The warfare which they carried on was not honest fighting so much as something that sounds to us very much like stealing; only in these old plundering, or "reiving" days, as they were called, people were not very particular about other people's property, and right was often decided by might. So when these old Border chieftains found that their larders were getting empty, they sent messages around the countryside to their retainers, telling them to meet them that night at some secret trysting-place, and ride with them into England to steal some English yeoman's flock of sheep.
In the darkness, groups of men, mounted on rough, shaggy ponies, would assemble at some lonely spot among the hills and ride stealthily into Cumberland or Northumberland, and surround some Englishman's little flock of sheep, or herd of cattle, and drive them off, setting fire, perhaps, to his cottage and haystacks at the same time.
The Englishman might be unable to retaliate at the moment, but no sooner were the reivers' backs turned than he betook himself with all haste to his chieftain, who, in his turn, gathered his men together, and rode over into Scotland to take vengeance, and, if possible, bring back with him a larger drove of sheep and cattle than had been stolen, or "lifted", by the Scotch.
And so things went merrily on, with raids and counter-raids, and fierce little encounters, and brave men slain. You can read the accounts of many of these raids in Sir Walter Scott's "Border Minstrelsy"—about "Kinmont Willie," "Dick o' the Cow," "Jamie Telfer of the Fair Dodhead," "Johnnie Armstrong," and "the Raid of the Reidswire"—and if you ever chance to be traveling between Hawick and Carlisle you can look out of the window, as the train carries you swiftly down Liddesdale, and people the hillsides, in your imagination, with companies of reivers setting out to harry their "auld enemies", the English.
—From "A Peep at Scotland",
by Elizabeth Grierson.
Questions
1. What were the "Borders"?
2. From the way they are used, tell what you think the following words mean: "reiving," larders, retainers, clan, trysting-place, yeoman, retaliate, "lifted," harry.