‘There was an old game called “cradles” played in those days. Two or three persons clasp each other’s hands, and when their arms are held straight out at full length, a person is placed on these stretched hands, who is sent up in the air and down again, landing where he started from. A farmer thought he would try the experiment on the Frenchmen. Some buxom lassies were at work as some of them passed, and he gave the girls the hint to treat the foreigners to the “cradles”. Accordingly two of them were jerked well up in the air to fall again on the sturdy hands of the wenches. The experiment was repeated again and again until the Frenchmen were glad to call a halt.’ Parole-breaking was rather common, and began some months after the officers arrived in the town. A party of five set out for Blyth in September 1811, but were brought to Berwick under a military escort, and lodged in jail. Next day they were marched to Penicuik under charge of a party of the Forfarshire Militia. Three of them were good-looking young men; one in particular had a very interesting countenance, and, wishing one day to extend his walk, in order to get some watercress for salad, beyond the limit of the one-mile stone, uprooted it, and carried it in his arms as far as he wished to go. Three other officers were captured the same year, and sent to Edinburgh Castle, and in 1813 occurred the escape and capture to be described later (p. 388). The highest number of prisoners at Jedburgh was 130, and there were three deaths during their stay. HAWICK I owe my best thanks to Mr. J. John Vernon, hon. secretary of the Hawick Archaeological Society, for the following note on Hawick: ‘Not many of Napoleon’s officers were men of means, so to the small allowance they received from the British Government, they were permitted to eke out their income by teaching, sketching, or painting, or by making little trifles which they disposed of as best they could among the townspeople. At other times they made a little money by giving musical and dramatic entertainments, which proved a source of enjoyment to the audience and of profit to themselves. ‘Though “prisoners”, they had a considerable freedom, being allowed to go about as they pleased anywhere within a radius of a mile from the Tower Knowe. During their residence in Hawick they became very popular among all classes of the people and much regret was expressed when the time came for their returning to the Continent. Hawick society was decidedly the poorer by their departure. Paradoxical it may seem, but most of those who were termed “French Prisoners” were in reality of German extraction: Fifteen of their number became members of the Freemasons, St. John’s Lodge, No. 111. They were lodged in private houses throughout the towns. No. 44 High Street was the residence of a number of them, who dwelt in it from June 1812 to June 1814.’ Speaking of Freemasonry in Hawick, Mr. W. Fred Vernon says: