now. The people comes so fast here, there’s nowheres to put ’em: vy, them vite spots on the hill you see yonder is hevery one of ’em hemigrunts’ tents.”
Shortly after we were in the midst of vessels unloading at the wharf. Men were rushing about with heavy loads on their backs; piles of timber and building materials, packing-cases of all shapes and sizes, casks, hides, and skins of bullocks and sheep were to be seen wherever one looked.
Immediately our boat neared the shore a gentleman sprang into it off the platform of the wharf.
“Is Mrs. on board here,” said he, “from the Mh, just arrived?”
I told him she had not yet left the ship, and then I asked him my way to Queen Street.
“Wait a moment in my office here,” said he, as he helped us to land, “and one of my clerks will go with you and show you where it is.”
I never shall forget that walk.
Horses being unmercifully lashed by their riders were galloping about in every direction; ferocious looking men, uttering horrible imprecations, were striking poor, patient, torture-enduring bullocks over their heads and noses with the handles of their heavy whips, whilst the poor brutes were pulling with all their strength great drays laden high up with huge chests and packing-cases; dirty socks, old boots and shoes, bullocks’ ribs, sheep’s skulls, lay about in the roads and thoroughfares, as well as in the deep ditches, which served the purpose of gutters, at the sides of the roads, into which people seemed to throw everything they wished to get rid of. Clouds of dust full of minute insects rose high in the air, blinding us as we walked.
“This is a dust-storm,” said the gentleman with us; “but this is nothing to what we have sometimes: however, it soon passes away, and then we have beautiful weather again.”
We now ascended a flight of wooden steps outside a merchant’s counting-house, and soon we were welcomed to Australia most heartily by some old friends I had not seen for years.
MEG OF MELDON.
In the almost ruined mansion of Seaton Delaval, situated on the sea-coast a few miles north of Newcastle-on-Tyne, there was to be seen, a few years ago, the portrait of a female, which, from the singular dress displayed in it, and the remarkable countenance of the woman represented, was sure to attract the notice of every observant visitor.
The person who was thus portrayed was the Lady Margaret Fenwick; but if you had asked the old keeper of the Hall for any information respecting her, you would only have learnt that “that was Meg o’ Meldon, sure enough,” for by no other name is this somewhat extraordinary woman known to the rural inhabitants of Northumberland.
There is hardly any portion of England so rich in legendary and historical lore as the Border country, and not a few of the ghostly traditions which you may hear round the blazing fire of a Northumbrian pit-man, have Meg of Meldon for their heroine. A few particulars respecting her may not, therefore, be uninteresting to the general reader, as well as to the student of folklore; though, indeed, the strict accuracy of all that we may say about her we are by no means prepared to attest.
To begin with some truth, however, let us here state that Meg was the daughter of one of the principal inhabitants of Newcastle-on-Tyne, and the wife of Sir William Fenwick, of Wallington. Her husband died early, and she was left with an only child—a son. Her attachment for her offspring, however, is the only good which tradition can tell of her. In every other respect she bore a terrible character. She resided principally at Hartington Hall, not far from Morpeth, and there she used to live from year to year, scraping together wealth of every description, and seldom being troubled in business affairs with any samples of conscience. She lived in the most wretched style, denying herself and the one or two lean servants whom she kept everything but the merest necessaries of life. She had, too, a propensity which by no means added to her popularity, for appropriating the smallest savings of the most miserable husbandmen who came within her reach, as well as the more tempting gains of her higher-class tenants. As she grew older, she became worse and worse. She turned off all her servants save one, and she took to living solely on such vegetables as her own extensive gardens provided. But though thus all but starving herself, she continued to live to a great age; at last her oppressed dependents came to the conclusion that she had formed a solemn covenant with Satan, who had agreed to allow her to live as long as nature would permit, and to accumulate wealth rapidly during the whole of her lifetime, on the condition which is generally inserted into the bonds of his Satanic majesty. And so the old woman lived on, and grew richer and richer, until she absolutely rolled in wealth. But all her ill"gotten gains brought her little peace of mind: she was ever haunted by the fear of being robbed; and the terrified inhabitants of the country round Hartington used often to remark her wandering by night as well as by day round certain spots in the neighbourhood of Meldon, which in after years they did not fail to recal to mind.
At last, however, she died, and had as grand a funeral as could have been wished for. She has survived her son, so the estate descended to a distant relative, who very quickly made Meg’s money go in ways the mere thought of which would have been sufficient in her early days to cut off that excellent woman prematurely. But she had scarcely been in her grave a month when rumours began to circulate among the country people as to her having been compelled to leave it by the master she had served so well whilst on earth. She had been condemned, it was said, to “walk” and to sleep alternately for seven years at a time, until certain bags of money, which report said she had secreted about her estate, were found and appropriated. Numerous were the tales which now began to circulate respecting her super-