Now it was left for us to know something more of the old peel tower in addition to what history tells. The traveller by the Tweed cannot fail to observe the old peel, as it raises its grey head over the houses of the village of Darnick, a little to the west of Melrose. The real antiquary will turn from Abbotsford to examine it, and to admire its wonderful preservation, after so many years' exposure to the devastations of time and war. It is many a long day since a gallant member of the house fell, as "one of the Flowers of the Forest," in the battle of Flodden; or since another fought against the bold Buccleugh in the fight with Angus, in the very precincts of the tower; or since another Heiton, or De Heyton, as he was called, got the charter to the lands from Queen Mary and Darnley; yet, dating from the last of these periods, and we know for certain the strength then existed, we are left to admire the old representative of defence against foray, as a kind of contrast to the modern effort of the Great Unknown, so like an old-new worm-eaten charter written in vellum, worm-eaten while on the sheep's back--at least not so ancient as the skin of the goat which suckled Jove! But to proceed with our legend of Darnick: It happened some time about the year 1526 that Andrew Heiton was sitting in his tower of Darnick, thinking of the strange things doing in Scotland at that time, which was the Augustan Era of the Borderers. Scott of Buccleugh had risen from the condition of a riever, and would have been a right poor clan, as the ballad says, if every honest man on the Borders had had his own cow. The Homes and the Kers had also risen into great power, and the Elliots, through the greatness of the Scotts, stood second in the ranks of these sturdy champions of might against right. All was tumult south of the Tweed, but it was not of the old foraying kind simply, when cattle made hatred, and hatred made war, when a Cockburn was against a Tushielaw, an Elibank against a Harden, an Elliot against a Ker, only because, some twenty years before that, a heifer or a sheep had chanced to change its ownership. When the king was strong, the Borderers sometimes made a virtue of necessity, and leagued together to save their necks; but, strange enough, this brotherhood never stopped their depredations upon one another's property. These were a necessity, a kind of birthright, and being inevitable, and born with them, and ingrained to the very marrow, they were looked upon in a jolly kind of way, even by the losers, because they knew they would have better luck next time. The only difference was, that, when the king was weak, or the crown in minority, their depredations got a wider scope. The quiet proprietors then came in for their contribution, and in reward for this, the greater rievers were grateful enough to do a good act for their sovereign in their own way, but only if he kept out of their province, and did not interfere with their feuds. In truth, the