Are staunch to the last to their old Border tricks;
Wine flows not from heath, and bread grinds not from stone,
They must reeve for their living, or life they'll have none.
When the Southron's strong arm with the steel and the law
Had tamed the moss-troopers, so bonny and braw;
Though spiders wove webs in the rusty sword-hilt,
In the niche of the hall which their forefathers built;
Yet with sly paper credit and promise to pay,
They still drove the trade which the wise call convey.
They whitewashed the front of their old Border fort;