Carlisle of to-day has a commercial reputation. It makes hats and whips, and textile fabrics, to say nothing of dye-works, where the citizens of Carlisle are prepared (at a price) to dye for their country. The manufacture of gingham, too, the secret of it stolen long ago from Guingamp, its native place, in Brittany, occupies a good deal of attention, and the production of biscuits and cardboard-boxes makes up the tale of the city’s activities. But Carlisle, for all these developments, looks a poor place, and by no means a merry. All the fun ceased when raiding and murdering went out of date, and the only merry-making nowadays to be seen and heard is not indigenous. It is to be found at the great Carlisle Joint Station, at unseasonable hours, and is provided, free, gratis, all for nothing, by travelling theatrical companies bound for Scotland. For two generations past, the low comedians of the companies have whiled away the weary waiting sometimes to be done on Carlisle platforms, and astonished the tired porters by dancing Scotch reels and sword-dances, accompanied by fiendish yelps, or have expressed a desire to have a “willie waucht,” to “dee for Annie Laurie,” to be “fou the noo,” or anything else supposedly Scottish. It is one of the most cherished conventions of the theatrical profession on tour. This great joint railway station—the Citadel Station, as it is called—is neighboured by two enormous mediæval-looking drum towers of red sandstone, restorations of two of the same character built in the sixteenth century. They look none the less gloomy because they serve merely the purpose of Assize Courts, instead of fortifications. You must needs pass between them on entering Carlisle from the London road, and they are among the first things to dispel any idea the stranger may have brought with him that Carlisle is really “merry.” There is that about the modern appearance of Carlisle which irresistibly reminds one of a ragged urchin clothed in some full-grown man’s trousers. Many things are too large for its circumstances. Two prominent things among the many that suggest this comparison are the unnecessary electric tramways and the noble Eden Bridge, carrying the road across the river to Stanwix. The bridge, built a hundred years ago, is monumental, and even the lamp-standards, designed for it at the same time, are fine. But the over-head trolley-wires are an offence to the spirit of the thing, and the city of Carlisle cares so little for it that ugly electric light standards are placed at intervals, and the fine old iron lamps that might so easily and handsomely have been adapted, now serve no useful purpose. XXVI [Sidenote: _THE WALL_]