SET in midst of these steep and twisting roads and above these watery ravines is Cockburnspath Tower, a ruined Border castle of rust-red stone that frowns down upon the road on the edge of a tremendous gully. It was never more than a peel-tower, but strongly placed and solidly built, a fitting refuge for those who took part in the ups and downs of Border forays. In the days when Co’path Tower (local pronunciation) was built, every one’s house was more or less a defensible building. “An Englishman’s house is his castle” is a figurative expression commonly used to prefigure the inviolate character of the law-abiding citizen’s domicile, but it might have been said literally of dwellers in these debateable lands. The more property he possessed, the stronger was the Border farmer’s tower. When the moss-troopers and mediæval scoundrels of every description were on the warpath, or merely out on a cattle-lifting expedition, these embattled agriculturists shut themselves up in their safe retreats. The lower floor, on a level with the ground, received the live stock; the floor above, the servants; and to the topmost story, as the safest situation, the family retired. The gate below was of iron, for your Border reiver was no squeamish sort, and would burn these domestic garrisons alive without hesitation. Therefore in the most approved type of fortress there was nothing inflammable. Sympathy, however, would be wasted on those old-time cultivators, for they all took a turn at armed cattle-lifting as occasion offered, and found the readiest way of stocking their farms with every requisite to be that of stealing what they required. For why? Because the good old rule Sufficeth them: the simple plan That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can. Short and sudden forays were characteristic of this kind of life. The Border cattle-lifter came and went in the twinkling of an eye, and drove the captured flocks and herds away with him at a rate no merely honest drover ever marshalled his sheep and heifers to market. There must have been many highly desirable, but inanimate and not easily portable, things which the raiders were obliged to leave behind, as one of this kidney regretted in casting a last glance at a hayrick he had no means of lifting. “Had ye but four feet, ye suld no stand lang there,” said he, as he turned to go.