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MEETING AT NEWCASTLE - EDUCATION IN AGRI-
CULTURAL DISTRICTS-PUBLIC TESTIMONIAL-LOSS
OF FORTUNE, AND OF FRIENDS

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CANADIAN CORRESPONDENCE-LETTERS TO HIS DAUGH-
TERS-DEATH OF HIS WIFE-HIS SORROW-FAMILY

CORRESPONDENCE-RETIREMENT FROM HIS OFFICE

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MEMOIR OF JOHN GREY.

IT

CHAPTER I.

"Still linger in our northern clime
Some remnants of the good old time:
And still, within our valleys here,

We hold the kindred title dear,

Even when perchance its far-fetched claim
To southern ear sounds empty name."

T seems to me that any life of my father must include, to some extent, a history of the county in which he was born, lived, and died. He loved the place of his birthsweet Glendale. His affections were largely drawn out to that Border country: not only to the living beings who peopled it, but to the scenes themselves-the hills, the valleys, and the rivers. All through his life there will be found evidence of the heart-yearnings towards them; and, these are shared by his children, to whom there seems no spot on earth like Glendale. This attachment to our native country is perhaps stronger among us than among some families, because for so many generations back we were rooted there. Greys abounded on the Borders; they were

B

keepers often of the Border castles and towers, living a life not always very peaceful in regard to their Scottish neighbours.

Glendale is rich in romantic associations; every name in and around it brings to the mind some incident of war, or lover's adventure, or heroic exploit, recorded in English ballads, or sung to sweet Scottish tunes, or woven later into the poems of Sir Walter Scott.

Of Druidical and Roman vestiges there are not a few. The beautiful mountain stream, the Glen, from which Glendale takes its name, has a kind of sacred character, from the stories connected with it of St. Paulinus, who, according to the Venerable Bede, baptized in it several thousands of poor Britons. "Paulinus coming," he says, "to a place called Ad Gebrin, now Yeavring, abode there thirty-six days, during which time he did nothing from morning till night but instruct the multitudes who came to him in the saving word of Christ, and being instructed, he baptized them to the forgiveness of their sins in the river Glen, which is hard by." It is a very beautiful range of hills which skirts Glendale to the west; their very names, Yeavring Bell, Heathpool Bell, Newton Torr, Hetha, Hedgehope, and Cheviot, were delightful to my father's ear. Directly in front of our old home, Milfield Hill, lies the scene of innumerable fights between Scotch and English, Milfield Plain, and from its windows might have been seen the famous battle of Humbledon Hill.

Flodden Hill, about a mile north of Milfield Hill, hides beneath its soil traces of the great battle of 1513: broken pieces of armour of men and horses were sometimes dug or ploughed up, and brought to the house, to be treasured up as relics.

Many a time did my father recite to his children

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