fter, was a formality that
might often have been dispensed with, as the evidence submitted was seldom
carefully sifted, or weighed. To be suspected, or accused, was regarded as
almost tantamount to a plea of guilty. Such a method as this would hardly
pass muster in our modern and more finical age; still it is probable that
substantial justice was usually done. If those who were condemned were not
always guilty of the particular crimes laid to their charge, their general
record was sufficiently bad to warrant their being thus summarily dealt
with.

There was, moreover, a practical difficulty in the way of minute
investigation being made into each individual case. The number of those
accused of various offences under the Border laws was often so great as to
render an investigation of this kind all but impossible. There were few
places of strength where prisoners could be retained in order to await
their trial, and so it became necessary to deal with them as expeditiously
as possible. "The Borderers," it has been said, "were accustomed to part
with life with as little form as civilized men change their garments."

The mode of punishment was either by hanging or drowning. "Drowning," says
Sir Walter Scott, "is a very old mode of punishment in Scotland, and in
Galloway there were pits of great depth appropriated to that punishment
still called murder-holes, out of which human bones have occasionally been
taken in great quantities. This points out the proper interpretation of
the right of 'pit and gallows' (in law Latin, _fossa et furca_), which
has, less probably, been supposed the right of imprisoning in the pit or
dungeon, and that of hanging. But the meanest baron possessed the right of
imprisonment. The real meaning is, the right of inflicting death either
by hanging or drowning."[36]

But the warden had other duties to discharge of a still more important
nature than those already described. In time of war he was captain-general
within his own wardenry, and was invested with the power of calling
musters of all the able-bodied men between the age of sixteen and sixty.
These men were suitably armed and mounted according to their rank and
condition, and were expected to be ready either to defend their territory
against invasion, or, if necessary, to invade the enemy's country. The
ancient rights and customs which the warden was expected to observe on
such occasion have been thus summarised:--

"I. All intercourse with th