onsiderable
period, even after the lower storey had been taken possession of by the
enemy. In such circumstances the usual device was for the assailants to
heap together quantities of wetted straw, and set fire to it in order to
drive the defenders from storey to storey, and thus compel them to
surrender.

"In each village or town," says Sir Walter Scott, "were several small
towers having battlements projecting over the side walls, and usually an
advanced angle or two, with shot-holes for flanking the doorway, which was
always defended by a strong door of oak, studded with nails, and often by
an interior door of iron. These small peel-houses were ordinarily
inhabited by the principal feuars and their families. Upon the alarm of
approaching danger, the whole inhabitants thronged from their miserable
cottages, which were situated around, to garrison these places of
defence. It was then no easy matter for an hostile party to penetrate into
the village, for the men were habituated to the use of bow and fire-arms;
and the towers being generally so placed that the discharge from one
crossed that from another, it was impossible to assault any of them
individually."

In the middle of the sixteenth century there were no fewer than sixteen of
these bastel-houses in the village of Lessudden, a fact which shows that
the inhabitants of the Border were compelled to live under somewhat
peculiar conditions. To follow the ordinary occupations of life was, in
most cases, all but impossible.

One of the most important strongholds on the Borders was Hermitage, a
well-built castle, placed near the watershed, on the banks of a
swift-flowing mountain stream--the Hermitage water, which joins the Liddle
a little above the village of Newcastleton. This famous Border tower was
built and fortified by Walter, Earl of Menteith, in the beginning of the
thirteenth century. It was a royal fortress, built and maintained for the
defence of the Kingdom. Numerous interesting associations cluster around
its mouldering walls. It has, unhappily, been the scene of many a
blood-curdling tragedy. Could its massive walls only recount the deeds
which have been done under their shadow, they would many a strange tale
unfold. Hermitage was long associated with the name of Lord Soulis, a
fiend in human form, whose crimes have been painted in blackest hues, and
to whom tradition has ascribed almost every conceivable kind and degree of
wickedness. He seems, at least,