It was from Gilsland, later, that I visited Bewcastle, and walked back along the Roman road known as the Maiden Way.
Bewcastle is 11 miles from Gilsland, right away across the Bewcastle Waste.
At first we could not get a car to take us, but finally the butcher came to the rescue, and said that if we did not mind the car in which he sent round the meat, he would have it very thoroughly cleaned. It was easily convertible into a sort of motor-waggonette, to hold six people, and was really quite comfortable. The only drawback was that we caused great disappointment to all the dogs of the villages we went through. They recognized the front of the vehicle, and the driver, and came up wagging their tails, to receive a nasty shock on finding that the contents of the rear portion were human beings and not meat.
It was a lovely run; past the ruin of Triermain Castle, then to Askerton Castle, a beautiful old Border fortification, which we stopped and viewed, copying down two inscriptions, scratched, one on the lead of the roof, and the other on the staircase. The first was:
"Geo Taylr Novb 9th, 1745
the day that the rebels
Came to the Border."
The other was:
"The familie Spoeller
refuge from to War
1914."
This reminds me of a Border story, connected with Bewcastle, of a man, a "rough customer," who wanted to claim kinship with a Scotsman, declaring that he was himself a "Border Scot." "Gude faith, I dinna doubt it," said the true Scot; "the coarsest part of the cloth is aye at the border."
On we went, across the Bewcastle Waste, wild and barren, till Bewcastle itself came into view, with its church, its castle, and a few houses.
The church and castle are built on the site of a Roman fort standing above the Kirkbeck Burn.