But while drinking in the glories of the distances, the eye will note with curiosity a strange-looking but picturesque hill only a couple of miles to the South-east, with a long rocky ridge at its top deeply cut into or "nicked" in nine different places, this giving it a very wild appearance. It is one of these hills which tempts the keen observer to go on and explore it. If we cut direct to it, over the fields, it is rough going, but the view is good all the way. And there are four special objects of interest, all close together; the rushing Tipalt river, Thirlwall Castle, the Roman wall, and the Nine Nicks. Thirlwall Castle rises tall, square, and stern, with a dark fir-wood behind it at the foot of the hill, where a bend in the river makes a natural moat. Approaching it from Rose Hill, it looks as if the building were still nearly complete, but the south side has almost entirely fallen away and all the floors and the roof are out. Edward I. slept in this Castle when it was newly built, in 1306; but now it is grass-grown and moss-grown, and its three bare walls rise gaunt and grim to the sky. It is entirely built out of stones with Roman chisel marks, taken from the great Roman wall, which unfortunately was once regarded as a handy stone-quarry for anyone to take from. The name "Thirlwall" means "Drill-wall," and marks the spot as that at which the wild Northern tribes first "drilled" or broke through the wall. The name was, of course, given to the place long before this castle was built. To mount from Thirlwall Castle to the top of the Nine Nicks is an easy enough task for any vigorous person. It is just a fine healthy scramble. When at the top, it becomes evident that some sort of fortification once existed there. In point of fact this was the important Roman station called "Magna" which stood at about the middle of the Roman Wall. The wall ran from sea to sea, that is to say, from the mouth of the Tyne to the Solway. Thus it was nearly eighty miles long, and a very elaborate structure indeed. It consisted of three distinct portions:— 1. The main stone wall, with a ditch to the north of it. 2. An earth-work to the south of this, consisting of either two or three ramparts about seventy feet apart, with a ditch between. 8. Stations, Castles and Watch-towers. Sometimes these were to the north of the wall, sometimes in the middle, sometimes south, according to the nature of the country. The height of the main wall was from sixteen to twenty feet, including battlements. It was six to nine feet thick. Fancy a powerful military wall of about eighteen feet high stretching nearly eighty miles right across England! It hardly seems possible that the Romans could undertake such a work. The square strong stones were carefully selected and often brought from quarries at a distance. These stones flanked the outsides of the wall, and in between was strong concrete which was poured in while in liquid.