rned
preferred, generally, to fight it out to the bitter end, utterly
indifferent to consequences.

VIII.

THE THIEVES DAUNTONED.

"Revenge! revenge! auld Wat 'gan cry;
Fye, lads, lay on them cruellie!
We'll ne'er see Teviotside again,
Or Willie's death revenged sall be."

The intermittent and ineffective manner in which the law was generally
administered on the Borders was the occasion, if not the cause, of much of
the turbulence and lawlessness which prevailed. The Border thieves were
now and then placed under the most rigid surveillance, and their misdeeds
visited with condign punishment; but for the most part they were left to
work out their own sweet will, none daring to make them afraid.

This method of treatment could not be expected to produce beneficial
results. It had exactly the opposite effect. Respect for the law was
completely destroyed. Those who were called upon, as the phrase goes, "to
underlie the law," had no sense of shame when their wrongdoing was brought
home to them. They no doubt felt the inconvenience of being punished, by
fine or imprisonment, for their misdeeds; but there was no moral stigma
attaching to imprisonment, or to almost any other form of punishment.
That a man's father had been hanged for cattle-stealing, or for the
slaughter of those who had dared to resist him when he went on a foraging
expedition, might engender a feeling of resentment, but it was not in the
least likely to create a feeling of shame. Such incidents as these were
regarded with philosophical indifference. We remember once hearing a
distinguished Borderer remark that the ancient history of nearly all the
great Border families had been faithfully chronicled in "Pitcairn's
Criminal Trials!" A careful study of that interesting and valuable
compilation will go far to corroborate the remark. The "Family Tree" is a
phrase which has an altogether peculiar significance on the Borders. It
suggests ideas and reflections which are not usually associated with
genealogy.

But when all has been said on this phase of the question which either envy
or malice can suggest, every sympathetic and well-informed student of
Border history will readily admit that the Borderers, bad as they were,
were really more sinned against than sinning. Carlyle has somewhere
remarked that a man's first _right_ is to be well governed. It is,
perhaps, unusual to regard our rights from this point of view, yet there
can be no d