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 t. 14, 1861.] 



 that I learned the cost of my bargain—being the forfeiture of a bottle of wine at dinner. A number of “sales,” I was told, were effected during the season, and the article was always offered to new-comers, who, in three cases out of four, readily “bid” for it, and thus found occasion for paying their footing. A circuitous ramble brought us to a small ancient-looking house with a steep thatched roof at the foot of the hill on which the hotel stands. This is the Mumps Ha’ of “Guy Mannering.” Scott’s description tallies with it precisely:

The alehouse, for it was no better, was situated in the bottom of a deep dell, through which trilled a small rivulet. It was shaded by a large ash tree, &c.

The buxom but treacherous Meg, the landlady of Scott’s story, is drawn from one Margaret Carrick, whose gravestone, the inscription nearly obliterated, being headed Mumps Hall, I found lying face downwards in the churchyard of Upper Denton, near Burdoswald.

Returning to the Shaws we wiled away the time till dinner at quoits, being not a little entertained by the apparition of a meek old man who played the Northumbrian pipes to the good old tunes of “Fenwick o’ Bywell,” “Kittle her Chin with a Barley Straw,” “Caller Fair,” “Wylam awa’,” “Penton loaning,” &c. &c., attended by a dog, who, squatted on his haunches, howled a dismal accompaniment. Next morning, my companion and I resumed our pilgrimage, getting a hearty cheer from the company of the hotel who were assembled at the door to bid us good speed. Descending the hill, our conversation ran upon Scott and his association with the scene we had just left, and whose masterly touches have given an additional charm to its natural beauties. Besides the passages in “Guy Mannering,” there is much in the story of “St. Ronan’s Well,” that has evidently been inspired by Gilsland recollections. It was in the prime of youth and at the dawn of his poetical career when he first became acquainted with the place, and he may well have looked back to it as the scene of some of his happiest hours. Here were penned the verses

Take these flowers, which, purple waving,

On the ruined rampart grew, Where, the sons of freedom braving,

Rome’s imperial standards flew. Warriors from the breach of danger

Pluck no longer laurels there,

But they yield the passing stranger

Wild-flower wreaths for beauties’ hair.

Tracing the line of the wall by slight indications we arrived at Hare Hill, where its highest existing fragment appears, standing nine feet ten inches in height; but, deprived of its facing stones, it might, to the inexperienced eye, appear rather a mass of crag than a piece of human workmanship. The wall now stretches away towards the river Eden, visible only by ridges in the soil, which indicate its course till we reach the rivulet called Burtholme Beck, where a portion appears, about seven feet high, embowered by hazels and dwarf oaks. At Wall Fell indications of a double barrier or outwork are observable. Crossing the hill at the farmhouse of Dove Cote, the foundations of the wall and fosse are seen, and at Walltown some indications of a camp are likewise visible. Along this part of the line the abundant spoils of the wall are to be observed in the farm buildings and cottages. At Sandysike farmhouse a barn is composed entirely of Roman stones marked with the diamond broaching, and in the garden wall there are several sculptured stones; one of these, a Roman eagle, nestles among the foliage of a pear-tree trained over the wall; and another, bearing the wheel of the swift avenging Nemesis, threatens the sensual tenant of a pigstye with the penalties of the carnificial knife and the purgatorial lustration of the smoke-rack. Castlesteads, which contests with Cambeck Fort the claim to represent the Petriana of the Notitia, like Caervoran, lies to the south both of the wall and the vallum. Its site is now almost obliterated. Several altars and sculptured stones have been found, and are preserved at Walton House, the garden belonging to which usurps the site of the station. Coins of Julia, the second wife of Severus, Bassianus,