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.

{192}

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 {193} 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 {194} 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 {195} 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 {196} 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 {197} 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 {198} 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 {199} 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 {200} 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 {201} 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 {202} 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.

{203}

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 {204} 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 {205} 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, {206} 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.

{207}

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 {208} 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 {209} 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 {210}
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'" {211}
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 {212} 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.

{213}

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 {214} 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.

{215}

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 {216} 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 {217} 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 {218}
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 {219} 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 {220} 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.  {221} 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."

{222} 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 {223} 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 {224} 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 {225} 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.

{226}

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
{227} 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 {228} "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.

[Illustration: THE ROMAN MILE-STONE ON THE STANEGATE, NEAR
VINDOLANDA, WITH BARCOMBE, RISING BEHIND THE TREES]

A boy on a bicycle came by, and stopped to look at the stone,
chattering away to me while I worked:

{229}

"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, {230} 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 {231} 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 {232}
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.

{233}

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.

{234}

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 {235} 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.

It was from Gilsland, later, that I visited Bewcastle, and walked
back along the Roman road known as the Maiden Way.

Bewcastle is 11 miles from Gilsland, right away across the Bewcastle
Waste.

At first we could not get a car to take us, but finally the butcher
came to the rescue, and said that if we did not mind the car in which
he sent round the meat, he would have it very thoroughly cleaned.  It
was easily convertible into a sort of motor-waggonette, to hold six
people, and was really quite comfortable.  The only drawback was that
we caused great disappointment to all the dogs of the villages we
went through.  They recognized the front of the vehicle, and the
driver, and came up wagging their tails, to receive a nasty shock on
finding that the contents of the rear portion were human beings and
not meat.

It was a lovely run; past the ruin of Triermain Castle, then to
Askerton Castle, a beautiful old Border fortification, which we
stopped and viewed, {236} copying down two inscriptions, scratched,
one on the lead of the roof, and the other on the staircase.  The
first was:

  "Geo Taylr Novb 9th, 1745
  the day that the rebels
  Came to the Border."

The other was:

  "The familie Spoeller
  refuge from to War
  1914."

This reminds me of a Border story, connected with Bewcastle, of a
man, a "rough customer," who wanted to claim kinship with a Scotsman,
declaring that he was himself a "Border Scot."  "Gude faith, I dinna
doubt it," said the true Scot; "the coarsest part of the cloth is aye
at the border."

On we went, across the Bewcastle Waste, wild and barren, till
Bewcastle itself came into view, with its church, its castle, and a
few houses.

The church and castle are built on the site of a Roman fort standing
above the Kirkbeck Burn.

"Bueth's Castle" is the grimmest old ruin I ever saw, with bare walls
standing up in forbidding sternness.

The church is said to date back to the Conquest.  There are four
holes in the wall, through which the dwellers in the castle used to
keep watch against their enemies.  It had till lately shown the
beautiful grey stone inside, but when we were there it had just been
distempered buff colour all over--stone {237} walls, stone columns,
font, and all!  Fortunately they had omitted to distemper the
curiously carved eighteenth-century tombstones in the churchyard, and
the Runic Cross!

This last is a magnificent example of early Christian art amongst the
Anglo-Saxons, with a runic inscription which has been translated thus:

  "This slender sign of victory set up
  Hwaetred, Wothgaer, Olw-wolthu,
  to Alcfrith, a king and son of
  Oswy.  Pray for ..."

There are figures of Jesus Christ and of St. John the Baptist; and
also of King Alcfrith, whom it commemorates, holding a hawk.  He is
said to have died of the yellow plague in 664 A.D.

There is very beautiful ornamental work on the other three sides;
vines, with birds and squirrels in amongst the leaves, and elaborate
interlacing fret.

Three of us walked back from Bewcastle by the Maiden Way; we kept
losing the way and finding it again; but we struck all the landmarks,
and it finally brought us out, "according to plan," just above
Birdoswald.  We passed Side Fell, the highest point hereabouts, and
came to the Beacon, where the ruins of what was formerly supposed to
be a Roman watch-tower are quite unmistakable.  In Dr. Bruce's third
edition there is a lovely picture of it, with, prominently in the
foreground, "a very {238} human incident," as the newspapers love to
say.  A brave, top-hatted cavalier, with umbrella raised high above
his head, is defending a clinging companion in crinoline skirts from
three meek-looking cows, whose tails are curved like fish-hooks over
their backs!  What a romance lies hidden there!  When I saw it, I
felt how much I had failed in not peopling the solitudes of the Wall
in my pictures!  But then, to me, the loneliness is half the charm,
and three-quarters of the character.  We crossed Spadeadam
Waste--such a fascinating name, which takes us back to the very gates
of Eden!--and we came to Spadeadam farm-house, where an adamantine
old lady in a sunbonnet refused our appeal for milk or tea.
Haymaking was in full swing, and she really had more than she could
do already, I am sure.  Then we crossed the King Water, by
stepping-stones, and over the top of the next hill Gilsland came into
view.

{239}

CONCLUSION

And so I must take leave of the Wall; and Wall must make its exit
from this little stage.

  "Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so,
  And, being done, thus Wall away doth go."
                        (_Midsummer Night's Dream._)

It has not been possible within the limits of this book to say all I
should have liked.

The romance of the Museums I have left untouched, with their pathetic
relics of the loves, the vanities, the hopes and fears, the
sufferings, and the victories of the great people who colonized our
land so many years ago.

There is abundant proof that there was some measure of family life
enjoyed by the Romans on the wild outposts of the Wall.

The officers had their wives with them; children were born (and
lost); sorrowing husbands have left memorials to their wives;
disconsolate wives lament, on stone, their husbands.

And trinkets there are in plenty: gold, and silver, and bronze,
inlaid with stones; and beautiful {240} enamel work.  At Chesters
there is a jet ring inscribed with a monogram, and the legend:

  QVIS · SEPA · MEVM · ET · TVVM · DVRANTE · VITA
  "Who shall separate me and thee during life?"

Has mankind changed much in eighteen hundred years?

Only one definitely Christian inscription has been found, and that is
a British tombstone.

Nearly all the inscribed stones show signs of having been purposely
smashed; possibly by "Christian" Britons, who thought later that by
that means they were doing God service.

It is so much easier to smash stones than to live the Christian life!
No doubt the smashing was sometimes a symbolic act, to indicate the
renunciation of the old pagan habits, and to remove temptation.

I was very sorry to take leave of the Wall; perhaps even more sorry
to take leave of the kindly friends I had made.  I met with many
instances of the blunt outspokenness of the northern character, but
never with a spark of rudeness nor unpleasant familiarity.

As I travelled south in the train, I remembered what Hutton has said:
that the Wall "would exhibit its proud head many thousand years"; but
that the mounds of the Vallum, "being native earth, would continue to
the last trump."

{241}

Is this indeed so?  Is it, for example, possible that the bunkers on
the golf-links I was then passing are the most enduring portion of
our civilization?  Will pilgrims in the far distant future travel
hundreds and thousands of miles to see these, our only contemporary
"earth-works," as to a shrine, wondering what great chiefs are buried
under them?  It might be so, if "native earth" were indeed the most
enduring form of construction.  But I beg leave to doubt it.

Back in London, it seemed cold and dull at first.  I missed the
freedom of the Wall, where every one I met had said, "It's a gran'
day, the day," as naturally as they had smiled as we passed each
other.

Ah! but London has a kind heart too, though circumstances prevent her
from wearing it on her sleeve.  Many have testified to this in the
past, and will testify to it in the future.  And therefore in London
also there is much that we may surely count amongst the "things that
endure."

Old Londinium, older than the Romans, who colonized and fortified but
did not found her, is dear to us, in spite of all her fog and smoke
and turmoil, for of her also it is true that

  "Only the fashion of the soul remains."

[Illustration: Map of Hadrian's Wall]

{243}

INDEX

Æsica (Great Chesters), xix, 29, 142, 143-5.

Agricola, 2, 3, 9-13, 17, 18, 77, 107, 153, 154, 180, 227, 230.

Allectus, 16.

Allolee, 145.

AMBOGLANNA (Birdoswald), xviii, xix, 29, 30, 86, 166-9.

"Amphitheatre" at House-steads, 116, 122.

Antonine Wall, 15, 38, 230.

Antoninus Pius, 12, 14, 169.

Antoninus (son of Severus), 15.

Apple-tree turret, 169.

_Archæologia Æliana_, xvi.

Askerton Castle, 235.

Asturians, 29, 30, 92.

Augustus, 7.

Aulus Platorius Nepos, 14, 21.

Aulus Plautius, 7, 8.

Banks, village of, xviii, xix, 169, 171.

Barcombe Hill, 21, 111, 126, 227.

Bardon Mill, xix.

Barracks in forts, 92, 122, 141.

Basalt rock, 105, 112, 126, 127, 152.

Batavians, cohort of, 29, 107.

Bath-house at Chesters, 95.

Baths in forts, 93.

Beaumont, 204.

Beck, 186.

Bede, 22, 24, 68, 69.

Benwell Hill, 29, 43, 47.

Berm, or safety platform, 19, 34.

Bewcastle, 154, 234-8; Cross, 237.

Birdoswald, viii, xvi, xviii, 29, 30, 109, 154, 164.

Black Carts Farm, 102.

Blackgate Museum, Newcastle, 45, 158.

Black Pasture Quarry, 72, 77.

Blair, Mr. Robert, xvi.

Bleatarn, 190, 191.

Bloody Gap, 139.

Bogle Hole, 139.

BORCOVICIUM, xvi, xix, 28, 29, 116, 119-124.

Bosanquet, Professor, 117, 121.

Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni, 9.

Bowness, xix, 24, 181, 219-223.

Bradley, xviii, 226.

Brewis, Mr. Parker, vii.

Bridge, Roman, at Chesters, xvi, 72, 74-80, 97; at Corbridge, 78; at
Newcastle, 42; over Irthing, viii-x.

Brigantes, 9.

Britannicus, 8.

Broomlee Lough, 115, 124, 126.

Bruce, Dr. Collingwood, v, xi, xv, 25, 40, 56, 74, 80, 92, 117, 140,
151, 158, 180, 198, 204, 223, 237.

Brunstock Park, 192.

Brunton House, 73.

Burgh-by-sands, vi, 109, 204.

Burnhead, 142.

Burtholme family, 173; village, 179.

Busy Gap, 115, 125.

Byker Bridge, 39; Hill, 40, 42.

Caedwallon, 68.

Caligula, 7.

Cam Beck, 183, 185.

Cambeck Hill, 185.

Camden, the antiquary, 22, 25, 28, 111, 112, 115, 221.

Camp, Roman, 142.

Caracalla, 15.

Caratacus, or Caradoc, 8.

Carausius, 16.

Carlisle, xiv, xix, 12, 18, 154, 196-7.

Carlisle, Lord, quoted, 168.

Carraw, 107.

Carrawburgh 29, 30, 106.

Carr Hill, 63.

Carvoran, xviii, 25, 29, 30, 112, 114, 153.

Cassivelaunus, British king, 6.

Castle Nick, 127.

Castles: Askerton, 235; Haughton, 98; at Sewingshields, 115;
Thirlwall, xviii, xix, 155; Triermain, 235.

Castlesteads, 184, 185.

Cat Gate, 112, 113.

Cat Stairs, 124, 128.

Causeways of Vallum, 34-37, 62, 145.

Caw Burn, 141, 144.

Cawfields, 137, 139, 141.

Caw Gap, xviii, 136, 139.

Centurial Stones, 25, 55, 109, 158, 161, 187.

Chapel of the Standards, vii, 89.

Chapel House, 158.

Chariot-wheel marks, 94, 119.

Chesterholm, 29, 30, 126, 226.

Chesters, Great, 29; Halton, 29; Walwick, xviii, 29, 84.

Chives, 150.

Chollerford, xvii, 76, 82.

Chollerton, 44, 99.

CILURNUM (Walwick Chesters), xviii, xix, 29, 82, 84-97, 154.

Claudius, 7.

Clayton, Mr. John, v, xv, 76, 84, 140.

Cockmount Hill, 145.

Cogidumnus, King, 8.

Cold Knuckles, 131.

Collingwood, Mr. R. G., vi, xii.

Collingwood, Mr. W. G., vi, xvi.

Colonnades, 91, 119, 120.

Commodus, Emperor, 15.

CONDERCUM (Benwell Hill), 29, 44-47.

Constantine, Emperor, 16, 103.

Corbridge, xvii, 12, 18, 53, 61, 78, 229.

Cornovii, cohort of, 29.

CORSTOPITUM, 12, 95, 154, 229-232, 233.

Coventina, water-goddess, 106.

Crag Lough, 126.

Craggle Hill, 174.

Craster, Dr. H. H. E., 232.

Criffel, 147, 220.

Crosby, 188.

Cross Fell, 148.

Cuddy's Crag, 125.

Cumrenton, 184.

Cunobelin, British king, 7.

Curlews, 65, 106, 111.

Cymbeline, 7.

Dacians, cohort of, 29, 168.

Dalmatians, cohort of, 29.

Denton Burn, 47.

Denton, East, 47.

Denton Hall, 48.

Denton, Over, 161; West, 49.

Dere Street, 64, 230.

Diocletian, Emperor, 16.

Domitian, Emperor, 12, 13, 154.

Dooven Foot, 156.

Dovecote, 181.

Down Hill, 23, 63.

Draw-dykes Castle, 193.

Drumburgh, 30, 209-215.

Dykesfield, 24, 209.

East Denton, 47.

East Wallhouses, 59.

Eden, River, 25, 195-200, 221.

Edges Green, 136.

Edwin, King of Northumbria, 147.

Emperor-worship, 89-90.

Erdeswick, Samson, 25.

Erinus Alpinus, 94.

Errington Arms, 65.

Fairclough, H. Rushton, quoted, 17.

Fallowfield Fell, 70, 71.

Far-Glow, 156.

Faustinus, Consul, 170.

Flavius Carantinus, 70.

Flowers along the Wall, 61, 66, 67, 68, 73, 94, 103, 140, 179, 182.

Forts on the Wall, list of, xxv.

Foul Town, 158.

Fourstones, xix.

Forster, Mr. R. H., 232.

Frixagi (Frisii), cohort of, 29.

Furnaces, 93, 96.

Gap, 158.

Garthside, 179, 184.

Gateways of forts, 85-88, 120, 122, 143.

Gauls, cohort of, 29.

George Inn, Chollerford, xvii, 80-83, 98.

Geta, 15, 233.

Giant's Grave, 55.

Gibson, Mr. J. P., 141, 147, 160, 169.

Gilsland, x, xviii, xix, 111, 154, 158-162, 234, 238.

Glasson, 215.

Granaries, at Chesters, 91; at Housesteads, 120; at Corstopitum, 230;
at Birdoswald, 167.

Graupius, Mons, 12, 107, 180.

Great Chesters, 29, 143.

Greenhead, xix, 151.

Greenlee Lough, 126.

Green Slack, 138.

Grinsdale, 198-201.

Hadrian, builder of the Wall, 2, 14, 18-21, 76, 158, 169, 228;
constructor of the Vallum, 20, 33; Bridge over the Tyne at Newcastle,
42.

Hadrian Street, Wallsend, 40, 42.

Halton Chesters, 29, 63; Shields, 63; Tower, 63.

Haltwhistle, xix, 137, 148.

Haltwhistle Burn, xviii, 141; Fort, 141.

_Handbook_, Dr. Bruce's, see under Bruce.

Hare Hill, xviii, 29, 171.

Harlow Hill, 56, 57.

Harrow's Scar mile-castle, 164, 169.

Haughton Castle, 98.

Haverfield, Professor, 166, 184, 190, 232.

Haydon Bridge, xix, 44, 49, 111.

Hayton-gate, 174, 179.

Headswood, 186.

Heavenfield, 69.

Heddon-on-the-Wall, 52.

Hen Gap, 103.

Hexham, xix, 71, 101, 107, 232.

High House turret, 169.

Highshield, 226; Crag, 126.

High Wall Houses, 61.

Hodgson, Mr. and Mrs. T. H., xvi, 166, 184, 190, 192.

Holmhead, 155, 156.

Honorius, 17.

Hope-Alone, 137, 156.

Horsley, 53.

Hotbank, 126.

Housesteads, xviii, 29, 30, 116; Mile-castle, 124.

Howgill, 180, 181.

Humshaugh, xvii.

HUNNUM (Halton Chesters), 29, 63.

Hutton, William, xiii-xv, 46, 47, 50, 57, 63, 66, 72, 76, 100, 164,
171, 196, 219, 240.

Hypocausts, 63, 93, 96.

Hyssop Holme Well, 196.

Iron Sign, the, 56.

Irthing, River, viii-x, 162-165, 175.

Julius Cæsar in Britain, 6.

King Edward the First's Monument, 208, 209.

King Water, 182, 183, 238.

"King's Stables," the, 160.

King's Well, 147.

Kirkandrews, 199, 203, 204, 223.

Knag Burn, 118, 122.

Lanercost, 173, 175.

Lanercost Priory, xix, 174, 178.

Leahill, 170.

Leland, John, antiquary, 42.

Lewis-holes, 78.

Limestone Bank, 102, 103, 104.

Lingones, cohort of, 29.

Lodham Slack, 138.

Lollius Urbicus, 15.

Long Stone, 126, 227.

Low Wall, 180.

LUGUVALLIUM (Carlisle), 12.

MAGNAE (Carvoran), xviii, 29, 153.

Maiden Way, 154, 235.

Marcus Aurelius, 15.

Martin, painter, 49.

Matfen, 45, 59, 62.

Matfen Piers, 62.

Mile-castles, 18, 20, 30, 49, 50, 68, 72, 102, 105, 108, 115, 124,
125, 127, 139, 140, 141, 160, 169, 173, 179, 181.

Milestone, Roman, 227, 228.

Military roads, Roman, 12, 18, 20, 32, 76, 105, 154, 191, 193.

Milking Gap, xviii, 126.

Millbeck, 199.

Mona (Anglesey) subdued by Rome, 8, 10.

Montague, Mrs. Elizabeth, 48.

Mould's Close, 70.

Mucklebank, 147.

Naworth Castle, 175; Railway Station, xix.

Newcastle, xvi, xix, 24, 28, 29, 39-42.

Newtown of Irthington, 186.

Nine Nicks of Thirlwall, xviii, xix, 25, 139, 147.

_Notitia_, the, 29, 30, 168, 226.

Old Castle, vii.

Old Wall, 188.

Ordovices, 10.

Ostorius Scapula, 8.

Oswald, King of Bernicia, 68.

Ouseburn, 39.

"Out-by" Farms, 130, 137.

Over Denton, Saxon church, 161.

Peat-cutting, 130.

Peel, xviii.

Peel Crag, 124, 132, 133.

Peewits, 106.

Pendower, 44.

Pilgrims' Gap, xviii, 139, 141.

Plane-trees Farm, 72.

Poltross Burn, 159, 160.

Pomponia Græcina, 8.

PONS AELII (Newcastle), 29, 42.

Port Carlisle, 181, 209, 215, 216.

Portgate, 64.

Powburgh Beck, vii, 205.

Principia or Headquarters buildings, 88, 89, 91, 119, 166.

PROCOLITIA (Carrawburgh), 29, 106.

_Purpose and Date of the Vallum and its Crossings_, xvii.

Quarries on Barcombe, 227; Black Pasture, 72; Bleatarn, 190;
Cawfields, 141, 152; Coome Crag, 170; Greenhead, 151-153; at
Housesteads, 117.

Rabbits, 112-114.

Rampart-walk, 87.

Randelands, 179.

Rapishaw Gap, 124, 125.

Rattlingstones, 197, 199.

Ridley, Sir Christopher, 25.

Ridley, John, 148-150.

Roads, Roman, 12, 18, 20, 32, 64, 76, 105, 154, 191, 193, 230.

Robin Hood Inn, 57, 59.

Roofing, methods of, 89.

Rudchester, vii, 29, 53-56, 122.

Rufus, Consul, 170.

Runic Cross at Bewcastle, 237.

_Sacellum_ or Chapel of the Standards, 89, 90.

St. Nicholas' Church, Newcastle (the Cathedral), 40, 42.

St. Oswald's Church, 68, 70.

Sallyport gateway, Newcastle, 39, 42.

Sandysike, 183.

Savinian _ala_, 29.

Scott, Sir Walter, 140, 214, 234.

SEGEDUNUM (Wallsend), 29, 41.

Seldom Seen, 131, 156.

Severus, Septimius, x, 15, 16, 21, 27, 76, 78, 103, 125, 132, 169,
170, 233.

Sewingshields, xix, 107-116; Crags, 122.

Shaw, Dr. R. C., viii, x, xvii, 34.

"Shield," meaning of, 111; Shield on the Wall, 139.

Side Fell, 237.

Silures, subdued, 9.

Simpson, Mr. F. Gerald, xvi, xvii, 34, 77, 141, 160, 169.

"Slacks," 138.

Solway, 24, 41, 220, 221.

Spadeadam, 238.

Stanegate, 12, 18, 32, 131, 143, 153, 227, 230.

Stanwix, 195, 196.

Steel Rigg Gap, 127.

Strong room at Chesters, 90.

Stukeley, 76.

Suetonius Paulinus, 8, 9.

Tacitus' "Agricola" (Professor M. Button's translation), 3, 7-13, 180.

Tarraby, 193-195.

Thirlwall Castle, xviii, xix, 155; Nine Nicks of, xviii, xix, 139,
147.

"Thorngrafton Find," 21, 228.

Thorny Doors, 139.

Throckley, 50, 51.

Tindale Fell, 106, 111.

Tipalt Burn, 155, 156.

Tower Taye, 101.

Trajan, 13.

Trajan's Column, fortifications shown on, 86, 87.

_Transactions_ of the Cumberland and Westmorland Archæological
Society, xvi, xvii.

Triermain Castle, 235.

Tullie House Museum, Carlisle, 196, 197.

Tungrians, cohort of, 29, 107, 184.

Turf-wall, 37, 169.

Turrets on the Wall, 18, 20, 31, 32, 73, 86, 103, 132, 147, 151, 169.

Twice Brewed Inn, 133, 135.

Underheugh, 165, 167.

Vallum, xvii, 14, 18-24, 33-38; First seen, 46.

Vespasian, 7, 9, 107.

VINDOBALA (Rudchester), vii, 29, 53.

VINDOLANDA (Chesterholm), xix, 29, 126, 226-227.

Vitruvius, 141.

Wade's Road, xi, xviii, 28, 63, 104, 107, 108, 109, 116, 125, 133,
226.

Walbottle, 49.

Walbottle Dene, 50.

Walby, 191.

Wallbowers, 37, 38, 169.

Wallend, 158.

Wallfoot, 192.

Wallhead, 188, 191.

Wall Houses, 61.

Wall Knoll, 42.

Wallsend, xiv, 24, 29, 39-41.

Walltown, 147-150.

Walton, 183; Wood, 179.

Walwick Chesters, xviii, 29, 30, 100.

Ward, Mr. John, F.S.A., xvi, 86, 87, 88, 121.

"Wastes, The," 110, 111.

Water-mill, Roman, 141.

Watling Street, 64.

Well, at Chesters, 91; Coventina's, 106; King's, 147.

Welton, 57.

Wesley, John, 47, 53.

Whinstone, 27, 152.

White Flat, 186.

White Moss, 191.

Whittledene Reservoirs, 57.

Will of Welton, 58.

William of Malmesbury, 64.

Willowford, x, 162.

Window-glass, 96.

Windows, Roman, 96, 231.

Winshields, xix, 28, 127, 132, 136, 139.

Written Rocks, Fallowfield, 70; Coome Crag, 170.

Wylam, 54.

Zosimus, historian, 16.