ast asleep,
and could not see me cut the swing; and, besides, it was only a piece of
rope. Keep away--touch me not; I am a free man, and will plead for my
life. Please your honour, I did not murder these two men; I only cut the
rope that fastened their boat to the land. Ha! ha! ha! he has ordered
them away, and they have both left me unskaithed." At this moment
Earnest Beth entered the apartment, and approached the bed. The
miserable old man raised himself on his elbow, and, regarding him with a
horrid stare, shrieked out--"Here is Earnest Beth come for me a second
time!" and, sinking back on the pillow, instantly expired.

THE WHITSOME TRAGEDY.

When our forefathers were compelled to give up the ancient practice of
crossing the Borders, and of seizing and driving home whatever cattle
they could lay their hands upon, without caring or inquiring who might
be their owner--in order to supply their necessities, both as regarded
providing themselves with cattle and with articles of wearing apparel,
they were forced to become buyers or sellers at the annual and other
fairs on both sides of the Border. Hence they had, as we still have, the
fairs of Stagshawbank, Whitsunbank, St. Ninian's, St. James's, and St.
Boswell's; with the fairs of Wooler, Dunse, Chirnside, Swinton, and of
many other towns and villages. Of the latter, several fell into disuse;
and that of Whitsome was discontinued. Whitsome, or White's home, is the
name of a village and small agricultural parish in the Merse, which is
bounded by the parishes of Swinton, Ladykirk, Edrom, and Hutton. Now, as
has been stated, Whitsome, in common with many other villages, enjoyed
the privilege of having held at it an annual fair. But, though the old
practice of lifting cattle, and of every man taking what he could, had
been suppressed, the laws were not able to extinguish the ancient Border
spirit which produced such doings; and, at the annual fairs, it often
broke forth in riot, and terminated in blood. It was in consequence of
one of those scenes, and in order to suppress them, that the people of
Whitsome were deprived of a fair being held there; the particulars
whereof, in the following story, will be unfolded.

About the middle of the seventeenth century, there resided on the banks
of the Till, and a few miles above its junction with the Tweed, a widow
of the name of Barbara Moor. She had had seven sons; but they and her
husband had all fallen in the troubles o