of our remote ancestors.  Excavations here many years ago brought to light a jasper ball, some fragments of a coarse kind of pottery, and some oaken armlets.  Evidently the enclosure on the summit was intended to be a last resort in time of danger, for traces of many huts are to be found outside its encircling wall, which is surrounded by a ditch and a low rampart of earth.  At the east end, where the porphyry crag juts out from the hilltop to a height of about twenty feet, full advantage has been taken of this naturally strong position.

Now, instead of advancing foes, the spreading heather climbs steadily up the sloping sides of this ancient stronghold, and invades the central enclosure at its will; a few hardy sheep that have wandered up here from the richer pastures below, and now and again a stray tourist, anxious to make acquaintance at first hand with one of the more famous of the Cheviot heights, and more than satisfied with the glorious view spread out before him, are all that disturb the brooding peace of its grassy solitudes.  Up here the wind blows keenly around us with an exhilarating freshness in its breath, and we think regretfully of coats left behind at the shepherd’s hospitable dwelling, which, with the rest of the cottages clustering round the old farm house, lies sunning itself in the warm glow of the September afternoon, in the green fields at the foot of the sheltering hills.

Looking southward now, up the stream, there is stretching away to the left the long ridge of Newton Tor, and away behind it Great Hetha and Little Hetha; while half-way down the vale the Colledge Water tumbles over the rocks at Hethpoole Linn (or Heathpool, as the modern rendering has it), breaking into amber spray deep down beneath overhanging trees and boulders and golden bracken.

This brings our thoughts to days comparatively modern, for when Admiral Collingwood was raised to the peerage of Great Britain, it was by the title of “Baron Collingwood of Caldburn and Hethpoole, in the county of Northumberland.”  The brave Admiral was fond of planting an oak tree whenever he found an opportunity, to secure the continuance of those wooden walls which in his hands, and in those of his life-long friend, Nelson, had proved such a sure defence to his country.  In a letter dated March, 1806, he wrote to his wife, “I wish some parts of Hethpoole could be selected for plantations of larch, oak, and beech, where the ground could best be spared.  Even the sides of a bleak hill would grow larch and fir.”  In another letter some months later he told her what “agreeable news” it was to hear that she was taking care of his oaks, and planting some at Hethpoole; and saying that if he ever returned he would plant a good deal there; adding, however, that he feared before that could take place both he and Lady Collingwood might themselves be planted in the churchyard beneath some old yew tree.