DECEMBER 309 



when it is read in connection with three centuries 

 of war waged between England and Scotland. The 

 revenues of landowners were then exceedingly pre- 

 carious: rents at the best of times were paid almost 

 wholly in kind, and when produce and stock of all 

 sorts had been destroyed or 'lifted' by an invading 

 army, the lairds had to indemnify themselves somehow. 

 The most sporting and popular experience was to way- 

 lay or capture from the enemy some opulent baron 

 and hold him to ransom. I must guard the reader 

 from inferring that this was the only use of the fetters ; 

 but it was one. 



The same idea is more naively and modestly conveyed 

 in the motto of the ancient Border family of Riddell, 

 ' I hope to share.' 



Crossing the Border, one finds the great house of 

 Percy also 'hoping.' They were content during the 

 troubled fourteenth century with the bland ejaculation 

 ' Esp^rance.' But before the seventh Earl had followed 

 his father to the scaifold in 1572, this motto had been 

 amplified into 'Esp^rance en Dieu,' an exemplary 

 sentiment, in good sooth, and perhaps it is ungenerous 

 to make any sinister inference from the constant 

 association of the original ' Esp6rance ' with the well- 

 known Percy badge — a fair crescent enclosing, on a 

 ground half blood-red and half sable, a golden fetter- 

 lock, surely a fitting hieroglyphic for midnight raiding. 



The mention of a crescent reminds one that, to this 

 day, the full moon is known on Loch Lomondside as 

 ' Macfarlane's Lantern,' reminiscent of the nocturnal 

 activity of that most acquisitive sept, whereof the chief 



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