I have had occasion to refer to Border faith. In 1569 the Earl of Northumberland was implicated in a rising against Elizabeth. Fleeing north, he took refuge with an Armstrong, Hector of Harelaw, who sold him to the Regent Murray. Harelaw’s name became a byword and a reproach. He died despised and neglected; and “to take Hector’s cloak” was an imputation of treachery years after the original story had faded. Thus, in Marchland the deadliest insult against a man was to say that he had broken faith. The insult was given in a very formal and deliberate manner, called a Baugle. The aggrieved party procured the glove or picture of the traitor, and whenever there was a meeting (a Day of Trace was too favourable an opportunity to be neglected) he gave notice of the breach of faith to friend and foe, with blast of the horn and loud cries. The man insulted must give him the lie in his throat, and a deadly combat ensued. The Laws of the Marches attempted to substitute the remedy by bill, that the matter might not “goe to the extremyte of a baughle,” or where that was impossible, to fix rules for the thing itself. Or, the Wardens were advised to attend, with less than a hundred of retinue, to prevent “Brawling, buklinge, quarrelinge, and bloodshed.” Such things were a fruitful source of what a Scots Act termed “the heathenish and barbarous custom of Deadly Feud.” When one slew his fellow under unfair conditions, the game of revenge went see-sawing on for generations. The Border legislators had many ingenious devices to quench such strife. A Warden might order a man complained of to sign in solemn form a renunciation of his feud; and if he refused, he was delivered to the opposite Warden till he consented. In pre-Reformation days the church did something by enjoining prayer and pilgrimage. A sum of money (Assythement) now and again settled old scores; or there might be a treaty of peace cemented by marriage. Sometimes, again, there was a fight by permission of the Sovereign. (_Cf._ the parallel case of the clan-duel in the _Fair Maid of Perth_.) Still, prearranged single combats, duels in fact, were frequent on the Border. Turner, or Turnie Holme, at the junction of the Kirshope and Liddel, was a favourite spot for them.