Hadrian's Wall

I found it better now to descend into the road, which runs on the left close by, keeping parallel to the Wall. It soon brought me into the village of Walton (Wall-town), a pretty village, with delightful views of the valley of the Irthing and of the Lake-mountains.

I followed the road past the Black Bull Inn, which stands on the exact site of the Wall; and then, to keep the trail, I had to turn off on the right, along a lane which led to a field-path to Sandysike farm-house.

Here, in the hedge on my left, were Wall-stones once more.

The farm-buildings at Sandysike are very ancient-looking and picturesque. There is a hexagonal cart-shed built of stone, with a tiled roof, and an old barn, of brick, with strikingly lofty round-headed arches; but I did not see the Roman sculptured stones of which it boasts.

The track of the Wall can be followed down to the edge of the Cam Beck, the ditch being our guide; but here for the first time I deliberately abandoned it! I could not cross the Cam Beck where the Wall had crossed it without getting very wet and dirty, and part of my compact with myself was to keep clean and dry, if possible. The river cuts its way at this point very deeply through the red sandstone. Sheer red banks stand out of the water. A very high weir across the stream would have made crossing easier, but a large tree-trunk had fallen over it, and blocked the way. Already grass and plants were growing out of its slippery black sides.

Reluctantly I turned back, and took the path to Castlesteads, the house of Mrs. Johnson, whose garden is on the site of a Roman fort. The path brought me through woodland and shrubbery to a house which proved to be the head gardener's. The barking of a dog produced the gardener, who took me to the lawn which represents the centre of the fort. A little summer-house at the edge of the lawn serves as protection to a number of Roman altars, and other sculptures, found within the fort.

They were all in the red sandstone of the neighbourhood, some covered with a bright greenish-yellow lichen. The largest altar was dedicated to Jupiter by the second cohort of the Tungrians.

The site of this fort lies between the Wall and the Vallum, which latter curves to the south to avoid it. This was proved by excavations made by Professor Haverfield and Mr. and Mrs. T. H. Hodgson in 1902. They traced accurately the position of the Vallum in this section of the fortifications for a distance of about 4 miles, from Garthside to the south of Cumrenton—a work needing endless patience. On one occasion many trenches had been dug and measurements taken, but Mr. Hodgson had not time to plot it all out till the end of the season. When he did so, all the points where the Vallum had been struck fell into one straight line!

The walls and gateways of this fort appear to have been standing until 1791, when the ground changed hands, and the house of Castlesteads was built. Then the standing masonry was removed, and the whole site levelled.

The gardener showed me the way from the back of the summer-house, through woods that sloped down to the Cam Beck, to a little bridge that crossed the stream and led me out of the grounds. And so I came to Cambeck Hill Farm, which lies on the line of the Wall.

But I was not satisfied till I had traced the Wall back eastward through the fields to the edge of the Cam Beck opposite the place where I had failed to cross. The view from this side is most striking, with the red sandstone walls, and the steep steps of the weir. I was very glad I had not missed it. A Roman altar from Castlesteads was built into this weir for a time, but some one put in a plea for it, and it was rescued.

The field gate which leads to the river is in the Wall-ditch, which at this point is cut deep out of the sandstone.

I tried to make the crossing from this side, but it was impossible. It made it no easier that the wet sandstone was soft, as well as slippery, and crumbled away under one's feet.

The next farm-house to Cambeck Hill is Beck, which is partly built of Roman stones. A wooden foot-bridge over a beck is crossed just before the farm is reached. Beyond Beck is Headswood, which stands high up on a grassy knoll. The Wall-ditch and the Vallum-ditch can be clearly seen from Beck, running up this grassy knoll, one to the right, and the other to the left, of the farm and farm-buildings of Headswood. Two or three minutes' walk and a short climb brought me into the farm-yard, where a part of the Wall-ditch is used as a duck-pond.

Just in front of the farm-buildings it has been filled up level with the ground, for the convenience of traffic.

A short distance beyond Headswood I found the Wall itself again with me.

The village of Newtown of Irthington soon came into sight. It has a village green with a large pond. Its white-washed cottages stand on three sides of this green, on which battalions of ducks and geese were pluming themselves.

For the short distance between Newtown and White Flat, the "pilgrim of the Wall" must leave the fields and follow the road towards Irthington. On the left of the road, traces of a mile-castle are visible.

Beyond White Flat the fields are ploughed, but the ditch could be faintly discerned. The path now ran through a meadow gay with wild flowers, but there was more food for the botanist than for the antiquarian. My thoughts were beginning to turn to another kind of food, for it was after five o'clock, and it seemed a long time since I was at Low Wall, though actually it was only three miles as the crow flies.

I saw a substantial farm-house on my right, so I turned off in hopes of getting at least some milk. My hopes were super-abundantly realized. The farmer and his wife were on the point of sitting down to tea themselves, having just driven back from Carlisle, and with true northern hospitality they invited me to share their meal. I shall not soon forget that visit, and the kindness shown to a pilgrim.

They showed me a centurial stone built into the wall of their house just above the door, and protected by the wooden porch. Beside it are two other Roman stones with very clear broaching. They told me they had shown them to only one other visitor since they came to live there eight years ago.

When I left, the farmer kindly insisted on coming with me as far as the Wall, to make sure I did not miss my way. He brought me to the "long strip of the Wall in an encouraging state" mentioned by Dr. Bruce. It is planted with oaks—quite large trees; and its ditch at this point is very impressive.

It is in this neighbourhood that the Wall and the Vallum approach each other within 35 yards.

At Old Wall, the next farm, many Roman stones are seen in the buildings, and there are great piles of them lying in the roadway, amongst them what looks like a lintel. The Wall-ditch is clearly seen between the road and the house.

It came on to rain as I approached Old Wall, but, hoping that it would not be much, I pushed on. I thought I could get to Wallhead and then strike down into the Carlisle Road.

A drove-road runs along the site of the Wall, a grassy lane with high hedges, so I could follow this; but before I reached Bleatarn the rain came down in such torrents that I was compelled to leave the Wall and get down into the main road as quickly as possible. So I turned south until I saw ahead of me the gleam of the rain on a macadamized surface. The rain was still streaming down, "like knitting-needles," as some one has said, and there seemed to be no one about. At High Crosby I inquired for an Inn, and was told there was one at Low Crosby. By this time I was so wet I should have been glad to get in anywhere, but the landlady of the Stag at Low Crosby was quite uncompromising. "We don't give beds," said she. I asked for supper. No, she could not give supper either. "Might I come in and write a letter?" "Ay, ye can do that." So I threaded my way amongst the men who were sitting round little tables, with their pipes and beer, in the only room of the Inn, conscious that I was leaving a wet trail in the sawdust on the floor; and I found a little table in a corner and wrote my letter. Then I called the landlady, and, giving her a shilling, I asked if she could have my letter delivered at a house in the neighbourhood early the next day. She took the shilling and held it up between her finger and thumb. "Do I deliver this with the letter?" said she.

"No; that's for yerself," came in a chorus from the men sitting round, who had been taking more interest than I knew!

Just then there was a little whispering between the landlady and a man who had just arrived. She came forward. "This gentleman says that he and his wife will be pleased to take you into Carlisle in their car, if you would like." Would I like? Could there be any doubt? I was still four miles from Carlisle, and it was now dark, and still pouring. So I accepted gladly, and was very soon set down in the city, at the door of a nice quiet Temperance Hotel, suitable for a pilgrim in my sodden state.

The next morning was clear and bright, and I made an early start for Old Wall, in order to follow the stretch of Wall I had missed because of the rain.

I will describe the walk from east to west as before, although I traversed it first from west to east.

As I drew near to Bleatarn from Old Wall, I noticed a tawny-brown duck-pond on the right. This was part of the Wall-ditch.

Bleatarn itself is picturesquely situated on a grassy hill, above a pond full of reeds (the "Blue Tarn"). The whitewashed farm-house is very attractive. I called there for "a pot o' milk," as the guidwife put it, and while she fetched it, I noticed through the open door that the passage running through the house was not ceiled, but went right up into the rafters, past two floors.

The Wall runs to the north of the farm-house and Tarn, so that it has the steep grassy bank of the Tarn on its south side, and its own ditch on the north. The latter is almost as bold in its proportions here as at Gap.

The Vallum runs immediately south of the farm-house; and between it and the Wall, on the west side of the farm-house, is a large mound. This has been proved, by excavations made by Professor Haverfield and Mr. and Mrs. Hodgson, to be rubbish from a quarry, worked in Roman times, and still in use in mediæval times. Roman quarrymen's marks were found; also mediæval pottery.

CHAPTER XVII

BLEATARN TO GRINSDALE

From Bleatarn the road runs on the Wall for some distance. The undulating pastures are exchanged for a marshy common, covered with gorse, brambles and heather, and known as "White Moss." Here the Vallum is seen to have four mounds instead of only two. The ground was too marshy to allow of the digging of a ditch, so they raised two extra mounds to make a hollow between, the ditch being the objective. At Bleatarn, where they get on to rock again, the four mounds slide into two.

A Roman road crosses White Moss, and digging has shown that it was made by laying grey clay on the original surface, then a layer of coarse gravel, and fine gravel on the top of that.

At Wallhead the ditch is very clearly seen in the pasture-land. The road on to Walby runs between hedges, and beyond it merges into a grassy track, so much overgrown that it is evidently seldom trodden. Near Wallhead it was muddy and full of puddles from last night's rain.

It had turned out a very hot day, though there was enough wind to make a thunderous sound in the boughs of the still leafless ash-trees. (Why do bare ash-boughs beat all other trees for sound?) As I picked my way among the puddles, a little red squirrel came running along, holding his tail out very straight to keep it out of the mud. I stood like a rock, and he paid no heed to me, but stopped to drink out of a puddle at my feet before running up a tree.

When I reached the untrodden grassy track, I took off my shoes and stockings and walked bare-footed, the grass feeling deliciously cool and soft. Broom in full blossom lined the hedges, almost meeting overhead, and scattered its blossoms to make a yellow carpet for my feet.

It was the drowsiest of days. An old buff hen, asleep by a gate, awoke with a start when a stick snapped under me, but she only opened one eye, and then "dropped off" again. I saw no one else but an Irish terrier, very happy and busy, and out without leave, judging by his expression.

At Walby the Wall-ditch is clearly marked, filled with greenish water.

The grassy lane continues to Wallfoot, and here I had to come out on to the main road, for Brunstock Park lies across the route of Wall and Vallum. A section through both was made in 1894 by Mr. and Mrs. T. H. Hodgson; and the Vallum-ditch was first shown to be flat and not V-shaped. A flag-pavement was found near the Wall. The Roman Military Way was also discovered, with a double kerb in the centre, as for a two-horse chariot.

I passed Draw-dykes Castle, with its three busts on the roof, a very gaunt and unattractive building of red sandstone; and then I turned off on the right, where the road crosses Brunstock Beck, and followed the beck until I struck the line of the Wall once more. The beck forms the western boundary of Brunstock Park.

Some small boys with a fishmonger's truck were collecting firewood in the meadow by the beck, and thought everybody's quest must be the same. "How many sticks have you got, missus?" they cried as I passed.

The wall was easily traceable across the fields, and led me out on to the Scaleby road, across the road into more fields, and so to Tarraby.

Here I turned off to the left, to find the Near Boot Inn, and get some tea. I had met with a small adventure near Tarraby, on my way out in the morning. I had my lunch of sandwiches and biscuits in my pockets, and I was standing by a field-gate, studying my Ordnance-map, when suddenly there sprang upon me, out of the air apparently, five greyhound pups. Pups though they were, their forepaws reached to my shoulders. They were all over me in a moment; and, my hands being encumbered with the map, in saving that I never gave a thought to my pockets. Their noses led them straight there, and before I realized what they were about they had divided my lunch between them, and were coming back for more! They loved me so dearly after that that I could not get rid of them for the distance of several fields.

In consequence of this I had had nothing since breakfast but the "pot o' milk" at Bleatarn, so I sought the Inn at Tarraby very hopefully.

But the landlady was not nearly so sure that she wanted to give me some tea as I was that I wanted to have it. She did not actually refuse, but she did all she could to discourage me. She seemed to think that if she was the Near Boot, then I was certainly the "off leg"! She had a bad headache, and she hadn't any cake, nor any cream, nor much of anything apparently.

However, I took "a deal o' discouraging," and I sat on in the parlour and waited, for she had said: "Well, anyhow, I must attend to these men first."

As I looked at the pictures on the parlour walls, an idea suddenly dawned on me.

Every picture represented a prize greyhound!

When the landlady returned, I remarked casually that I was very hungry because my lunch had been stolen by five greyhound pups, and of course I avoided showing the least tinge of resentment or annoyance (having felt none!) She did not say much, but I noticed a change in her manner, and when the tea did appear there were eggs and cake and pastry, to say nothing of cream, and home-made bread and butter and jam. And, to crown all, when I inquired for the headache, she said, "Do you know, it has gone!"

So I did full justice to her tea, while the men in the next room were telling each other what horses they had backed for the Derby, and how much they had lost.

Later, I learned that the landlord of the Near Boot was a noted breeder of greyhounds.

From Tarraby the path along the Wall leads through a wicket-gate into a pasture, with a cinder-path along the hedge, and in this hedge Wall-stones are clearly seen. Then we go between two close-clipped hedges of hawthorn and beech, with growing crops, or plantations of baby trees, on either side. This brings us out at Stanwix (Stane-wegges: a place upon the "stone way").

Here we are on the site of another Roman fort, occupying a commanding situation. The church and churchyard now indicate its position. The ground slopes down steeply on three sides, and the river Eden draws a semi-circle round it, making thus an additional protection on the east, south and west. No inscriptions have been found to tell us what troops the Romans placed here, and no remains of the Wall or the fort are to be seen. The interesting stone-figure of a Roman playing the bagpipes, which Hutton saw here used as a horseblock in the street, and which is now in the Tullie House Museum, Carlisle, was seen by a writer of 1794 "upon a door at Stanwix," and his illustration shows the bagpipes much more clearly than the stone does now.

Stanwix is now practically a suburb of Carlisle. Here I saw a funny sight. A baby in petticoats, certainly not so much as two years old, was sitting on his father's knee on a doorstep. An old country-woman was passing, lame in one leg, and with a very irregular gait. The baby looked at her, and began to call out: "Left ... left ... left ..." at regular intervals; and the old woman laughed heartily at being thus drilled, pulled herself up, and walked (as I fancied) rather less lame in consequence.

The Wall can be traced again near the Eden. I went down the road towards the famous Eden Bridge, and through the iron gate on the right, which is almost on the Vallum. This brought me into what seems to be the playground of Carlisle, along the banks of the river,—a playground so spacious that though half the city seemed to have come out to play this lovely evening, there still seemed any amount of room. The turf was very fresh and green and beautiful on the undulating slopes which run down to the river. Two stone posts on the bank above Hyssop Holme Well have been placed to mark the site of the Wall and its ditch in this region, but there is nothing to show exactly where it crossed the Eden.

In order to trace its farther course as closely as possible, I referred the next morning to the 6-inch Ordnance-map in the Tullie House Museum. This shows how the Wall, after crossing the river, passed to the north of the Castle Hill, while the Vallum curved round to the south of it. Guided by the map, I followed the Wall as closely as I could, picking up traces here and there.

Starting from in front of the Castle, I went down Annetwell Street and Bridge Street, turning off by Bridge Lane on the right to Willowholme, where there is a disused mill. Leaving the mill on the right, I crossed a footpath, and then a footbridge over a stream, and bore round to the left, following this diminutive tributary of the Eden. The path soon crosses under the railway, and now we are again on the site of the Wall!

I found this a very unfrequented route, and the sluggish, gnat-beset little stream was not very attractive; but I was out to follow the Wall wherever it led me, no matter where. To-day it led me past the sewage-works, to a footpath by the Eden. The old disused bone-mill of Rattlingstones, with its high chimney and its still busy mill-race, was on my left. I stopped to look at the frothy water. What was that it was toying with, tossing backwards and forwards, hiding and then revealing? I could hardly believe my eyes. It was a mattress, a nice large double-bed mattress, in excellent condition! Now how did it get there? Mattresses are not the sort of thing one leaves about by mistake, or drops when one is out for a walk. I was obliged to go on without solving the problem.

Under the wide stone railway-bridge I passed next, and so came to the engine-sheds mentioned by Dr. Bruce. I crossed a footbridge, with steam from the engine-sheds puffing all round me, and so came to a stile which brought me out into the open fields which lie above the Eden—and here once more is Wall!

The left bank of the river is very high and precipitous, while the right bank is a gentle slope. I had no difficulty in finding the site of the Wall in these fields, nor in walking along it; and the Vallum runs parallel, a short distance to the south.

Now the walk is really beautiful, all the way to Grinsdale. Trees grow in profusion on the steep river bank, and the blue river below gleams up through their branches.

On the opposite bank a ploughman was cheering on his horses, and fishers were spreading out their nets to dry.

At a bend in the stream, Grinsdale came into view, and soon the path entered a delicious fir-plantation, with the resinous smell brought out by the hot sun. Two men carrying huge sacks of firewood reminded me again of the coal-strike.

Just about here the Vallum and the Wall begin to diverge, the Wall following the river to Grinsdale, and the Vallum striking straight across the lower ground through Millbeck to Kirkandrews.

The railway-line to Silloth comes very close to the river here; in fact, the two have been running more or less alongside all the way from Rattlingstones, but I never knew a river so clever in hiding itself as the Eden. A traveller by train to Silloth would not guess he was quite close to a large river, so shyly does it conceal itself behind its steep southern bank.

After flowing in a northerly direction towards Grinsdale, it makes a sharp right-angled turn just at the village, and flows eastward past the church.

Grinsdale is a very pretty village, standing high up on this loop of the Eden, with the gardens of the houses sloping steeply down to the water. It seemed half asleep as I reached it. I came out into the road by a farm-house, making a mental note for future use of the sign it displayed: "Aerated Waters." I met no one in the village street but a farmer in his shirt-sleeves, who took his pipe out of his mouth to ejaculate, "Hot!" I took the opportunity before he put it in again to ask about the Roman Wall. He said he had heard there was a bit standing near the church, but he had never seen it. So I turned off to the right, into fields which led to the church, following the bend of the river.

It seemed hotter and quieter than ever. A swan was standing asleep on one leg on the gravelly flat by the water's edge. In the churchyard the rooks were cawing drowsily, and dropped dead branches on me as I passed. It is a tiny church, with a tiny tower, all rough cast, and it stands on the very brink of the steep river bank. It is protected on the river-side by a strong stone wall into which Wall-stones have been built. A breakwater, also containing Wall-stones, runs down into the river, to protect the church wall. But as for Wall itself, I saw I was quite off the track.

Still, I was not sorry to sit and rest for a while in the cool of the churchyard.

On the opposite bank of the river, where it had encroached on the land, men were busy sinking piles—long, long rows of them—and bringing up loads of brushwood to build up the bank, and prevent further inroads.

Seeing them working so hard in the sun made me feel quite thirsty, and, remembering the sign I had seen at the farm, I turned back to find it. Such a comely farmer's wife answered my knock that I ventured to ask for tea instead of aerated water. She said: "Yes, if ye can wait a bit till I have made up the butter." Of course I could wait, so I went off to explore the village a little more. A pleasant-faced elderly woman was driving a herd of cows out of a gate, so I asked my eternal question about the Wall. She said: "If ye want to know aught aboot Grinsdel, go to that hoose there," pointing with her finger. "He'll tell ye; I'm a newcomer."

Just then "he" came into his front garden, so she hailed him, and passed me on. He told me where to pick up the line of the Wall again, and then he invited me in, to look at some old books etc. that he had, apologizing for "the litter" (which was invisible to me) because the housekeeper was away, and he and his brother were "doing for" themselves. He showed me an old Malacca cane, such as Joey Bagstock must have carried, with an ivory handle and a silver ring. It was inscribed: "David Stagg, 1701," and its pointed iron end looked as if David had been a heavy man, and had leant heavily upon it. Finally he left me in his parlour, happily absorbed in Hutchinson's History of Cumberland (1794), and with his assurance that I should be "well oot o' the road there" for as long as I pleased. So if there is a Sherlock Holmes amongst my readers, when he notices hereafter the date 1794, he may possibly guess whence the facts that go with it were obtained.

The butter was on the very point of coming out of the churn when I reappeared at the farm. "Come and look at it!" cried the guidwife; "it's just beautiful." And she picked up a jug of water and poured it into the churn. But, alas! she had left the cork out, and the water was splashing all round us on the stone floor of the dairy. I flew into the kitchen, where I had noticed the cork, and returned in triumph with it, to be met with an approving, "Why, ye'll mak' a farmer's wife yet!"

Then I had to "taste" the butter, to see if it was salt enough; and finally to taste it in a more satisfactory way, in the form of bread and butter with my tea.

CHAPTER XVIII

GRINSDALE TO DRUMBURGH

To follow the Wall to Kirkandrews, I had to cross the village street, and pass through a farm-yard gate beside a letter-box. This brought me out into meadows. Such a beautiful golden meadow was the first which came, with dark-grey guinea-fowls making a foil to the buttercups, and giant trees here and there. In the shade of one large chestnut-tree, a handsome lad was shearing sheep. I drew near to watch, and the clip, clip of his shears, together with the bleating of the waiting sheep, prevented his hearing me, so I waited till one sheep was quite finished before venturing to move or make a sound. Then I spoke, and he jumped. "How quiet they are while they are being shorn!" "Yes," said he, with a smile. "You never hear the sheep saying anything then; they say it all before. I think they are glad to get rid of it; it weighs about nine or ten pounds." As I looked at the snowy whiteness of the inside of the fleece, I thought how much we town-dwellers miss in the imagery of the Bible which must come home with great force to a pastoral people, such as the Jews themselves were. "White as wool" and "As a sheep before her shearers is dumb."

I found only faint traces of the Wall here and there on the way to Kirkandrews, in the pasture-land, and as a mound running through a young cornfield. In 1794 it was "very visible." The churchyard at Kirkandrews is a mass of stones, and Dr. Bruce thought a mile-castle stood there. There has been no church for many years. In the eighteenth century the burial service was still read under the ruins of the old chancel arch, but the parish has been joined to Beaumont since 1692.

The Vallum and the Wall come together again at Kirkandrews, but they meet only to part, for the Wall climbs to Beaumont, clinging for a little longer to the high bank of the Eden, and the Vallum makes a straight course for Burgh-by-sands (usually called just "Bruff").

Near Kirkandrews was found the interesting stone described by Dr. Bruce—an altar, cut down for building purposes, commemorating the achievements of the sixth legion, "prosperously performed beyond the Wall" (ob res trans Vallum prospere gestas). Lord Lonsdale had it taken away.

The Wall continues its course not far from the road leading to Beaumont, on the right. The Wall-ditch is seen again where the Wall crosses the Beaumont Beck. The church at Beaumont is right on the line of the Wall, and is partly built of Roman stones; it may be on the site of another mile-castle.

A farm-yard gate on the right of the church leads to a lane, which runs actually on the Wall. This merges into a grassy track, evidently seldom used, and getting gradually more impassable. Finally I found myself still on the Wall, but creeping on hands and knees through a tunnel of thick hawthorn growth, where it was impossible to stand upright. The farmer had not considered the convenience of pilgrims of the Wall, for I found myself obliged to squeeze through barbed wire fences, and through masses of dead boughs and brambles which blocked my way. However, as every pilgrim knows, difficulties, seen rightly, are only things to be overcome, and presently the obstructions ceased to appear, and the Wall sloped gradually and peacefully down to the main road, taking me across the Powburgh Beck, and finally out into the road quite close to Burgh Church.

Burgh was "the longest village in Cumberland," according to Hutton. It is the site of one of the forts along the Wall, the exact position of which has only recently been ascertained.

The church is very solidly built, mainly of stones from the Wall and fort; it has a square tower, the walls of which are 7 feet thick. I fetched the key from the Vicarage, a modern brick building, and explored it by myself. It has been classed as a "fortified church," and it is thought that the iron door which separates the tower from the rest of the building was to enable it to stand a short siege if necessary. The view from the top of the tower is well worth seeing, especially away to the north, across the Burgh Marsh, to the Eden, winding through the sands, and with the hills of Dumfriesshire beyond.

The pretty Old Vicarage, next the church, is a long, low whitewashed house with very small windows. There are indications that a door in its west wall once opened into the churchyard. The date on the cottage next door, which looks about the same age, is 1672.

Thirty years ago, when the new Vicarage was built, this one was sold for £150. It has just been sold again, and put into repair, and a rent of £50 is being asked for it. The old and new Vicarages and the cottage between are the very first houses in the long village street. As I walked westward I noticed many clay houses. They have very thick walls, as much as 4 feet thick, and are usually whitewashed over the clay, but sometimes great patches of brownish-grey clay interrupt the white surface. Stone window-jambs, lintels and door-posts are used, and the roofs are thatched, except where corrugated iron has, alas! replaced the original thatch.

A tall, thin old man, driving some cows, passed me while I was looking at one of these houses, and remarked that they were very warm and comfortable to live in. I asked him about the Roman Wall, and he said folks did not trouble about it much, but he could show me a bit of it, if I would wait till he had got the cows in. So I walked alongside till we came to his house, which was of clay, as I had guessed it would be. Outside there was a pump, and a stone trough whose edges were scalloped in exactly the same way as the Roman stone troughs at Borcovicium and elsewhere. I asked him why it was scalloped, and he replied that they always sharpened their tools on it, thus confirming the usual theory.

He then took me to Hungerhill Lane, a turning off the north side of the main street, and there, not many paces along, he showed me the Wall, crossing the lane at right-angles, the stones level with the ground. It was nearly three yards wide, and very clearly discernible right across the lane; by far the best piece I have seen in any road since I started. He told me he had lifted a good many stones in his time, from a field farther west, but that they "perished" when uncovered—which last I found difficult to believe.

Walking to Bleatarn from Carlisle, I had come across a young ex-service man who hailed from Burgh. He was very obliging in giving me such archæological information as he possessed, but it was not exact enough to be of much use.

Old Miss Sally ——, at Burgh, so he said, had a Roman stone in her garden with a terrible far-back date; anyhow, it was A.D. something! It was covered with moss, and she had got him to clean it. The church at Burgh was built of Roman stones, and he had been to the top many a time; it looked a terrible long way down. When he was a boy it was said there was treasure hidden under King Edward the First's Monument, and a terrible big crowd had collected, with flags flying, and ever such a to-do, wanting to dig it up, but they were not allowed.

He told me he had joined up at once in 1914, going straight off from Carlisle, without ever returning home to say good-bye to his father and mother. He just left his bicycle with his sister, and went off, not knowing he would be gone four and a half years! No doubt there were many such. He only had two "leaves" home all the time.

However, he came through all right; some pretty hot times, but he came through. And he saw some terrible nice places in Italy on the way home from Salonika.

He was such a cheery fellow that I was "terrible glad" to have come across him, although I did not feel much wiser when our ways parted.

The Vallum is clearly seen in Burgh, running through pasture-land to the north of the road. The Wall goes close behind West-end farm-house, and then—via Watch Hill—to Dykesfield, which may be recognized by its well-kept lawns, on one of which stands a Roman altar. Rhododendrons were in full flower in the garden, and dark yew trees round them made their rich colour look even richer. Here the Vallum is thought to end, but the Wall goes straight on down to the level of the marsh. It cannot be traced again between this point and Drumburgh, two and a half miles farther on.

It seems a very long two and a half miles across the marsh on a hot day, for it is a perfectly straight and level road, unsheltered by a single tree. The railway between Carlisle and Port Carlisle runs alongside, having succeeded the canal. Signs of the canal can be seen at intervals, where lock-gates are placed to hold up the streams that run into the Eden through the marsh. The marsh is a grazing-ground for many sheep and cattle.

To the north of Burgh can be seen the monument erected to mark the spot where King Edward I. died in his tent on 7th July 1307. He was encamped there with a large army, awaiting a favourable opportunity to cross the Sol way and enter Scotland. Tradition says that he had been warned in a dream that he would die at Burgh, so he had purposely avoided coming through a place of that name in Yorkshire. On arriving here, he asked an old woman what the place was called, and heard to his surprise the fateful name. A monument was first placed here in 1685, by the Duke of Norfolk, on the site of the heap of stones that had marked the spot; but after a hundred years it began to lean to the west, and in 1795 it fell. So the Earl of Lonsdale rebuilt it on a much larger base in 1803.

The village of Boustead Hill is seen half-way across the marsh, to the south of the road—a mere sprinkling of houses on a grassy knoll.

I passed no one on these 2½ miles but a shepherd, and a young couple with a motor-bicycle and trailer. They were seated on the top of the grassy dyke; she was winding wool, and he was holding the skein. As I passed, I said: "It's a gran' day," in the approved style of the country, and they cordially assented.

Near Drumburgh Station there is a house where I was told a horse and cart could be hired, so I called to engage it for my return journey, as trains are few and far between. But, alas! "he" was out, "leading peat," till the evening, and then was engaged to fetch some one from "Port," for the eight o'clock train. However "she" was quite willing to give me some tea. She had had her own long ago, at three o'clock (for dinner was always at 11.30), so the kettle was not boiling but soon would. I was invited into the kitchen, where "oor Tho'" as he called himself, stopped playing with his dolls to help his mother fetch sticks, and to wake the dying embers of the kitchen fire. "Oor Tho'" was five, and "oor Maggie," who returned from school shortly, was a year or so older. Although their ages were reversed, they made me think very much of the two Tullivers, not only because of the similarity of the names.

Drumburgh village is entered through a white gate across the road, at the end of the marsh. Just inside the gate, on the left, is Drumburgh Castle, an old fortified manor-house now used as a farm-house. John Leland, in his famous Itinerary, writes thus of it in 1539:

"At Drumburgh the Lord Dacre's father builded upon old ruines a pretty pyle for defence of the country. The stones of the Pict Wall were pulled down to build it."

And again:

"Drumburgh ys in ye mydde way betwixt Bolness and Burgh. The stones of the Picts Wall were pulled down to build Drumburgh, for the Wall is very nere it."

A royal licence to fortify the older building had been granted in 1307.

Above the main entrance, a coat-of-arms and the initials "T.D.," for Thomas Dacre, are seen, carved in stone; and two stone griffins with outspread wings are perched high up on a level with the chimneys. There is a fine flight of steps up to the main door, which is a heavy oak door studded thickly with nails. The steps and balustrade, when I saw them, were coated with red ochre, such as is used for marking sheep. They told me this was done to preserve the stone, and prevent moss from growing on it. The ochre is mixed with buttermilk, and then it does not wash off, and the steps are never slippery for walking on.

But, oh, the vandalism of it! Even the Roman altar which stands at the top of the steps had been given its coat of brick-red! Is it worth preserving the stones at such a cost? I could not help picturing to myself a brick-red Roman Wall, running along the tops of the crags! Ugh!

The present occupiers are not responsible, for they have merely carried on the tradition of their predecessors, and the "doorstep" custom of the neighbourhood.

I called at a less pretentious entrance, which was evidently mostly used, and asked for permission to see inside the Castle. The farmer's wife was busy at the time, but she kindly promised to show me round on my return journey from Bowness.

I will describe the interior here, though I saw it later.

Its chief beauty is its panelled room, the principal room of the house, on the first floor, with windows looking north and south, across the village street in front, and over the garden behind. The walls are completely covered with beautiful oak panelling, the panels being about a foot square. In this room I was amused to see a reproduction of a picture of my own, which had found its way to this remote spot, via "Bibby's Annual."

We went up on to the roof to see the view, which is very fine. Battlements still protect it at the western end. On the way up we passed over a floor with holes in it, and my guide begged me to be careful. Blackness of darkness was visible through the holes, and she told me I was looking into a sealed room. Presently she showed me where the door leading into it had been covered up and whitewashed over; and when I looked up later at the front of the house, I saw the window had been filled in with two large blocks of stone and cemented over. All this seemed very mysterious, but the mistress of the house treated it in a perfectly matter-of-fact way. "I'm very glad," said she; "there's a deal to keep clean as it is; no doubt they thought so too, whoever did it. But the servant-girls hear stories in the village, and sometimes they won't stop."

She unbolted the heavy oak door to let me out. That entrance is never used, so the wide hall of the manor-house is now merely a bare whitewashed store-room, hung with hams, and decorated with bacon.

In an illustrated edition of Sir Walter Scott's Redgauntlet, published in 1832, a picture of Drumburgh Castle is given, as the "Fairladies" of the tale.

Drumburgh is the site of a small fort on the Wall, some remains of which were found in 1899. The ditch behind the Castle is not the Wall-ditch.

CHAPTER XIX

DRUMBURGH TO BOWNESS

From Drumburgh Castle I continued my way through the village, where there are many clay houses. Nothing of the Wall is to be seen until after a sharp double turn in the road. Here, after the second turn, I saw the Wall-ditch plainly in a meadow to the south of the road; this was just after passing the schools, where a young master was drilling the boys and girls with a great assumption of sternness. The Wall can be traced at intervals in the fields to the south, following pretty closely the line of the road as far as Port Carlisle.

Nearing Glasson, both Wall and road turn towards the sea. At the cross-roads to the north of Glasson, the tall chimneys of the Dornock works in Dumfriesshire are seen across the Solway, straight ahead along the road we are travelling. Soon after this, the road runs along close to the sea, with only a grassy stretch between, and then Port Carlisle comes into view. The core of the Wall is to be seen occasionally on the left. Three farms stand here, facing the sea—Lowtown, Westfield and Kirkland.

Port Carlisle was known as Fisher's Cross before the canal to Carlisle was opened in 1823. The attempt to make it the port of Carlisle was a failure, owing to the tendency of the harbour to get silted up with sand and mud. In 1854 the canal was filled up as far as Drumburgh, and a railway made on its site. Docks were constructed at Silloth, and the railway continued to that point.

Until recently travellers to Port Carlisle had to continue their journey from Drumburgh in a "horse-dandy," drawn along the dry bed of the canal. Now the railway goes all the way; and one of the dandies, painted Indian red, occupies a distinguished position as an "antiquity" opposite the platform of the railway station, while the other serves in the lowlier capacity of a hen-house close by.

Port Carlisle consists of a single street of comfortable-looking stone houses facing the sea. A well-kept bowling-green and tennis-courts near the station provide amusement for the railway servants in the long intervals between trains. It was all interval when I was there, for this part of the line was closed during the coal-strike.

The jetty where the boats used to unload is now in a ruinous condition. The sea has broken through it, so at high tide the far end is a grass-grown island where visitors have been cut off from escape by the water. I looked for the Packet Hotel where the fragment of an altar, inscribed "MATRIBVS SVIS," is built in over the door, and I found it was no longer an Inn, but a farm-house, the last house in the long street, just where the coast-line begins to bend round towards Bowness.

I had seen no trace of the Wall since passing Kirkland, but I knew I ought to be able to pick it up here, so I walked round behind the ex-hotel, and began to look about. A girl was sitting sewing in the doorway of a cottage, and I asked if she could help me. "Oh yes," she said; "I'll fetch my father." An old man appeared, with a pot of green paint in one hand and a paint-brush in the other.

"You have come to the right man," said he.

Then, with a dramatic wave of the paint-brush, "The Roman Wall passed by this very doorstep." He gave me full instructions as to how to find it farther on:

"Follow along the road to Bo'ness till you come to a gooter across the road, then turn to the left up a grassing-field, and go on till you come to an elbow. Turn to the right, and you come to a high lift; over that lift you'll find the Wall."

I obeyed these instructions as closely as I could, but I made the mistake of following a closed gutter instead of an open one, and this involved me in several unexpected difficulties. I reached the Wall-line sooner than my guide had intended, and the farmers about here seem to tax their ingenuity to make it as difficult as possible to follow that line. I crept under barbed wire into a "grassing" field and safely reached the hedge. Here were undoubted signs of Wall-core. I followed it to the hedge of the next field, and there I stopped. The hedge seemed quite impregnable, and there was no gate; all the hedges were of the thickest, and even if I could have made a hole, it would have been contrary to my code. I turned back to see if I could find an opening into the field on my left. A large ash-tree grew in the hedge, and without much trouble I climbed into its lower boughs, and could then make a drop of 6 feet into the next field. But again I was done! There was a gate on the west, it is true, but it was locked, and so thickly interlaced with thorn-bushes that I could not climb it. There was nothing for it but to reclimb my ash-tree, and have another look at my first hedge. I now saw that the end of a long ladder was laid flat on the top of this hedge, and rested on a gate-post in the field of my desire. Great masses of thorn-bush were heaped up under the ladder, which had evidently been thrown across as an additional barrier. Here was an opportunity to turn an enemy into a friend! I pulled myself up on to the ladder, walked from rung to rung over the thorn-bushes, and jumped off at the end, feeling that I had scored one over the farmer, for I had circumvented him without damaging his property. The next hedge was of thorn-trees growing on the ground, and there was just one small hole, between two trunks, big enough for me to creep through. And then I saw a fine piece of Wall—only the core, but several feet high, and in very good condition. A gateway had been cut right through it, and in the section the formation and the Roman mortar could be readily examined. The Wall-ditch was just discernible on its north side.

William Hutton says of this part of the Wall: "One mile prior to the extremity of our journey and at the distance of one inclosure on our left, appears in majesty, for the last time, Severus's Wall, being five or six hundred yards long, and three feet high, but, as in the mountains, all confusion. A fence grows upon it * * * In two places it is six feet high, eight broad, and three thick; but has no facing-stones." Dr. Bruce says that gunpowder was used in bringing it down.

It was after this that I came to the "elbow." The Wall-ditch was to be seen from the elbow running through the pasture to the next hedge. I followed, scrambling down the steep bank of a burn, and up the other side amid gorse and hawthorn, into a cart-track, with the Wall now on my right. The burn now served as the Wall-ditch.

I was quite near to the houses of Bowness by this time, and a gate on my left across the meadow brought me into a narrow lane, and thus into the road, not far from the church.

In the churchyard I saw a man in light tweeds carrying a bucket of water. He asked me courteously if I would like to have the key of the church, and I found I was addressing the Rector. Except for a very beautiful Norman font, there is nothing remarkable about the church.

From the main street I made my way through a little iron gate opposite the "King's Arms," down a steep grassy slope, and on to the shore by means of a rickety, rusty iron ladder, riveted by one leg to a rock. The view was lovely across the sands. On my left, crossing the Solway, was the Annan Railway Bridge, which had just been condemned as unsafe, and Criffel showed in a violet haze beyond it.

I thought from the sands I could best distinguish the probable site of the Roman fort, and I believe that I did succeed in identifying the western rampart, and the south-west and north-west angles.

Bowness is a quiet little place, standing high up above the Solway, with steep cobbled streets and many clay houses, "whose walls," said an old inhabitant to me, "are as thick as my stick is long." As seen from the ridge above the road to the west of the village, eight strips of colour, gradually receding, make up my impression of the view. First a strip of white road, then a strip of green grass; beyond that, a strip of yellow gorse; behind the gorse, a strip of marshland, pink with sea-thrift; then a strip of yellow dry sand, then a strip of brown wet sand; beyond that the blue water of the Solway, and, last of all, the blue-grey distance of Scotland.

There were fishing-smacks on the Solway, and there were fishermen fishing with their "half-nets" for salmon and trout.

Camden says of this part: "I marvailed at first, why they built here so great fortifications, considering that for eight miles or thereabout, there lieth opposite a very great frith and arme of the sea; but now I understand that every ebbe the water is so low, that the Borderers and beast-stealers may easily wade over." And he records how, in 1216, they came, and having stayed too long were swept away by the tide. His quaint words (or rather, Dr. Philemon Holland's quaint translation of them) are worth quoting:

"For Eden, that notable river, * * * powreth forth into a mighty masse of water, having not yet forgotten what adoe it had to pass away, struggling and wrestling as it did, among the carcasses of freebutters, lying dead in it on heapes, in the yeer of salvation, 1216, when it swallowed them up, loaden with booties out of England, and so buried that rabble of robbers under his waves."

I searched about for the end of the Wall, where it was supposed to run northwards into the water, and was just about to give it up in despair, when I saw an old lady in a black sunbonnet leaning over the gate of a pretty little cottage. I got into conversation with her, and then of her own accord she told me that the Roman Wall ended in her garden, "behind that apple-tree." She spoke of the gentlemen who had come to investigate, and how they had followed it down from her garden to the shore, by the old schoolhouse, which is now used by the fishermen for keeping their nets. She added: "There's not many that sets any store by the Roman Wall here—only me."

So here I was, having actually arrived at my goal, at the end of my walk of 73½ miles—not as the crow flies, but as the Wall runs. I had made it probably twice as far, by digressions and excursions. For the present I felt I had had enough walking; I wanted to indulge in a lift; so I began to inquire for a pony and trap to take me back to Drumburgh Castle. I soon found one at an innocent-looking house in the village street, which turned out to be a farm-house, with a yard and byres at the back. The farmer's daughter, who drove me, asked me why I did not spend the night at Bowness. I told her that I had engaged a room at Carlisle because I could not be sure of getting a bed at Bowness; and I related my experiences on the way to Carlisle. "Oh," she cried, "Bo'nes people isn't like that! They'd no see you bet. Why, I'd give up my own bed to any one rather than let them go without. Folks say I'll be took in some day, but I don't mind."

As we drove down the village street, she pointed out to me the Roman altar, mentioned by Bruce, built into an outhouse near the King's Arms. It is dedicated to Jupiter, for the welfare of the Emperors Gallus and Volusian, so it dates from about 251 A.D.

After visiting Drumburgh Castle, I went by train to Kirkandrews. A stout lady in the train asked me if I had been to Bowness. "Ah!" she said, "I know it well; I've been to many a funeral there. They bury them there from Glasson, and from Drumburgh, and I think from Kirkbride. It's a nice place, Bo'nes, to be buried." I inquired what were the special advantages. "Well, well, I can't exactly say, but it's a nice place, is Bo'nes; I'd as lief be buried there myself. My husband's father, he was a canal man, lived for twenty years on a houseboat on the canal; and he's buried at Bo'nes."

And that was all the explanation I could get.

From Kirkandrews I walked back to Carlisle, first through Grinsdale, and then along the track of the Wall above the Eden. It was such a lovely evening! My shadow was cast by the lowering sun half across the blue waters of the Eden, and Carlisle Castle and Cathedral appeared at intervals over the stone railway bridge, glowing in the warm light. As I neared Carlisle, the meadows were alive with children of all ages, enjoying the beautiful close of a hot day. Miners on strike were racing their whippets; small boys with hatchets were chopping off dead boughs for firewood on the steep tree-covered river banks; children were bathing and paddling from the rocks by the engine-house. A sweet smell of may was in the air. And I had a satisfied sense of "something accomplished, something done." The week's walk had been delightful, and my acquaintance with the Wall had been much extended and deepened; and yet I was not wholly sorry to return to civilized habits, and to unstrap my haversack from my shoulders for the last time.

But I had not quite said good-bye to the tramp I had been.

The following afternoon I left Carlisle to spend a day or two with friends in Northumberland, picking up my suit-case in Newcastle.

When I went up to dress for dinner that evening, I found to my horror that the maid had unpacked my tramp's luggage, and distributed it about the room, while the suit-case was still locked and the key in my pocket!

And there were my poor, pathetic little bedroom-slippers, which I had had no chance of discarding since I wore through their soles on the crags; there they were, spread out in such incongruous surroundings!

I sat down, and laughed and laughed and laughed. I could do nothing else. And then I gathered everything together and restored it to the haversack, strapping it up firmly, and consigning it to oblivion until such time as I could sort it out properly, ready for my next tramp.

CHAPTER XX

VINDOLANDA, CORSTOPITUM, BEWCASTLE

There are a few places not within the line of a direct walk along the Wall from sea to sea which yet form part of our subject, because they have close associations with the Wall.

The most important of these is actually one of the forts per lineam Valli, though it lies a mile to the south of the Wall. This is called Vindolana on the Notitia list, but a recently discovered altar shows the correct spelling of the name to have been VINDOLANDA.

VINDOLANDA.

The fort of Vindolanda is at Chesterholm, about a mile south from Hotbank on the Wall. To reach it, we can take a turning on the south side of Wade's Road, near Bradley Hall, keeping to the left, or we can cut across the fields from Highshield farm-house.

The green platform of the fort stands out very conspicuously, and will be easily recognized by any one who is getting to know what to look for. It rises up immediately to the west of the little hamlet of Chesterholm, half buried in its nest of trees; and the heathery hill of Barcombe shelters both from the east winds.

If we approach the fort by the road, it brings us past a Roman milestone, the only one still standing in its original position on the Stanegate, which runs east and west here. The milestone stands about 5 feet above the ground and is about 6 feet in circumference.

Vindolanda is supposed to be one of Agricola's forts on the Stanegate.

The walls, gateways and ditches can be readily made out, also the hypocaustal pillars of a large building to the west of the fort. I sat on the outer wall of the fort to make a sketch of Chesterholm in the evening light, with heathery Barcombe beyond, and the Long Stone standing up against the sky. No one knows the age of the Long Stone. I was up there one day when two tourists passed. They saw the date "1784" cut on its base by an earlier tourist. "Oh, that's the date it was set up," said they, and hurried on. The top has been broken off, and joined with iron bands cemented in; and there is a similar join at the base. It stands between two large stones which keep it in place, and these look in the distance like a pedestal for the column.

There is a British camp near the Long Stone, and also a Roman quarry, where the famous "Thorngrafton Find" of Roman coins was made. There are no coins later than Hadrian's in the collection, which tends to confirm the already well-established fact that Hadrian, and no later Emperor, built the Wall.

A glorious view is to be had from Barcombe of the "mural ridge," all the way from Sewingshields to the Nine Nicks.

In the valley of Chesterholm there is a cottage built of Roman stones, where some beautiful coping-stones and other sculptured stones are preserved, built into a covered passage, approached by slippery stone steps.

THE ROMAN MILESTONE.

To the north of the milestone is a large artificial mound, possibly the burial-place of a British chief. One day, when I was painting the milestone, there were young black cattle feeding on this mound, quite a number of them. Suddenly I heard a sound of trampling hoofs above me, and down they came, the whole crowd, at full speed. I sat tight, hoping they would not upset me, for a thorn-tree hid me where I sat. However, the tide did not flow quite in my direction, and they gathered round the milestone, and did nothing worse than obstruct my view.

THE ROMAN MILE-STONE ON THE STANEGATE, NEAR VINDOLANDA,
WITH BARCOMBE, RISING BEHIND THE TREES

"What age is the old thing? About 80 A.D.? Well, he has stuck it out! Wonder how much of him there is underground. As much again, I suppose. I say, did you have difficulty in getting water-colour paper during the War? No? Well, lucky you didn't! Chaps in the Government office I worked in, they'd get out a half-crown sheet of Whatman when they wanted a table-cloth for tea! Lot of that sort of thing done. Shame, I call it. Flies are a nuisance here; don't you find them so? No? Well, I do. Good morning."

And off he went.

CORSTOPITUM.

I had heard from various sources that I must not miss seeing the Roman town of Corstopitum at Corbridge; but on my first attempt, when I motored with friends to the little town on the Cor Burn, we only succeeded in finding a field-gate with a notice up, "Excavations closed." So obediently we went away, only to be told afterwards how foolish we had been to pay any regard to the notice, for if we had inquired at the farm, we could have got the key of the little Museum-shed, and have seen everything. But how were we to know that? I was not able to go again until I most happily fell in with the Pilgrimage of the Archæological Societies, and was allowed to join it.

Corstopitum is 2½ miles south of the Roman Wall, and on the line of the Stanegate, of which its chief street forms a part. Dere Street crossed the river here by a bridge of ten piers, and entered this site. It seems that the importance of Corstopitum dates from the time of Agricola, but was greatly increased after the building of the Antonine Wall, 140 A.D., and its most prosperous times were in that period. It probably depended for its protection chiefly on the Wall and the Wall forts, being itself only a great military store, covering 30 acres, of which 20 have been excavated.

When I visited the excavations they had been neglected for years owing to the war, and ragwort and thistles had done their best to blot them out again. I could not help thinking of these beautiful lines by Maude Egerton King:

"Not bands, nor wheels, nor belching towers
Can break, or yoke,
Or blind with smoke
The vital powers,
So swift to spread their cloak
Of grassy forgiveness and sweet-scented stars
Over earth's man-made scars."

But on this particular occasion one wished that nature had not been quite so busy in seeking to heal the "scars" made by the excavators!

The granaries are magnificent buildings, strongly buttressed to resist the pressure of the heavy stone roofs, with floors raised on sleeper walls, and a ventilation space below, to keep the corn both dry and cool. Window-openings between the buttresses admitted air under the floors. In one window there is a stone mullion, which is probably the only Roman mullion now to be seen. The original western granary was evidently built before the eastern. There are several levels of occupation in Corstopitum, and the western granary has two floors, two walls, two sets of drainage, one above the other, whereas the eastern granary has only one of each. The heavy stone blocks of which they are built are rusticated—inner surfaces as well as outer.

Beyond the granaries are a public fountain and watering-trough. Other buildings found prove that Corstopitum was an industrial centre of some importance.

Two very valuable hoards of gold coins have been found, one in 1908 and the other in 1911. The coins of the later find were the earlier and more valuable, ranging from Nero to Antoninus Pius, Hadrian's successor. They have all been sent to the British Museum.

The famous "Corbridge Lion" was found in a tank in what was probably the garden of a house in the settlement.

Amongst the interesting inscribed stones found here is a tombstone in memory of Barathes of Palmyra (in the Arabian desert), who was a standard-bearer in the Roman army, and died at the age of sixty-eight. A much finer tombstone, which he dedicated to his wife, Regina, who only lived to be thirty, is to be seen in the South Shields Museum, having been found in that neighbourhood.

The excavations at Corstopitum were carried out, under the superintendence of Mr. R. H. Forster, F.S.A., chiefly during the long vacations, when Professor Haverfield and Dr. H. H. E. Craster were able to be much on the spot, and Oxford undergraduates could get an insight into the methods of "reading the soil" employed by archæologists in Britain.

HEXHAM.

Hexham is not a Roman site, but there are many traces of the Roman occupation in the Abbey.

The Saxon crypt, almost the only remaining part of the original church built by Bishop Wilfrid in 674, is entirely constructed of Roman stones. The workmen who built it have attached no importance whatever to the beauty of the mouldings, nor to the interest of the inscriptions. They have simply used them as a "key" for the plaster with which walls and ceiling were covered.

A very beautiful olive-leaf-and-berry moulding occurs frequently; there are also a cable pattern, an elaborate fig-leaf design from a door-jamb, and a deeply fluted column, all built up into the walls of the crypt.

Two Roman inscriptions occur: one is on a stone used as a flat roof-slab, and the other has had a semi-circle cut out of it to form the head of a door-way.

The flat roof-slab contained the names of Severus and his two sons, but the name of Geta has been erased as usual, by order of the brother who murdered him.

The most interesting Roman stone at Hexham is a tombstone with a vigorous carving of a Roman soldier on horseback, carrying the standard, and treading on his prostrate enemy.

The inscription reads:

"To the gods, the shades. Flavinus, a soldier of the cavalry regiment of Petriana, standard-bearer of the troop of Candidus, being twenty-five years of age, and having served seven years in the army, is here laid."

Then there is an altar dedicated to Apollo Maponus by Terentius Firmus, a native of Siena, and prefect of the camps of the Sixth Legion.

Dr. Bruce was of opinion that the Roman stones in the Abbey were brought from Corstopitum—more especially because, in the bed of the river near Hexham, Roman stones abandoned in transit have been found.

This view has been fully confirmed in recent years.

FROM GILSLAND TO BEWCASTLE.

Gilsland, with its green daisy-starred mounds, its streams and glades and waterfalls, its Stepping-stones, and Popping-stone, and Kissing-bush, and generally romantic associations, is the greatest possible contrast to the wild fells which we have so lately left, but which can still be seen along the eastern horizon.

The very name of Gilsland speaks of softness, and verdure, and tinkling streams.

Here it was, so says history, that Sir Walter Scott wooed and won his life-partner, and the scenes of the different stages of his wooing are pointed out with brazen assurance.

It therefore seemed most appropriate, when first I visited Gilsland in a search for rooms, to be mistaken for a member of a wedding-party, and to be greeted with the words, "Ye're just in time to see the bride!"

Gilsland was full of "the bride." It was hopeless to try and get any attention to business until she had passed down the street on her father's arm, amid whispers of, "It's real crêpe de chine,"—"Did ye see how it's cut?" etc.

When I had finished my business, "the bride" still pursued me. I picked up a halfpenny, and was looking round for some child who might have dropped it, when the butcher at his shop door called out, "That's a looky ha'-penny, cast at the bride. Ye'll be the next. Ye must keep it."

There must be something in the very air of Gilsland!

I had no intention of being "the next," so I gave it to a small boy for his money-box, while the butcher looked his disapproval. It evidently was not "the thing" to have done in sentimental Gilsland.