A little way past Edgerston the road begins its long two mile climb to an elevation of close on 1500 feet near the summit of Catcleuch Shin. There, immediately after passing the Carter Bar, it crosses the Border line, and drops steadily down into Redesdale, past the new Catcleuch Reservoir that supplies Newcastle with water, a work which has wiped out of existence one of the pleasantest bits of fishing in the kingdom, where trout were many and game, and of enviable size. Perhaps the trout are there still--for those who may take them--but the capture of a dozen fish in still water cannot match the joy experienced in fighting one good Rede trout in the strong rushing stream where he has passed all his days. [Illustration: 0162] Beyond the Catcleuch Reservoir, a road of easy gradients sweeps down the delightful Rede valley, past innumerable old camps, British and Roman; past Rowchester, into whose little school house, that stands solitary in the angle of two ways, are built numerous stones (carved and otherwise) handily quarried from the adjacent old Roman station of Bremenium; and high up, on the roof of the building, from the same source are various large round stone balls that may have formed part of the ammunition for a Roman ballista. It was this route that the Roman legions followed over the Cheviots in their northward march from the mighty wall they had stretched across England from sea to sea. A few miles east from Catcleuch Shin, their military road bursts suddenly into view of that glorious sweep of country where the triple-peaked Eildons dominate the scene, a landmark that no doubt led them first to the site of their famous Newstead camp. {143}In early nineteenth century days, when His Majesty's mail coaches between Newcastle and Edinburgh came jangling over the crest of this bleak, unprotected bit of road at Catcleueh Shin, taking at a gallant trot the long, stiff gradient that faced them whether they were heading to the south or to the north, the trials of outside passengers in winter time must not seldom have been of a nature truly unenviable. Bitter sleet, driving before a westerly gale, lashed their faces and stole chill wet fingers inside their wraps and upturned collars; drifting, blinding snow, swirling on the wings of a wild north-easter, blurred the guiding line of snow-posts, and even at times hid his leaders from the coachman's sight, so that his first warning of being off the road and on the moor, was a heavy lurch as the coach buried its side in some blind hollow; frost, and a thermometer in the neighbourhood of zero, nipped from ears and nose and toes every vestige of feeling, and chilled to the very bone those whom duty or business forced to travel. It was truly a large assortment of evils that our ancestors had to choose from, in the winter, on that road over into England by the Carter Bar.