into the terrified animals with musketry. It is scarcely the method best suited to calm a maddened mob of horses; little wonder that many in their helpless terror plunged over the great "scaurs," or cliffs, that near the town overhang Jedwater, and were dashed to pieces. In his letter of 27th September, to Henry VIII, Surrey thus describes the incident: "And he [Lord Dacre] being with me at souper, about viij a clok, the horses of his company brak lowse, and sodenly ran out of his feld, in such nombre, that it caused a marvellous alarome in our field; and our standing watche being set, the horses cam ronnyng along the campe, at whome were shot above one hundred shief of arrowes, and dyvers gonnys, thinking they had been Scotes that wold have saulted the camp; fynally, the horses w'ere so madde that they ran like wilde dere into the feld, above xv c at the leest, in dyvers companys; and in one place above felle downe a gret rok, and slew theymself, and above it ran into the towne being on fire, and by the women taken, and carried awaye right evill brent, and many were taken agayne. But, fynally, by that I can esteme by the nombre of theym that I sawe goe on foote the next daye, I think there is lost above viij c horses, and all with foly for lak of not lying within the campe." {100}So, for a time, Jedburgh perished. But the recuperative power of settlements in those days was great--like the eels, they were used to the process of skinning--and in no long time a rejuvenated township sprang from the ashes of the old burgh. When Surrey gave orders that the towers should be "throwen downe," possibly his commands were not obeyed to the letter. In a district where a plentiful supply of stone is not lack ing, doubtless these defending towers would be massive buildings constructed of that material, run together--as was the custom in those days--with a semi-liquid mortar, or kind of cement, which, when it hardened, bound the entire mass into a solid block that clung stone to stone with extraordinary tenacity. Probably the towers may not have been so "clenely destroyed" as he supposed them to be. In any case, in twenty years' time the place was again formidable, its men as prone as had been their fathers to shout the old battle-cry of "Jethart's here," and fly at the throat of their hereditary foe.