their hiding-place, so that the Scots, returning, fell upon the black canons of Brinkburn while they were assembled to offer up prayers of gratitude for their deliverance from danger. This priory of Brinkburn was founded in the reign of Henry I. by a certain Sir William de Bertram, Baron of Mitford, by Morpeth, who endowed it liberally from his extensive lands. Its monks were of the order of St. Augustine. Of their history little is known, but it must have been troublous enough, and there is reason to think that they were more than once under the necessity of flight. Having resolved to build a church, the Lord of Mitford determined that it should be such a one as would do honour to his name. The present extensive remains still speak eloquently of the original beauty of the edifice. Of the church, partially restored in 1858 by the present owners of the estate, the Cadogan family, it has been remarked that, "the richest Norman work is here inextricably blended with the purest Early English, and the fabric must be regarded as one of the most fascinating specimens of the transition from one to the other that there is in the country." Out of the ruins of the monastery, and above the cellars in which the monks may have hidden themselves in times of trouble, the present manor house of Brinkburn has been built. It stands not far from the banks of the Coquet, which are here somewhat narrow and steep, with rocky projections, and with no route for the angler except in the bed of the stream, or amid an almost impenetrable confusion of shrubs and brambles and trees. At one point the piers of a Roman bridge may be discerned when the water is low; there is a quaint old watermill by the side of the stream; at a spot but a short distance away, it is averred by a pleasant tradition, the Northumbrian fairies were buried, and there they sleep, like King Arthur under the castle of Sewingshields, until faith shall return to the earth. The most widely known of all the villages below Rothbury is Weldon Bridge, at which one arrives when the Coquet has left Brinkburn Woods. It is the main resort of those anglers who love quiet fishing, and are not adventurous enough to make their way into the hills. Much has it been besung by the poets of the craft. "At Weldon Bridge," says one-- "... there's wale o' wine, If ye hae coin in pocket; If ye can throw a heckle fine, There's wale o' trout in Coquet."