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THE reason why the border
never was generally a Scot is chiefly geological: England being a level
country was easily robbed, while southern Scotland, with its hills and
dales, its ravines and morasses, at once rendered the work of spoiling
difficult, and afforded to the native never good hiding and safe
shelter. In the palmy days of freebooting the Borderer was an ideal
robber. Unsurpassed in daring and artifice he was thoroughly respectable
as well—as respectable and even pious as the border yeoman of to-day. It
was reputed of him that he never said his prayers more fervently nor
told his beads with a more devout recurrence, than when his thoughts
were also turned towards a contemplated quest for booty. Nor was the
ardour of his devotions in any degree affected by a secret consciousness
of wrong-doing. He had no such consciousness. lie knew not of hypocrisy.
The intricacies of moral dialectics were beyond his understanding. His
code, if not specially refined or exalted, was neither subtle nor
complicated, and he adhered to it with strict and conscientious loyalty,
lie made no pretence of being aught else than a never. He knew of no
calling or profession to be esteemed so highly; lie could conceive no
prouder ambition than to excel in it.
Originally he was rather
warrior than thief—his booty was spoil from an enemy. Yet he was not an
enthusiastic patriot. In his heart of hearts he may well have cared
nothing for country and king. He had small reason—he owed little to one
or other. When the Southron armies wrought havoc in the Scottish dales
he was left their first prey; he received from country and king neither
defence nor compensation. He had to rely on his own strategy and skill
for safety and subsistence, so that he became a law unto himself and
fought for his own hand. Except for the aid he was only too willing to
render in the wars against England, the border chief claimed entire
independence of action, and he even aspired to a certain joint
sovereignty with the Scottish king. Thus the minstrel of Johnnie
Armstrong :-
"When Johnnie cam before
the king
Wi' a' his men sae brave to see,
The king he movit his bonnet to him,
He weened he was a king as weel as he."
Properly to gauge his
character it must be recognised that circumstances made robbery
compulsory—on other conditions or by other means it was impossible to
live.
"Since in time of war,"
wrote Bishop Leslie, "through invasion of enemies they are brought to
extreme poverty; in time of peace the ground, albeit fertile enough,
they utterly contemn to till, fearing that shortly the wars oppress
them. Wherefore it comes to pass that they seek their meat by stealing
and rieving." In the beginning their victims were chiefly the English;
but, the thieving habit once acquired, they soon came to the conclusion
that it mattered comparatively little whether they thieved from Sonthron
or Scot. In a word, they were Fabians with the courage of their
convictions : they were "persuaded that all the goods of all men in time
of necessity, by the law of Nature, were common to them and others." At
the same time these primitive Socialists were unfretted by that blood
thirst which (theoretically) characterises so many propagandists of
Socialism. They abhorred the shedding of blood except in time of actual
war, and conceived that not even for the necessities of life would they
be justified in the slaughter of Englishman or Scot. They had,
therefore, to substitute skill and sublety for force, and they achieved
such a perfection ill art of thieving as has never perhaps been
paralleled. In their case, indeed, you have a much more striking
illustration of conscientious perS even t1ce and its triumph over
adverse circumstances than any recorded in the irreproachable books of
Dr. Smiles. The adaptation of means to ends was consummate. In its
absolute simplicity of construction—its sagacious regard to essentials
and its rigid rejection of the superfluous—the border peel was a
veritable architectural triumph. The aboriginal peel was wholly Of
earth, and, being completely fireproof, could be destroyed only at the
cost of more Labour than the task was worth. Those of stone—intended
chiefly for defence--were a later invention, the most of them being put
up iii accordance with an Act of 1535, which provided that they should
be "threescore futis of the square, ane eln thick, and six Ones heicht."
The primal peel was not intended for defence, and was absolutely
unfurnished, nothing being left in it either to take or to destroy. c If
they but have a swift horse," says Leslie of the peel- dwellers, "and
whereto they may dress themselves and their wifes, they are not meikle
careful for the rest of the household gear." Even the common domestic
utensils were a-wanting, the only piece resembling a pot or pan being a
"broad Plate of metal" used for baking the oaten. cake. The never grew
no vegetables, nor had he store of ale or wine. His diet, alike at home
and on the march, was veritably Spartan. He boiled his meat in the
paunch of its original wearer; he baked the oaten cake, which served for
vegetables and bread alike, on the "broad plate of metal " slung at his
saddle-bow; yet he cherished no disdain towards milk and cheese if they
were on hand, and for the nonce could dine contentedly on sodden barley.
It was chiefly this rigid simplicity that made him invincible. He
laughed to scorn both Scots attempts at repression and English
endeavours at revenge. When the need-fires warned him of the coming of
armed hosts lie leapt into the saddle, and with his children in front of
him and his wife at his stirrup made off to the hills or to the woods.
If the enemy approached his lair he took to the moss, and led him a
wild-goose chase from which he was lucky if he escaped with a ducking.
Unlike the Highlander, he was always a rider. An absolute knowledge of
every peculiarity of hill and dale and stream far and near was an
essential accomplishment. Having made his way unseen to the near
neighbourhood of a byre or field of cattle he lay in hiding till dark,
seized his booty in the dead of night, and made off with it along a line
of retreat so adroitly contrived that pursuit was well-nigh hopeless.
Thus moral standard was
defective; but he possessed in high perfection many noble and manly
qualities modern business methods are not conspicuously successful in
developing. In bodily hardihood lie was unsurpassed, and none could bear
the "stings and arrows of misfortune' 'with a calmer or more constant
heart. He had also his own code of honour, which was never broken.
Unless in revenge of injury he was guilty of no wanton wrong. To family
and kindred his devotion was undying, and to all—friend or foe—his
promise was inviolate. It may be, too, that his methods were not
inherently more dishonest than many of those tricks of trade the law
winks at and the tame Briton endures. What was best in his mode of life
is mirrored in the spirit, the fire, the wild pathos of the ballads he
inspired; and most assuredly the generous and heroic must have
predominated over the mean and selfish elements in a mode of life which
could inspire such genuine and affecting strains. |
