Notes on Branx/ioime. By \V. Eliott Lockhart. 427 



the castle or towre in such sort as he shal be directed from his warning 

 castle, upon paine of 3s. 4d." 1 



Also by an Act of the Scottish. Council in 1587, the lieges 

 were ordered to 



" Keip watch nyght and day, and burn baillis according to the accoustomat 

 ordour observit at sic tymes upoun the bordouris." 2 



The lighting of the beacons in 1804 on the alarm of invasion, 

 forms an interesting modern instance of this mode of raising the 

 country, and right well was it responded to. 



But few of these old peels or strongholds now remain, their sites 

 even being in many cases only known by the number of names of 

 places ending in castle, town or ton, stead, Chester, grange. 



The Borderers were in those days imbued with a curious 

 mixture of courage and lawlessness, or, as Satchell, in allusion 

 to the Armstrongs, puts it : — 



"Somewhat unruly, and very ill to tame ; 



I would have none think that I call them thieves ; 



For if I did, it would be arrant lies, 



For all Frontiers, and Borders, I observe, 



Wherever they lie, are Freebooters, 



And does the enemy much more harms, 



Than hve thousand marshal-men in arms ; 



The Freebooters venture both life and limb, 



Good-wife, and bairn, and every other thing ; 



He must do so, or else must starve and die ; 



For all his lively -hood comes of the enemie ; 



His substance, being, and his house most tight, 



Yet he may chance to loss all in a night ; 



Being driven to poverty, he must needs a Freebooter be ; 



Near to a Border frontier, in time of war, 

 There ne'er a man but he's a Freebooter." 3 

 Though rough and always ready for the fray, the Borderers 

 were not naturally cruel, and were very rarely guilty of bloodshed, 

 except in actual tight, or in the carrying out of a deadly feud in 

 revenge for the death of a relative or clansman. 1 From their 

 proximity to the Border, their allegiance was at times somewhat 

 loose, and we find them sometimes taking one side and sometimes 

 another. They were in the habit of weai'ing handkerchiefs or 



1 Hist, of Liddisdale, I., p. 77; fr. Laws of Marches, vol. u., f. 142, 

 C.M.S. Record Office. " Ibid. ; Act of Scottish Council, 7th Dec. 1587. 



3 Satchell, Hist, of the name of Scot., p. 8; also Border Minstrelsy, Int. 

 Ixxiv-vi. : Hist, of Liddisdale, p. 67. * Border Minstrelsy, Int. lxxix. 



