42G Notes on Branxholme. By W. Eliott Lockhart. 



" Thair castelis and palices ar scheiphouses and luges, quhilkes thay 

 commonlie cal pailes, of qnhais burning thay ar nocht sair solist.. Bot 

 thay far starker do make four nuiked, of earth only quhilke nathir 

 can be brunte, nor wt out a gret force of men of weir, doune can be 

 castne, or wt out sum trauel, with the sueit of thair browis, thir ar 

 thair pailes." 1 



For the same reason very little land could be cultivated, the 

 revenue of the baron or chieftain being derived mainly from his 

 cattle, sheep, and horses, or from the blackmail he was able to 

 exact from his neighbours, being bound in return to protect 

 them from the incursions of others, as well as to assist in re- 

 covering any property stolen from them. 2 



The ordinary mode of signalling was by means of beacon fires 

 on the hill tops. 



On Penchryst glows a bale of fire, 

 And three are kindling on Priesthaughswire, 

 Ride out, ride out, 

 The foe to scout, 

 " Mount, mount for Branksome," every man. 3 



Yonng Gilbert let our Beacon blaze, 



Our kin. and clan, and friends to raise. 4 

 The towers or turrets of the peels,' were also provided with fire 

 pans in which beacon fires were lit up when occasion required ; 

 the signal being taken up, and repeated from one to the 

 other with marvellous rapidhty, so that large numbers could be 

 assembled in an incredibly short space of time. Whitchesters 

 and Groldielands are within view of Branxholme. and the glare 

 from Allanhaugh Peel and Chapel hill, could also have been 

 seen. A regular s} r stem of beacons was established by Act of 

 Parliament by which, even at Edinburgh, the force of an invad- 

 ing army might be known almost as soon as it had crossed the 

 Border." 



In 1570, an order was issued to the. Wardens of the East and 



Middle Marches of England by the Earl of Sussex, as follows : 



" Everie man that hath a castle or a towre of stone shall, upon everie fray 



raysed in the night, give warning to the countrie by fire in the topps of 



1 Leslie's Hist, of Scotland, Part I. Reprint by Scottish Text Society 

 of Father Jas. Dalrymple's trans, from the Latin. 1596, p. 98. 



2 Hist, of Liddisdale, i., p. 68. Border Minstrelsy, Introd. lxxix. 



3 The gathering woi-d of the Scots. 



4 Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto III., xxvii. 



5 Eist. of Liddisdale, i., p. 77. fr. Act Pari. Scot-, vol. n.. p. 44. 



