The Statesmen have gone--economic changes vanquished them--but the houses they inherited from the men who bore pike and bow at Bannockburn and Flodden are for the most part standing yet.

They have made no great mark in history, but their stout walls have time and again been engirdled by Scottish spears, and after such occasions there was not infrequently lamentation by Esk and Liddell.
It was clear that Scarthwaite Hall had been built in those days of foray, for one little, ruined, half-round tower rose from the brink of a ravine whose sides the hardiest of moss-troopers could scarcely have climbed.

A partly filled-in moat led past the other, and in between stretched the curtain wall which now formed the facade of the house itself.

Its arrow slits had been enlarged subsequently into narrow, stone-ribbed windows, and a new entrance made, while the ancient courtyard was girt with decrepit stables and barns.

Most of the deep, winding dale still belonged to it, but the last Weston had signally failed to make a living out of it, or to meet his debts.