6 Life and Times of " The Druid." 



were regarded as honest and respectable pro- 

 fessions. The women were as bad as the 

 men, and the Scotch gudewife who re- 

 minded her sons when they sat down to 

 dinner that the last fat sheep was in the pot, 

 and that if they wanted something to eat 

 next day they must go and fetch it, was more 

 than matched by the Cumberland matron, 

 who served up three pairs of spurs in a dish, 

 from which she pulled off the cover, exclaim- 

 ing to her husband and her two sons that as 

 she had no meat for them to eat, it was time 

 for them to buckle on their spurs and go 

 forth to seek some. 



Between the two countries there was a 

 long strip called the Debatable Land, which 

 lay to the north of Carlisle, between the 

 rivers Esk and Sark. It belonged neither 

 to England nor Scotland, and was infested 

 by thieves, outlaws and " reivers " from 

 both, to whom its boggy and mossy surface 

 afforded a safe sanctuary. These despera- 

 does had, as Camden says, " no measure 

 of law save the length of their swords ; " 

 and when caught alive, which was seldom the 

 case, they met promptly with Jedburgh, or 



