#Border-farmer#: one who lived on the border between
Scotland and England.

[12] #Moss-troopers#: so called from the mosses or bogs on the
border; plunderers who infested the border. They sometimes
summoned the farmers to open the doors of their "holds"
(fortified houses), to them.

"Open, Martin, old boy--it's only I, Tom Brown."

"Oh, very well, stop a moment." One bolt went back. "You're sure East
isn't there?"

"No, no, hang it, open." Tom gave a kick, the other bolt creaked, and
he entered the den.

Den indeed it was, about five feet six inches long by five wide, and
seven feet high. About six tattered schoolbooks, and a few chemical
books, taxidermy,[13] Stanley on Birds, and an odd volume of
Bewick,[14] the latter in much better preservation, occupied the top
shelves. The other shelves, where they had not been cut away and used
by the owner for other purposes, were fitted up for the abiding-places
of birds, beasts and reptiles. There was no attempt at carpet or
curtain. The table was entirely occupied by the great work of Martin,
the electric machine, which was covered carefully with the remains of
his table-cloths. The jackdaw cage occupied one wall, and the other
was adorned by a small hatchet, a pair of climbing-irons, and his tin
candle-box, in which he was for the time being endeavoring to raise a
hopeful young family of field-mice. As nothing should be let to lie
useless, it was well that the candle-box was thus occupied, for
candles Martin never had. A pound was issued to him weekly as to
the other boys, but as candles were available capital, and easily
exchangeable for birds' eggs or young birds, Martin's pound invariably
found its way in a few hours to Howlett, the bird-fancier's,[15] in
the Bilton road, who could give a hawk's or nightingale's egg or young
linnet in exchange. Martin's ingenuity was therefore forever on the
rack to supply himself with a light; just now he had hit upon a grand
invention, and the den was lighted by a flaring cotton-wick issuing
from a ginger-beer bottle full of some doleful composition. When light
altogether failed him, Martin would loaf about by the fires in the
passages or Hall, after the manner of Diggs, and try to do his verses
or learn his lines by the fire-light.

[13] #Taxidermy#: the art of stuffing the skins of animals.

[14] #Bewick#: an English artist distinguished for wood
engraving. His most famous work was a "History