ntury paintings from
the monkish legends of St. Augustine, St. Anthony, and St. Cuthbert, and
to the misereres of the stalls.

Scarcely less interesting than Carlisle itself is the immediate
neighbourhood of the Border city. And with what sterling picturesqueness
does it appeal to us! One does not wonder that Turner and others found
some of their masterpieces here. A wondrously historic countryside, too,
is all this pleasantly-rolling tableland, mile upon mile to the
Liddesdale and Eskdale heights with the Langholm Monument fairly visible
as a rule, and sometimes even the famous Repentance Tower opposite
Hoddom Kirk. Within twenty miles or so of Carlisle, up through the old
Waste and Debateable Lands, or over into the romantic Vale of the
Irthing, the dividing-point betwixt Cumberland and Northumberland, the
district is full of the most fascinating material for the geographer and
the historian. It is impossible to do more than mention a few of its
memory-moving names. At Burghby-Sands, Edward I., "the Hammer of the
Scots," having offered up his litter before the high altar at Carlisle,
vowing to reduce Scotland to the condition of a mere English province,
was forced to succumb to a grimmer adversary than lay anywhere beyond
the Solway. Bowness-by-the-Sea was the western terminus of the Roman
Wall. Arthuret has its name from the "Flower of Kings," one of whose
twelve battles is said to have been fought there. Archie Armstrong,
jester to King James VI., lies buried in its churchyard. At Longtown, on
the Esk, the Jacobite troops forded the river "shouther to shouther," as
Lady Nairne's lyric has it, dancing reels on the bank till they had
dried themselves. Netherby, the _locale_ of "Young Lochinvar," Lady
Heron's song in "Marmion," is in the near neighbourhood. So are
Gilnockie or the Hollows, Johnie Armstrong's home, and Gretna Green,
that once so popular but now defunct shrine of Venus. All this once
bleak and barren bog-land is under generous cultivation now to a large
extent, stretching from the Sark to the Esk, and eastward to Canonbie
Lea; it was the treacherously Debateable, or No Man's Land of
moss-trooping times, the most troubled and unsafe period of Border
history. Solway Moss, some seven miles in circumference, is not likely
to be forgotten--by Scotsmen, at any rate. It was the disastrous Rout of
the Solway which hastened James V.'s death from a broken heart.

PLATE 13

VIEW OF LANERCOST
PRIORY

F