Feudalism and romance quickly disappear from the scene when Durham is left behind, and the Wear, now becoming navigable for small craft, is followed farther on its course to the sea. There is an air of mournful solitude about the fragmentary ruins of Beaurepaire, or Bear Park, the retreat of the Priors of Durham, and of seclusion at the Roman Catholic College at Ushaw, founded for the use of the French refugees from the Revolution, and even at Sherburn Hospital, Bishop Pudsey's great foundation for lepers, now converted to other charitable purposes. But the squalor of colliery rows intrudes upon the picturesque, and the clash of machinery puts to flight the old spirit of monastic calm. This eastern side of the county of Durham is a vast busy workshop--a Northern "Black Country;" and earth and air and water, and even the minds and thoughts of the inhabitants, seem to have an impregnation of coal-dust and engine-smoke. Finchale, three or four miles below Durham, is still, however, a lonely and retired spot; and a charming road through Kepyer Wood leads to the interesting ruins of the Priory erected by Bishop Pudsey's son, near the place where the good Saint Godric dwelt in hermitage. There are still some remains of the beautiful Decorative work to be seen through the screen of ivy; and the effect is deepened by the situation, on a promontory round which the river makes a bold sweep, and by the fine woods of Cocken that enclose and form a background to the buildings. [Illustration: MONKWEARMOUTH CHURCH.] Chester-le-Street and Lumley and Lambton Castles are the next places of note by the Wear. Something already we know about Chester, and how narrowly it escaped being the civil and ecclesiastical capital of the County Palatine, and the custodian of the bones of St. Cuthbert. Its business is now mainly with coal and ironstone; but it grumbles a little still over the golden chance it missed, and the baser minerals it has to put up with:-- "Durham lads hae gowd and silver, Chester lads hae nowt but brass."