Hall was at Preston with Derwentwater, but he did not, like Frank Stokoe, ride for it when Forster surrendered.  One would almost have expected a man of his fiery, reckless disposition to have made a dash for it, and to fight his way through or fall in the attempt.  Perhaps he considered it a point of honour to stick by his friends, and share their fate, whatever it might be.  Anyhow, he surrendered with the rest, and with the rest was condemned to death.  Time after time he was reprieved, owing to the exertions of friends who happened to be high in favour with the Hanoverian King’s Government, but time after time he was recommitted, and finally Tyburn saw the last of poor “Mad Jack Hall.”  They hanged him on the 13th of July 1716.

SEWINGSHIELDS CASTLE, AND THE SUNKEN TREASURE OF BROOMLEE LOUGH

The old castle of Sewingshields is one of which there are many legends.  If local tradition might be accepted as a guide, we should find that Arthur the King lived there once on a time.  But surely another Arthur than him of whom Tennyson sang.  One,

     “Not like that Arthur, who, with lance in rest,
     From spur to plume a star of tournament,
     Shot through the lists at Camelot, and charged
     Before the eyes of ladies and of kings,”

but a being even more mythical than that Arthur to whom, with his knights, legend assigns so many last resting-places—­in that vast hall beneath the triple peak of Eildon, here in a cavern below the rocks at Sewingshields, and in many a spot besides.  This Arthur of Sewingshields in his feats was indeed more akin to the old Norse gods and heroes.  And it is told that, as he talked with his Queen one day when they sat on those great rocks to the north of the castle, which still bear as names the King’s and the Queen’s Crag, Guinevere chanced to let fall a remark which angered Arthur; whereupon he, snatching up a rock that lay ready to his hand, hurled it at his royal consort.  Now, Guinevere at the moment was combing her long, fair locks; but she saw the stone come hurtling through the air, and, with remarkable presence of mind and dexterity, with her comb she fended off the missile, so that it fell between them, doing no harm.  And if anyone should presume to disbelieve this tale, there lies the rock to this day, and the marks of the teeth of the Queen’s comb are on it still for all to see.  The distance that the King hurled this missile is not above a quarter of a mile, and the pebble itself may weigh a trifle of twenty tons or so.

Local tradition tells also how once on a time there came to Sewingshields, to visit Arthur, a great chieftain from the wild north, one named Cumin.  And when Cumin departed from the castle to go back to his own land, he bore with him a certain gold cup that Arthur, in token of friendship, had given to him.  But sundry of the King’s retainers, having learned that the Scot was bearing away with him this cup, greatly desired that they might themselves possess it, and they pursued Cumin, and slew him ere he had gone many miles.  Wherefore Arthur caused a cross to be erected there on the spot where the slain man fell; and the place is called Cumming’s Cross to this day.