rge class
of mosstroopers, whose calling was to plunder dwellings and to drive
away whole herds of cattle. It was found necessary, soon after the
Restoration, to enact laws of great severity for the prevention of
these outrages. The magistrates of Northumberland and Cumberland were
authorised to raise bands of armed men for the defence of property and
order; and provision was made for meeting the expense of these levies by
local taxation. [33] The parishes were required to keep bloodhounds for
the purpose of hunting the freebooters. Many old men who were living in
the middle of the eighteenth century could well remember the time when
those ferocious dogs were common. [34] Yet, even with such auxiliaries,
it was often found impossible to track the robbers to their retreats
among the hills and morasses. For the geography of that wild country was
very imperfectly known. Even after the accession of George the Third,
the path over the fells from Borrowdale to Ravenglas was still a secret
carefully kept by the dalesmen, some of whom had probably in their youth
escaped from the pursuit of justice by that road. [35] The seats of the
gentry and the larger farmhouses were fortified. Oxen were penned at
night beneath the overhanging battlements of the residence, which was
known by the name of the Peel. The inmates slept with arms at their
sides. Huge stones and boiling water were in readiness to crush and
scald the plunderer who might venture to assail the little garrison. No
traveller ventured into that country without making his will. The Judges
on circuit, with the whole body of barristers, attorneys, clerks, and
serving men, rode on horseback from Newcastle to Carlisle, armed and
escorted by a strong guard under the command of the Sheriffs. It was
necessary to carry provisions; for the country was a wilderness which
afforded no supplies. The spot where the cavalcade halted to dine, under
an immense oak, is not yet forgotten. The irregular vigour with which
criminal justice was administered shocked observers whose lives had been
passed in more tranquil districts. Juries, animated by hatred and by a
sense of common danger, convicted housebreakers and cattle stealers with
the promptitude of a court martial in a mutiny; and the convicts were
hurried by scores to the gallows. [36] Within the memory of some whom
this generation has seen, the sportsman who wandered in pursuit of game
to the sources of the Tyne found the heaths round Ke