ill live to strike
another blow at the Bairds, yet.

"Now, Oswald, unbuckle my harness. Your mother will bandage up my arm
and head, and Elspeth shall bring up a full tankard from below, for
each of us. A draught of beer will do as much good as all the salves
and medicaments.

"Do you take the first drink, Jock Samlen, and then go up to the
watchtower. I see the men have been posted in the wall turrets. One of
them shall relieve you, shortly."

As soon as the wounds were dressed, bowls of porridge were served
round; then one of the men who had remained at home was posted at the
lookout; and, after the cattle had been seen to, all who had been on
the road stretched themselves on some rushes at one end of the room,
and were, in a few minutes, sound asleep.

"I wonder whether we shall ever have peace in the land, Oswald," his
mother said with a sigh; as, having seen that the women had all in
readiness for the preparation of the midday meal, she sat down on a low
stool, by his side.

"I don't see how we ever can have, Mother, until either we conquer
Scotland, or the Scotch shall be our masters. It is not our fault. They
are ever raiding and plundering, and heed not the orders of Douglas, or
the other Lords of the Marches."

"We are almost as bad as they are, Oswald."

"Nay, Mother, we do but try to take back our own; as father well said,
the cattle that were brought in are all English, that have been taken
from us by the Bairds; and we do but pay them back in their own coin.
It makes but little difference whether we are at war or peace. These
reiving caterans are ever on the move. It was but last week that Adam
Gordon and his bands wasted Tynedale, as far as Bellingham; and carried
off, they say, two thousand head of cattle, and slew many of the
people. If we did not cross the border sometimes, and give them a
lesson, they would become so bold that there would be no limit to their
raids."

"That is all true enough, Oswald, but it is hard that we should always
require to be on the watch, and that no one within forty miles of the
border can, at any time, go to sleep with the surety that he will not,
ere morning, hear the raiders knocking at his gate."

"Methinks that it would be dull, were there nought to do but to look
after the cattle," Oswald replied.

It seemed to him, bred up as he had been amid constant forays and
excitements, that the state of things was a normal one; and that it was
natural that a man sh