254 ANTLERS 



the indifference, amounting in many cases to prejudice, 

 of the non-sporting public in regard to yenison, once 

 esteemed par excellence the dish to set before a king. 

 But kings in the olden time thought more of bodies 

 than heads ; they did not wait for the velvet to be off 

 the horn, nor put off killing the stags till the approach 

 of the rutting made their flesh rank and unsavoury. 

 Thus it was in the month of June 1530, that young 

 James v. of Scotland rode up Yarrow with a great 

 company of hunters into Meggatdale and there, accord- 

 ing to Pitscottie, slew eighteen score of harts with the 

 velvet thick and tender on their young horns, besides 

 all manner of small game taken with hawks. 



But King James was out after nobler game than 

 red deer and moorfowl on that occasion ; and, if the 

 memorial tablet at Carlenrig be not a slander on his 

 honour, he treated some of his own subjects in a 

 mannerless sportsmanlike than he did the summer stags 

 on Meggat Water. The young king (he was just eighteen) 

 had set out with the purpose of suppressing the bandit 

 clans on the Border and in the Debateable Land. He 

 took the prudent preliminary course of arresting and 

 committing to ward those powerful personages to 

 whom he was entitled to look for maintaining order 

 in those districts, namely, the Wardens of the East, 

 Middle, and West Marches, the Lords Home, Bothwell, 

 and Maxwell, together with several other barons, who, 

 says Sir James Balfour, had ' winked at the willanies ' 

 of the Armstrongs and their like. The tradition runs 

 strong that the King, on entering Teviotdale, promised 

 a free pardon to all broken men who would come in to 



