful. Romance wanes. As Conservators of the Tyne, the Corporation of Newcastle have, for the last four centuries, proclaimed their authority by once in every five years going in procession on the river, in various craft. It was on these occasions the acknowledged custom that, on returning and landing, the Mayor should choose the prettiest girl in the crowds of spectators and publicly salute her with a civic kiss. In acknowledgment of this favour his Worship presented her with a new sovereign. But the procession of “Barge Day,” as it was called, was discontinued after May 16th, 1901, and is not likely to be revived.