The next point of interest is Busy-gap, a broad, basin-like recess in the mountain ridge, about a mile from Sewingshields. The Wall here, being more than usually exposed, is not only strengthened with the fosse common in the low grounds, but has the additional protection of a rampart, of triangular form, to the north of this. The wood-cut will give some idea of the arrangement. A common stone dike occupies at present the place of the Wall, the foundations of which, and, for the most part, a portion of the grout of the interior, remain. At a little elevation, on the western side of the valley, is a gate called the King’s-wicket (Arthur’s again, probably), through which a drove-road passes. The gate is well situated for defence, and may have been a Roman passage. [Illustration: Busy Gap] Busy-gap was in the middle ages a place of much notoriety; it was the pass frequented by the moss-troopers and reavers of the debateable country. [Sidenote: STATE OF THE BORDERS.] The incessant war which was waged between England and Scotland before the union of the two kingdoms, rendered property exceedingly insecure, and nurtured a race of men who had no expectation of holding their own, unless they could repel force by force. It was the policy of the governments of both countries, to maintain on the Borders a body of men inured to feats of arms, whom, on any emergency, they might call to their assistance. Habits long indulged are not easily laid aside. When the policy of Elizabeth, and the accession of James to the throne of England, allayed the national strife, the stern warriors of the Border degenerated into sheep-stealers; and, instead of dying in the fray, or yielding their necks _honourably_ to the headsman’s stroke, burdened by the score the gallows-tree at Newcastle or Carlisle. The vales of North Tyne and the Rede, which anciently abounded with warriors, became infested with thieves. It is impossible to imagine the desolation and misery occasioned by such a state of society. Landed property was of little value. Precious life was idly sacrificed. Bernard Gilpin, the ‘apostle of the north,’ was esteemed a brave man because he annually ventured as far as Rothbury to preach the gospel of peace to the lawless people of the vale of Coquet. Camden and sir Robert Cotton, though ardently desirous of examining the Wall, durst not venture in their progress eastward beyond Carvoran. ‘From thence,’ Camden says, ‘the Wall goeth forward more aslope by Iverton, Forsten, and Chester-in-the-Wall, near to Busy-gap, a place infamous for thieving and robbing, where stood some castles (chesters they called them), as I have heard, but I could not with safety take the full survey of it, for the rank robbers thereabouts.’ In such ill-repute were the people of these parts, even in their own county, that we find the Newcastle Merchants’ company in 1564, enacting that ‘no free brother shall take non apprentice to serve in the