The Wall abuts on the rounded north-west angle of the fort. The tower at this angle appears to belong to the Wall and not to the fort. It was evidently rebuilt when the Wall was built, like the one at Housesteads. The Wall-ditch is very clearly marked to the west of Æsica. {145} The remains at Æsica have been fenced round to protect them from cattle, but the fences are broken, so when I was there, sheep and lambs were disporting themselves on the very walls of the guard-chambers. After passing Cockmount Hill farm-house, where, in spite of the bleak situation, white lilacs were blooming in the garden, and the regulation farm-house sycamore was firmly established, I entered a dense little wood, and here the Wall was in very satisfactory condition. Under the pine-trees it ran, its lower courses hidden by beautiful ferns and foxgloves, but I could see the projecting foundation stones in places. In the wood I met an old lady, with two pretty children, from the farm, gathering sticks. The children made just the right patches of colour there amongst the pine-needles, a patch of purple and a patch of emerald green. South of Cockmount Hill many of the newly discovered causeways, referred to on page 34, can be seen crossing the ditch of the Vallum. The rain now began to come down in earnest, and I hurried past the next site of a mile-castle without even looking at it. As I reached Allolee farm-house, I decided I must take shelter. Two huge specimens of the pig-tribe saw me coming, and charged down the hill at me at full speed, grunting loudly. It needed all my determination to keep on in a straight line! But they faded away, {146} with a disappointed look, just before they reached me. I was most hospitably received at Allolee, hung out to dry, and fed, and entertained, to my heart's content. Two children, a boy and a girl, were with their mother in the farm-house kitchen. I told them the pig-incident, and all the sympathy I got was: "Poor dears! they were hungry!" The little girl was engaged in cutting out a jumper for her doll, a very intricate process, and I was called on to help. She was very proud of the doll, and rightly so, for through an unfortunate accident it had become bald, and her mother had made it a very neat new wig out of her own hair, with grey strands in it. The boy had a gramophone, and he selected "Lead, kindly Light" for my benefit. I don't know if he meant it to be appropriate, but it certainly was. "The night is dark, and I am far from home. Lead Thou me on!" And I could not help thinking how the "kindly Light" was shining in that remote little farm-house through the kindness that was being shown to a stranger. As I sat by the fire, they told me _they_ had no coal-shortage, because a farmer near them had found coal on his farm.