recover it by the strong hand, or to take gear frae some other Englishmen, providing ye lift nae mair than’s been lifted frae you. That’s the auld Border law made at Dundrennan in the days of the Black Douglas.’” In _Waverley_ the hero suggests “to send to the nearest garrison for a party of soldiers and a magistrate’s warrant,” but is told that “he did not understand the state of the country and of the political parties which divided it” (chap. xv.). The position of this part of the country is best understood from the evidence of legal records, showing how slowly the king’s record ran in these parts. Thus Mr. Clifford (_Hist. of Private Legislation_) quotes from Hodgson’s _Hist. of Northumberland_ (vol. iii. pt. 2, p. 171), a paper, in the Cotton MS., on “The bounds and means of the ’batable land belonging to England and Scotland.” It was written in 1550 by Sir Robert Bowes, a Northumbrian, at the request of the Marquis of Dorset, then Warden General of the Marches, and gives a graphic picture of Border life at that time. The writer describes Cassope bridge as “a common passage for the thieves of Tyndalle, in England, and for the thieves of Liddesdalle, in Scotland, with the stolen goods from one realm to the other.” The head of Tyndalle is a place “where few true men have list to lodge.” North Tyndall “is more plenished with wild and misdemeaned people” than even South Tyndall. The people there “stand most by four surnames,” the Charltons, Robsons, Dodds, and Milbornes. “Of every surname there be sundry families, or graves, as they call them, of every of which there be certain headsmen that leadeth and answereth for all the rest. There be some among them that have never stolen themselves, which they call true men. And yet such will have rascals to steal either on horseback or foot, whom they do reset, and will receive part of the stolen goods. There be very few able men in all that country of North Tyndalle, but either they have used to steal in England or Scotland. And if any true man of England get knowledge of the theft or thieves that steal his goods in Tyndalle or Ryddesdale, he had much rather take a part of his goods again in composition than pursue the extremity by law against the thief. For if the thief be of any great surname or kindred, and be lawfully executed by order of justice, the rest of his kin or surname bear as much malice, which they call deadly feade (feud), against such as follow the law against their cousin the thief, as though he had unlawfully killed him with a sword; and will by all means they can seek revenge thereupon.” At sundry times the dalesmen “have broken out of all order, and have then, like rebels or outlaws, committed very great and heinous attempts, as burning and spoiling of whole townships and murdering of gentlemen and others whom they have had grief or malice unto, so that for defence of them there have been great garrisons laid, and raids and incourses both against them and by them, even as it were