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 {190} 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. {191} 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. {192}