Various expedients were resorted to in order to terminate the feuds which prevailed. A common method was to get the Chiefs and Chieftains of the opposing clans to subscribe what were called "bonds of assurance." There can be no doubt that this might often have proved a most effective measure, had the parties concerned only been willing to let bygones be bygones. But it was found that the old sores were not easily healed. Despite the utmost precautions, animosities which had been suppressed for a time--kept as it were in abeyance--would assert themselves in a most unexpected manner, and with redoubled force, and create a still more distracting condition of affairs. Prior to the Reformation, feuds were sometimes terminated by an appeal to the religious sensibilities of the persons more immediately concerned. They were induced to make pilgrimages to noted shrines--the shrine of St. Ninian being a favourite resort--where, under the influence of religious thoughts and feelings, they might be induced to take a more kindly view of those with whom they were at feud, and make some reparation for the injury they had inflicted. How far this method succeeded it is difficult to determine, but the likelihood is that it was quite as effective as any other. Among the Chiefs, or clans, feuds were sometimes brought to an end by a contract of marriage between a leading gentleman of one clan and a daughter of the principal house of the other. This was the plan adopted by the Scotts and Kers, and which, after some vexatious delays, proved entirely successful. But if it was found that none of the above methods of terminating the feud could be conveniently applied, then resort was had, as has already been hinted, to still simpler means. An atonement was made by the payment of a sum of money called "assythment," which was sometimes found sufficient to restore good feeling, and bring together in a spirit of amity families that had been at feud with each other. But these and other means of putting an end to the feud proved, perhaps, in the majority of cases, of little or no avail. The parties concerned preferred, generally, to fight it out to the bitter end, utterly indifferent to consequences. VIII. THE THIEVES DAUNTONED. "Revenge! revenge! auld Wat 'gan cry; Fye, lads, lay on them cruellie! We'll ne'er see Teviotside again, Or Willie's death revenged sall be." The intermittent and ineffective manner in which the law was generally administered on the Borders was the occasion, if not the cause, of much of the turbulence and lawlessness which prevailed. The Border thieves were now and then placed under the most rigid surveillance, and their misdeeds visited with condign punishment; but for the most part they were left to work out their own sweet will, none daring to make them afraid.