The river dwindled to a narrow stream.

The hills that walled it in on either side grew higher and balder, and the clouds lay cold and dank upon their bleak and sullen brows.

The hamlets edged in here and there grew thinner, smaller and shabbier.

The road was barred and gated about once in a mile, to keep cattle and sheep from wandering; there being no fences nor hedges running parallel with it.

In a word, the premonitory symptoms of a bare border-land thickened at every turn.
Another day brought me into the midst of a wild region, which might be called No-man's-land; although most of it belongs to the Duke of Northumberland.