Because our warning was not wide." But it was a turbulent band, one would think, and not easy of control. Forster had at his back Fenwicks--"five hundred Fenwicks in a flock," says the ballad,--Shaftoes, Collingwoods, and other of the great English Border families, the men from Hexham and thereabout, and many of the fiercest fighters of Redesdale and Tynedale, the two latter said to be then the most lawless people of the North of England. Indeed, their reputation was so evil that the merchants of Newcastle passed a by-law in the year 1564 that no apprentices should be taken "proceeding from such leude and wicked progenitors."; Thus it may be seen that both nations were strongly represented, and that on both sides there was superabundance of most inflammable material waiting but for a spark to set it ablaze. In most promising and peaceful fashion, however, the proceedings opened: "Yett was our meeting meek eneugh; Begun wi' merriment and mowes. Some gaed to drink, and some stude still, And some to cards and dice them sped." And all went smoothly and well, till the case of one Robson, a notorious Redesdale horse and cattle-thief, came up for discussion. The Scottish warden, following the usual Border custom in such cases, demanded that the culprit, having been guilty of theft on the northern side of the March, should be given into Scottish custody till such time as reparation be made to the parties robbed by the Redesdale man. Sir John Forster demurred, giving as his reason for evading the usual practice in such cases, that Robson had fled and could not be captured. "Oh! Play fair!" cried Carmichael contemptuously. Whereupon Forster not unnaturally lost his temper, and made a fierce and insulting reply. Hot words leapt from angry lips, and {146}swords, which in those days were never long idle, began to flash in the warm sunshine as they left the scabbards. And then the Tynedale men--"Fy, Tyndale, to it!"--eager to take time by the forelock, and determined not to stand out of what fray might be going, loosed off a flight of arrows among the Scots. And all the fat was in the fire. Like fiercest wolves, the two sides flew at each other's throats, trampling over the heathery ground, cursing, slashing, stabbing.