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.