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British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland by Thomas Dowler Murphy
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struggled with the wild tribes on the north, and from that time down to
the execution of the last adherents of the Stuarts in 1759 the town was
hardly at any time in a state of quietude. As described by an observant
writer, "every man became a soldier and every house that was not a mere
peasant's hut was a fortress." A local poet of the Seventeenth Century
summed it up in a terse if not elegant couplet as his unqualified
opinion

"That whoso then in the border did dwell
Lived little happier than those in hell."

But Carlisle is peaceful and quiet enough at the present time, a place
of considerable size and with a thriving commerce. Its castle, a plain
and unimpressive structure, still almost intact, has been converted
into military barracks, and its cathedral, which, according to an old
chronicle, in 1634 "impressed three observant strangers as a great wild
country church," has not been greatly altered in appearance since that
period. It suffered severely at the hands of the Parliamentary soldiers,
who tore down a portion of the nave to use the materials in
strengthening the defenses of the town. But the story of Carlisle could
not be told in many volumes. If the mere hint of its great interest
which I have given here can induce any fellow tourist to tarry a little
longer at "Merrie Carlile," it will be enough.

Leaving Carlisle, we crossed "Solway Tide" and found ourselves in the
land of bluebells and heather, the "Bonnie Scotland" of Robert Burns.
Shortly after crossing the river, a sign-board pointed the way to Gretna
Green, that old-time haven of eloping lovers, who used to cross the
Solway just as the tide began to rise, and before it subsided there was
little for the paternal ancestors to do but forgive and make the best of
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