Five times outlaw'd had he been
By England's king and Scotland's queen.”
We have already alluded to the origin of the name of the Border [pg 228] riders. Fuller, in his Worthies of England, says they are called moss-troopers “because dwelling in the mosses (marshes or morasses), and riding in troops together; they dwell in the bounds or meeting of the two kingdoms, but obey the laws of neither. They come to church as seldom as the 29th of February comes in the calendar.” Their customs and laws are even more interesting than the details of their forays. Loyalty to each other was their first principle, and on occasions when money could purchase the freedom of one of their number they invariably cast in their lots, and made up a large common purse. They were scrupulous in keeping their word of honor when passed to a traveller, and Fuller likens their dogged fidelity in these cases to that of a “Turkish janizary”; but otherwise, woe to him that fell into their hands! Their own self-imposed laws they observed for the most part faithfully, and a breach of them was punished far more summarily than modern crimes in modern courts of law. Several species of offences peculiar to the Border constituted what was called March-treason. Among others was the crime of riding or causing to ride against the opposite country (or clan) during the time of truce. Such was the offence committed by Rowland Foster in his raid on the “Blind Baron,” though in his case the criminal was probably too powerful to be punished. In one of the many truces signed in the olden time is one of 1334 between the Percys and the Douglases, in which it is accorded: “Gif ony stellis (steals) anthir on the ta part or on the tothyr, that he shall be hanget or beofdit (beheaded); and gif ony company stellis any gudes within the trieux (truce) beforesayd, are of that company shall be hanget or beofdit, and the remanant sail restore the gudys stolen in the dubble.”[61] In doubtful cases the innocence of Border criminals was often referred to their own oath. The same work that quotes the above agreement also gives us the form of excusing bills by Border oaths: “You shall swear by the heaven above you, hell beneath you, by your part of paradise, by all that God made in six days and seven nights, and by God himself, you are whart out sackless of art, part, way, witting, ridd kenning, having, or recetting of any of the goods and cattels named in the bill. So help you God.” It seems almost as if the Borderers had consulted the catechism as to the nine ways of being accessory to another's sin, so minute is the nomenclature of treasonable possibilities.
Trial by single combat was also a favorite mode of clearing one's self from a criminal charge. This was common in feudal times and throughout the XVIth century; but time stood still in the Borders, as far as civilizing changes were concerned, and even in the XVIIth century a ceremonious indenture was signed between two champions of name and position, binding them to fight to prove the truth or falsity of a charge of high treason made by one against the other.
The most ancient known collection of regulations for the Border sets forth that in 1468, on the 18th day of December, Earl William Douglas assembled the whole lords, freeholders, and eldest Borderers, that best knowledge had, at the College of Linclouden, “where he had them bodily sworn, the Holy Gospel touched, that they justlie and [pg 229] trulie after their cunning should decrete ... the statutes, ordinances, and uses of the marche.” The earl further on is said to have thought these “right speedful and profitable to the Borders.”
During the truces it was not unusual to have merry-makings and fairs, to which, however, both Scotch and English came fully armed. Foot-ball was from time immemorial a favorite Border game, but the national rivalry was such that the play often ended in bloodshed. Still, there was no personal ill-feeling, and a rough sort of good-fellowship was kept up, which was strengthened by intermarriages, and was not supposed to debar either party from the right of prosecuting private vengeance, even to death. When, however, this revenge had been taken, it would have been against Border etiquette to retain any further ill-will. Patten, in his Account of Somerset's Expedition into Scotland, remarks on the disorderly conduct of the English Borderers who followed the Lord Protector. He describes the camp as full of “troublous and dangerous noyses all the nyghte longe, ... more like the outrage of a dissolute huntynge than the quiet of a well-ordered armye.” The Borderers, like masterless hounds, howling, whooping, whistling, crying out “A Berwick, a Berwick! a Fenwick, a Fenwick! a Bulmer, a Bulmer!” paraded the camp, creating confusion wherever they went, and disturbing the more sober southern troops; they used their own slogan or battle-cry out of pure mischief and recklessness, and totally disregarded all camp discipline. Yet in this land of defiles, caverns, and marshes their aid was too precious to be dispensed with, and remonstrance was practically useless.
The pursuit of Border marauders was often followed by the injured party and his friends with bloodhounds and bugle-horn, and was called the hot-trod. If his dog could trace the scent, he was entitled to follow the invaders into the opposite kingdom, which practice often led to further bloodshed. A sure way of stopping the dog was to spill blood on the track; and a legend of Wallace's adventurous life relates a terrible instance of this. An Irishman in Wallace's train was slain by the Scottish fugitive, and when the English came up with their hounds their pursuit was baffled. But poetical justice required some counterbalancing doom, and accordingly the legend tells us that, when Wallace took refuge in the lonely tower of Gask, and fancied himself safe, he was speedily disturbed by the blast of a horn. It was midnight. He sent out attendants, cautiously to reconnoitre, but they could see nothing. When he was left alone again, the summons was repeated, and, sword in hand, he went down to face the unknown. At the gate of the tower stood the headless spectre of Fawdoim, the murdered man. Wallace, in unearthly terror, fled up into the tower, tore open a window, and leaped down fifteen feet to the ground to continue his flight as best he could. Looking back to Gask, he saw the tower on fire, and the form of his victim, dilated to an immense size, standing on the battlements, holding in his hand a blazing rafter.
The system of signals by beacon-fires was common on the Borders. Smugglers and their friends have now become the only remaining heirs to this practice, which was once that in use by the noblest warriors of Gaelic race in either island. The [pg 230] origin of this custom was perfectly lawful; indeed, the Scottish Parliament, in 1445, directed that one bale or beacon-fagot should be warning of the approach of the English in any manner; two bales, that they are coming indeed; four bales blazing beside each other, that the enemy are in great force. A Scotch historian tells us that in later times these beacons consisted of a long and strong tree set up, with a long iron pole across the head of it, and an iron brander fixed on a stalk in the middle of it for holding a tar-barrel.
It was a custom on the Border, and indeed in the Highlands also, for those passing through a great chieftain's domains to repair to the castle in acknowledgment of the chief's authority, explain the purpose of their journey, and receive the hospitality due to their rank. To neglect this was held discourtesy in the great and insolence in the inferior traveller; indeed, so strictly was this etiquette insisted upon by some feudal lords that Lord Oliphaunt is said to have planted guns at his Castle of Newtyle in Angus, so as to command the high-road, and compel all passengers to perform this act of homage. Sir Walter Scott, in his Provincial Antiquities, has hunted up a curious instance of the non fulfilment of this custom. The Lord of Crichtoun Castle, on the Tyne, heard that Scott of Buccleugh was to pass his dwelling on his return from court. A splendid banquet was prepared for the expected guest, who nevertheless rode past the castle, neglecting to pay his duty-visit. Crichtoun was terribly incensed, and pursued the discourteous traveller with a body of horse, made him prisoner, and confined him for the night in the castle dungeon. He and his retainers, meanwhile, feasted on the good cheer that had been provided, and doubtless made many valiant boasts against the imprisoned lord. But with morning cometh prudence. A desperate feud with a powerful clan was not desirable, and such would infallibly have been the result of so rough a proceeding. Indeed, it would have justified the Buccleugh in biting his glove or his thumb—a gesture indicative on the Border of a resolution of mortal revenge for a serious insult. So, to put matters right, Crichtoun not only delivered his prisoner and set him in the place of honor at his board the following day, but himself retired into his own dungeon, where he remained as many hours as his guest had done. This satisfaction was accepted and the feud averted.
The Borderers had a rough, practical kind of symbolism in vogue among them; and, though they were not afraid of calling a spade a spade, yet loved a significant allegory. It is told of one of the marauding chiefs, whose castle was a very robber's den, that his mode of intimating to his retainers that the larder was bare, and that they must ride for a supply of provisions, was the appearance on the table of a pair of clean spurs in a covered dish. Like many brigand chiefs, this Scott of Harden had a wife of surpassing beauty, famed in song as the “Flower of Yarrow.” Some very beautiful pastoral songs are attributed to a young captive, said to have been carried as an infant to this eagle's nest, built on the brink of a dark and precipitous dell. He himself tells the story of how “beauteous Mary, Yarrow's fairest flower, rescued him from the rough troopers who brought him into the courtyard of the castle.”