The present mansion of Rokeby is modern, and occupies the site of a manor house which was burned down by the Scots after the battle of Bannockburn. The Rokebys were a powerful family in these parts up to the occurrence of the civil wars. It was a Rokeby who, according to Holinshed, defeated the insurrection of the Earl of Northumberland, in the time of Henry IV., and slew the earl. Scott gives the whole of the family pedigree in the notes to his poem, showing how the Rokebys were High Sheriffs of Yorkshire through many generations, as well as justiciaries, Secretaries of State, and members of Council. They were destroyed by their loyalty and the bad faith of the Stuarts, as was the case with so many other ancient families, and their estates, after passing through the hands of the Robinsons, have been in the possession of the Morritts through several generations. There is a remarkable peel tower, with singularly light and graceful battlements, broken into varying heights, on the ridge of a hill just beyond the junction of the Greta with the Tees. It is now surrounded by farm buildings, but is much visited on account of the spectre called the Dobie of Mortham, a murdered lady whose blood the eye of strong faith may still see on the steps of the tower. High above the Tees on the Durham side, when Mortham has been passed, may be seen the pretty village of Whorlton, the first red-tiled village that we have so far encountered on Tees-side. It is approached by an iron suspension bridge, which crosses the river at a point where its broad bed of solid rock is curiously broken into long uneven steps, giving it the appearance of having been quarried at some remote time, and making a series of falls that, instead of crossing the river, as ordinarily occurs, shelve along one side of it, and continue for long distances, turning the current in an almost indescribable way. [Illustration: GAINFORD.]