At Lodore the water was "coming down" like a miniature Niagara. Heavy rains had filled the cup of its parent river full, and the waterfall looked as if floods of melted ivory were pouring over ebony boulders. What a lovely, rushing roar! It was like the father of all sound—as if it might have given the first suggestion of sound to a silent, new-born world.
Windermere and Derwent Water we saw, too, and each was more beautiful than the other. Also I was much excited about the Giant's Grave, near Keswick, which has kept its secret since before history began.
All the way to Carlisle the country was very fair to see, scarcely flagging in charm to the end; and Carlisle itself was packed with interest, from its old cathedral to the castle where David I. of Scotland died and Mary Queen of Scots lodged.
Now our thoughts were turned toward the Roman Wall, and I thrilled a little, despite the forbidding stiffness of Sir Lionel's disapproving back as he drove. Because of Kipling's splendid story of the Roman soldier in "Puck of Pook's Hill," I knew that for me the Great Wall (all that's left of it) would be one of the best things. Parnesius, the young centurion, told Una and Dan that "old men who have followed the Eagles since boyhood say nothing is more wonderful than the first sight of the Wall." And also that there were no real adventures south of it. It was disappointing to think that nowadays, on our way there, we couldn't expect to meet "hunters and trappers for the circuses, prodding along chained bears and muzzled wolves" for the amusement of the soldiers in the far northern camps; or that when we should come to the Wall, we'd find no helmeted men with glittering shields walking three abreast on the narrowest part, screened from Picts by a little curtain-wall at the top, as high as their necks; no roaring, gambling, cock-fighting, wolf-baiting, horse-racing soldier town on one side, and heather wastes full of hiding, arrow-shooting Picts on the other; yet I heard Sir Lionel say we could still trace the guard-houses and small towers, and see how the great camp of Cilurnum was laid out.
We had left the mountains before we came into Carlisle, but not the hills; and after one of grandiose size, which an old Northumbrian we met called "a fair stiff bank," we were on the Roman road; the long, long, straight road forging uncompromisingly, grimly up and down, ever on, scorning to turn aside for difficulties; the road where the Legions paced with the brave Roman step—"Rome's race, Rome's pace," twenty-four miles in eight hours.
Kipling illuminated the way through Haltwhistle and Chollerford to the Chesters, a private park which is a big out-of-doors museum, for it has in its midst the remains of old Cilurnum. We got out at the gates, and wandered among the ruins that have been reverently excavated; a gray and faded scene, like a kind of skeleton Pompeii with dead bones rattling; entrance gateways; ghost-haunted guard-houses; stone rings which were towers; many short, straight streets whose half-buried pavements once rang under soldiers' heels; the Forum; all the camp-city plan; a map with outlines roughly sketched in stone on faded grass. We had had our first sight of the Wall of which centurions in Britain bragged when they went back to Rome. Then it was a Living Wall; but it is very wonderful still, where its skeleton lies in state.
We had started so early from Keswick, that it wasn't two o'clock when we left the Chesters; and I was surprised when, instead of drawing up before some country inn for lunch, we skimmed through a gate only a mile or two away, and stopped under the shadowy frown of an imposing mediæval stronghold. It was Haughton Castle, whose towers and keep are crowded with stories of the past, and the visit was to be a surprise for us. Sir Lionel knew the owner, who had asked us all to lunch, for the "dragon's" sake; and it looked quite an appropriate resting-place for a dragon of elegant leisure. It was as interesting within as without; and after luncheon they took us over the castle; best of all, down in the deep dungeon where Archie Armstrong, a chief of moss-troopers, was forgotten and starved to death by his captor, Sir Thomas Swinburne, a stout knight of Henry the Eighth's day.
There is a long story about Archie, too long to tell you here; but each castle of Northumberland (the county of castles, not of collieries) has dozens of wonderful old stories, warlike, ghostlike, tragic, and romantic. I have been reading a book about some of them, which I will bring you. It's more interesting than any novel. And King Arthur legends are scattered broadcast over Northumberland, as in Cornwall. Also the "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled" did much of their bleeding and fighting here. There's history of "every sort, to please every taste," from Celtic times on; but I'm not sure that the troublous days of the great feudal barons weren't the most passionately thrilling of all.
If the first sight of the Wall was wonderful to the Roman soldiers, so must have been the first sight of the wide Tyne. I know it was so to me, as we flashed upon it at the first important twist of the straight Roman road, and crossed it on a noble bridge.
Of course, Newcastle has a castle; and it was "new" when William the Conqueror was new to his kingdom. Now that I've seen this great, rich, gay, busy city, ancient and modern, I realize how stupid I was to associate it with mere coal, as strangers have a way of doing, because of the trite remark about "taking coals to Newcastle." Why, the very names of the streets in the old part chime bell-like with the romance of history! And I like the people of Northumberland—those I have met; the shrewd, kindly townsfolk, and the country folk living in gray villages, who love old, old ways, and emit quaint wit with a strong, rough "burr."