The gates of mercy shall be all shut up;
And the fleshed soldier,—rough and hard of heart,—
In liberty of bloody hand, shall range
With conscience wide as hell; mowing like grass
Your fresh fair virgins and your flowering infants.
Whilst the Roman warrior gloated over his success, and feasted, and thanked his gods, and recorded his exploits on the votive stone, the routed remnants of the Caledonian bands would mourn over their slaughtered comrades and desolated home-steads.
The great scarcity of stone in the western part of Cumberland has rendered the Wall a valuable quarry to the inhabitants from time immemorial. In our future progress we shall see little of it, except in the buildings contiguous to its site. The heart of the antiquary will, however, occasionally be gladdened by the recognition of the lines of the earth-works—their slightly elevated mounds appearing to his eager gaze scarcely less beautiful than the moulded forms produced by the genius of the sculptor, in districts more rich than this, in the remains of antiquity.
The Vallum appears to have gone nearly due west, along the valley, from Kirk-andrews to Burgh; the Wall proceeds, after its usual manner, from eminence to eminence.
BURGH-UPON-SANDS.
BURGH-UPON-SANDS is the next station. In Horsley’s day the remains of its ramparts were to be seen at a place called the Old-castle, a little to the east of the church. He says—