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It was just half-past nine by the town clocks when I rode out across the old Border Bridge and turned up the first climb of the road that runs alongside the railway in the direction of Tillmouth Park, which was, of course, my first objective.
Tillmouth Chapel, with these points of resemblance, lies, however, in exactly the opposite direction as regards Melrose, which the supposed cell of St. Roland Graeme, secretly nursed in the tenets of Rome, saw with horror the profanation of the most sacred emblem, according to his creed, of our holy religion.
The Till, by whose side we shall next wander, flows in the opposite direction, for that historic stream is a tributary of "Tweed's fair river, broad and deep," and curves from the Cheviots round to the North-west, where it enters the larger stream at Tillmouth. It begins life as the Breamish, tumbling down the slopes of Cushat Law within sight of all the giants of the Cheviot range.
Saint Cuthbert, a person of established sanctity, had, no doubt, several places of worship on the Borders, where he flourished whilst living; but Tillmouth Chapel is the only one which bears some resemblance to the hermitage described in the text. It has, indeed, a well, famous for gratifying three wishes for every worshipper who shall quaff the fountain with sufficient belief in its efficacy.
After I had left him, Crone had gone away up the river towards Tillmouth he had a crazy old bicycle that he rode about on. And most people, having heard Nance Maguire's admissions, would have said that he had gone poaching. But I was not so sure of that. I was beginning to suspect that Crone had played some game with me, and had not told me anything like the truth during our conversation.
Three or four miles from Tillmouth, south-westward up the valley of the Tweed, and just beyond Cornhill, lies the village of Wark, near which the remains of the famous Border castle are still standing. The castle was built on a stony ridge of detritus called the Kaim, which stretches from Wark village towards Carham.
The mansion house of Tillmouth Park, owned by Sir Francis Blake, is built of stones from the ruins of Twizell Castle, on the northern bank of the Till; the castle was begun by a former Sir Francis Blake but never finished. Between the two buildings the Berwick Road crosses the Till by Twizell Bridge, over which Surrey marched his men southward on the morning of Flodden.
From Carham, having reached the last point of interest on the Tweed within the Northumbrian border, we must retrace our steps to Tillmouth, and follow the Tweed through pasture land and level haughs, until we come in sight of the steep cliffs and overhanging woods by Norham Castle. Naturally here, the words of the opening canto of "Marmion" are recalled to our memory
Tillmouth, however, has older memories still; for it was to the little chapel there that St. Cuthbert's body floated in its stone coffin from Melrose, dating the course of its seven years' wandering, ere it found a final rest at Durham.
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