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.