When we came to Lancaster we were glad to stop, although our day’s journey had covered only sixty miles.  We knew very little of Lancaster and resorted to the guide-books for something of its antecedents, only to learn the discouraging fact that here, as everywhere, the Romans had been ahead of us.  The town has a history reaching back to the Roman occupation, but its landmarks have been largely obliterated in the manufacturing center which it has become.  Charles Dickens was a guest at Lancaster, and in recording his impressions he declared it “a pleasant place, dropped in the midst of a charming landscape; a place with a fine, ancient fragment of a castle; a place of lovely walks and possessing many staid old houses, richly fitted with Honduras mahogany,” and followed with other reflections not so complimentary concerning the industrial slavery which prevailed in the city a generation or two ago.  The “fine, ancient fragment of a castle” has been built into the modern structure which now serves as the seat of the county court.  The square tower of the Norman keep is included in the building.  This in general style and architecture conforms to the old castle, which, excepting the fragment mentioned by Dickens, has long since vanished.  Near at hand is St. Mary’s Church, rivaling in size and dignity many of the cathedrals, and its massive, buttressed walls and tall, graceful spire do justice to its magnificent site.  From the eminence occupied by the church the Irish Sea is plainly visible, and in the distance the almost tropical Isle of Man rises abruptly out of the blue waters.  The monotony of our previous day’s travel was forgotten in lively anticipation as we proceeded at what seemed a snail’s pace over the fine road leading from Penrith to Carlisle.  We had been warned at Penrith, not against the bold highwaymen, the border moss-troopers or the ranting Highlandmen of song and story, but against a plain, Twentieth Century police trap which was being worked very successfully along this road.  Such was our approach in these degenerate days to “Merrie Carlile,” which figured so largely in the endless border warfare between the Scotch and English.  But why the town should have been famed as “Merrie Carlile” would be hard to say, unless more than a thousand years of turmoil, bloodshed and almost ceaseless warfare through which it passed earned it the cheerful appellation.  The trouble between the English and the Welsh ended early, but it has been only a century and a half ago since the closing scene of the long and bitter conflict between the north and south was enacted at Carlisle.  Its grim old castle was the scene of the imprisonment and execution of the last devoted followers of Prince Charlie, and according to Scott’s Waverly the dashing but sadly deluded young chieftain, Fergus McIvor, was one of those who suffered a shameful death.  In this connection one remembers that Scott’s marriage to Miss Carpentier took place in Carlisle, an event that would naturally accentuate our interest