ch St. Aidan died is one
of the oldest in the country, and the churchyard contains Grace
Darling's tomb. The Farne Islands, the scene of her brave exploit, are
easily visible from the shore. There are seventeen in all, forming three
distinct groups, Longstone, the heroine's home, lying farthest out. It
was from the lighthouse on this latter island that the noble maiden of
barely twenty-two descried the wreck of the _Forfarshire_, the 7th
September, 1838, and formed her resolve at rescue. "He that goes out and
sees the savage and iron nature of the rocks will not avoid wondering at
the desperate nature of the attempt," crowned by an almost superhuman
triumph. On the great Farne, or House Island, his favourite place of
retirement, St. Cuthbert died in 687. How his followers bore, from
shrine to shrine, the uncorrupted body of their Bishop is a tradition
well-known. "For the space of seven years," says Reginald of Durham,
"Saint Cuthbert was carried to and fro on the shoulders of pious men
through trackless and waterless places; when no house afforded him a
hospitable roof, he remained under covering of tents." Further, we are
told how the monks first carried their precious burden to the stone
church at Norham; thence towed it up the river to Tillmouth; on to
Melrose, the Saint's home-sanctuary by the Tweed; thence through the
Lowland glens towards the English Border where, descending the
head-waters of the Tyne, they came to Hexham; passing westward to
Carlisle in Cumberland, and Dufton Fells in Westmoreland, and over into
Lancashire; then once more eastward to the monastery at York; and
finally northward again to a last resting place in Durham, when

"After many wanderings past,
He chose his lordly seat at last
Where his Cathedral, huge and vast,
Looks down upon the Wear."

"MERRIE CARLISLE"

A glance at the outskirts of Carlisle suggests at once the fact that its
founders had considered the strategic value of the site. The old
Brigantes never planted their towns without due examination of the whole
lie of the land, and especially with a view to its defencibleness. The
river-junctions were often their favourite settling places. Hence the
origin of Carlisle, and many others of the Border towns--Hawick,
Selkirk, Kelso, etc. With its three encompassing streams--the Eden, the
Caldew, and the Petteril, which still enclose the Castle and Cathedral
hills in a sort of quasi-island, Carlisle has been