the road, through Cumberland and into Dumfriesshire. The church of High Hesket, quite a humble little building, with bellcote in lieu of tower, stands, shamefaced in a coating of compo, by the way, near another dilapidated old “White Ox” inn, once busy with the traffic of a bygone day. The motor-cars disregard it, or merely halt for that last indignity to an inn, a pail of water wherewith to cool their engines. Dropping downhill to Low Hesket, the road comes quickly to Carleton and then, by the frowzy street of Botchergate, into the midst of Carlisle. [Illustration: THIEFSIDE] [Sidenote: _CARLISLE_] Carlisle was the first and stoutest bulwark gainst the northern foe, and maintained that character for close upon sixteen hundred years, from the remote time of the Roman dominion until the union of the kingdoms under James the First. The place, standing as it does upon a rocky bluff, overlooking the levels of the Solway and the Eden, was, it would almost seem, intended by Nature for this office, and here accordingly the Roman wall of Hadrian was traced, running from sea to sea, from Wallsend near Newcastle, to Carlisle, and ending on the Solway Firth at Bowness. Here they found an early Celtic settlement, “Caer Lywelydd”; but it was not the site of Carlisle, but rather Stanwix, its northern suburb, on the opposite bank of the Eden, that formed the Roman military station of _Luguvallum_, _i.e._ the “station on the wall.” What is now Carlisle was the civil settlement. When the Romans withdrew, to defend their decaying Empire nearer home, _Luguvallum_, peopled with half-breed Romano-British, who could not retire with them, made for years a hopeless fight with the savages out of Scotland on the one hand, and with the Saxons on the other. The Saxons, as almost everywhere else, prevailed in the end, and the town became in their tongue, “Caer Luel”; whence the transition to “Carlisle” is one of the easiest. Carlisle, the great mediæval fortress-town, owes its origin to Rufus. The mighty Conqueror, who subdued most other portions of this land, rested short of Westmoreland and Cumberland, which had then for one hundred and twenty years been accounted Scottish soil; but it was under his generally despised son that these broad lands were won back for England; and the Scottish King Malcolm, invading England on the east coast, in revenge, was slain in 1093, at Alnwick. Peace, however, was not to reign upon these contested lands for yet many a century; but what could be done was accomplished, and Carlisle Castle arose, a grim Norman keep, upon the highest apex of the town. It was in after years enlarged and strengthened, and the strong walls of the city connected with it; and to-day, although the factory-buildings and the smoky chimneys in a distant view of Carlisle show, readily enough, that the city is now a place of commerce, the Norman castle-keep still darkly crowns the scene, sharing its pre-eminence only with the Cathedral.