n all their gear,
Could not his valiant noble heart make fear:
But wi' his sword, he cut the foremost's soam
In two; and drove baith pleughs and pleughmen home.
1620.

_Soam_ means the iron links, which fasten a yoke of oxen to the
plough.]

The same simplicity marked their dress and arms. Patten observes,
that in battle the laird could not be distinguished from the serf: all
wearing the same coat armour, called a jack, and the baron being
only distinguished by his sleeves of mail, and his head-piece. The
borderers, in general, acted as light cavalry; riding horses of a
small size, but astonishingly nimble, and trained to move, by short
bounds, through the morasses with which Scotland abounds. Their
offensive weapons were, a lance of uncommon length; a sword, either
two-handed, or of the modern light size; sometimes a species of
battle-axe, called a Jedburgh-staff; and, latterly, dags, or pistols.
Although so much accustomed to act on horseback, that they held it
even mean to appear otherwise, the marchmen occasionally acted as
infantry; nor were they inferior to the rest of Scotland in forming
that impenetrable phalanx of spears, whereof it is said, by an English
historian, that "sooner shall a bare finger pierce through the skin of
an angry hedge-hog, than any one encounter the brunt of their pikes."
At the battle of Melrose, for example, Buccleuch's army fought upon
foot. But the habits of the borderers fitted them particularly
to distinguish themselves as light cavalry; and hence the name of
_prickers and hobylers_, so frequently applied to them. At the
blaze of their beacon fires, they were wont to assemble ten thousand
horsemen in the course of a single day. Thus rapid in their warlike
preparations, they were alike ready for attack and defence. Each
individual carried his own provisions, consisting of a small bag of
oatmeal, and trusted to plunder, or the chace, for ekeing out his
precarious meal. Beauge remarks, that nothing surprised the Scottish
cavalry so much as to see their French auxiliaries encumbered with
baggage-waggons, and attended by commissaries. Before joining battle,
it seems to have been the Scottish practice to set fire to the litter
of their camp, while, under cover of the smoke, the _hobylers_, or
border cavalry, executed their manoeuvres.--There is a curious account
of the battle of Mitton, fought in the year 1319, in a valuable MS.
_Chronicle of England_, in the collection of the