Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-08-24

Hills fulhStB HlOHS lu6 WHO'S EURllsu
border. This is Bowness. 1t consists Of
one long comps etly built street, perched
up there above the wild Solway tidos like
an eagles nest securely hung upon some
crag- edge, out-jutting above a sea-swspt
precipice. What brave old houses have
these Bowness folk; every one as solid as
a castle. Like the Lochmabeu people
who transformed the mighty castle of
the Bruces' into matter-of-fact nabita-
tions aud impregnable cow-sheds, the
inhabitants of Bowness secuted the
further utility of ancient Roman walls.
and as the most stupendous one in Britain
ended here, it was in good time trans
formed into huge walled houses, with
here and there in their hard facades Il
weird old Roman altar, by way of
unconscious history and grim asser-
tive witness of primitive iconoclasm :.
These people of the Cumberland border
are fishermen and statesmen. - The
latter term applies, in the two northwest
counties of England, Westmorlnud and
Cumberland, to those who farm their
own land if it does not exceed half-acre
in area; and lands have descended for
centuries in the same families Some are
both statesmen and fishermen, and
all are descended from
A CENTURIES OLD LINE OF MEN
who could equally well turn their hands
TO the plough, to smuggling, TO the tem-
porary bloody trade of moss troopers, or
to the nets. And 1t was not so very
long ago that salmon were go plentiful
In the SolwRy that servants engaging to
masters on the English or Scottish side of
the Firth stipulated that "salmon or
other fish should not be given them
ofteuer than three days in the week. -
Strange, quiet, God-fearing souls these
Bowness folk, with giant frames and
wondrous height; with wide, fair brows,
great blue or hazel eyes and
leonine heads of haxen hair; anu
with dumb, sodden, speeches ways to
the end, which brings them at last from
behind the Roman affairs of their sturdy
home-walls to the drear old church-yard,
dug out of the fosse where once thI
mighty Roman defences stood. Tarrying
or going, one may well say of all
Bowness folks:
Here are the quaint old homes with the quaint
old hearts,
Where life to all is measured in three parts;
simple way: The birth, the toll, the rest!
But certain alertness of attention, an
unconscious habit and attitude of listen
ing as it were, true of every man, wo-
man and child on both sides of the Firth,
discloses that the tide is coming up from
the lrishIsea. These folk will tell you
they can hear it twenty miles away.
Long before this, If you are standing on
the cliff edge you will see the fishers,
waist deep in water, hurrying on the
tightening of their upright nets, which
for ten miles below seem like tiny fences
of rush; and away sea-ward with your
glass you can see them scurrylng up from
the ebb-slime and sands towards safety
and the shore. Then to your unprac-
ticed ears come the faint reverberations
of hoarse roar; and soon, like pillar
OF flame in the play OF the sunlight, the
great mist-banner of the advancing wa
tiers is flung from Scotland to Euglan1,
almost from Criffel to Siloth, and moves
toward you like lurid cloud above q
running battle. In few moments more
the brillianoy of the phenomenon is
greatest. Preceding the advancing cloud
along the seething front of q wall of wa
ter five miles wide, glitter, foams and
Kisses bank of spume and spray ,zoned,
trimmed aud interiaced with tiny rain
bows. The roaring of the believing wa
ter hosts becomes deafening. For an in
slant you are euveloped by the cloud.
That passed, while you thrill with the
mystery and awful grandeur OF the spec
tacle, the great tide head is abreast of
you, q true tide-bore, such as breaks
majestIcally into Minas and other estua-
ries of the bay of Fundy, cylindrical and
straight as an arrow across the Firth,
and from six to eight feet in height which
sweeps past with below aud shrek like
that of an hundred thousand coast fog
horns bowling in unison; while close in
its wake is the hillocky, tempestuous
mass of waves, brilliantly gorgeous in
fitfully swept prismatio colors; and the
Solway tide is in.
SOME ENGLISH TRAMPS
were singing for their break fasts before
the doors of che grave Scottish villagers
at Ecclefechan when l trsmped into the
hamlet behind them. There were five of
them, great, hulking fellows, and their
hoarse and aggressive believing was the
only sound indicative of human life in
the village, even at that late hour OF the
morning. They stood beside melodious
burn which dashed from under a covered
way and coursed on through the village
street. At one side of the stream was
an ancient wall. On the other
were struggling houses, and the
lifted up their narrowing voices
was one of the plainest and qnaintest in
Ecclefechan. From its appearance it
might have been an olden stable; an
abandoned lodge at the entrance to some
gentleman q establishment formerly To-
Gated behind it; or the ancient Jail OF the
village, now smartly whitewashed and
transformed into lowly habitation. 1t
was q mite of a thing with an archway
through it occupying third of the
lower sto-y. At each side WAS narrow
oaken door, and. nearer each end,
tiny window. In the second story an
other little window, above each lower
one, looked into the street; and over the
center of the archway were two still
more diminutivs windows, side by side.
1t was a double house of the dwarf va
riety, and the one at the north end,
where the strong lunged sorners sang,
was the birth place of Thomas Carlyle.
The believing had brought much
capped guidwives to various windows
and alley-entrances, at safe distances.
1 loitered near enough to hear them dis
cuss the matin-song of the tramps as
well as the house and its 70 mer occu-
pants.
ssThey medina fash (trouble) theirsels
tae sing there;'' croaked one old dame
with a peutle swavin1 of her head he