determined to "bide their time."
Twenty-six long years had come and gone, and one day as the laird of
Buccleuch was passing along one of the streets of Edinburgh, little
suspecting the fate which awaited him, he was fatally stabbed by the
descendant of Cessford. The Borderers had many faults, but certainly they
cannot be charged with having had short memories!

But a still more striking illustration of the disastrous consequences of
the deadly feud is to be found in the case of the Johnstones and Maxwells,
two of the most prominent and powerful families in Dumfriesshire. These
two families were strong enough, had they been united, to have kept the
whole district in good order; but unfortunately they were often at feud,
with the result that not only their own interests, but the interests of
the community as a whole, were ruthlessly sacrificed. It is worthy of note
that one of the principal causes of the frequent and disastrous feuds
between the representatives of the two families, was the frequency with
which the office of warden was conferred, first on the one, and then on
the other, without any good reason being assigned by the King for the
adoption of this shuttle-cock policy. This office was naturally much
coveted, as it was not only a source of revenue, which in those days was a
most important consideration, but a condition of influence and power. It
must, therefore, have been peculiarly irritating for the warden to be
summarily called upon to resign his office almost before he had begun to
reap the rewards pertaining to it. And when he saw his rival basking in
the sunshine of the royal favour, from which he had been suddenly and
capriciously excluded, his feelings may be more easily imagined than
described. Nor did it greatly tend to soothe his wounded feelings to
reflect that the person by whom he had been superseded would be certain
before long to be hurled from his proud eminence and another put in his
place. The whole system was pernicious, and was the source of no end of
mischief and bad blood.

The origin of this famous feud may be briefly related. John, seventh Lord
Maxwell, has been well described as one of those men whom a daring and
restless temperament and their crimes "have damned to eternal fame." After
the death of the Regent Morton, he succeeded in securing a charter to the
Earldom of Morton--his mother, Lady Beatrix Douglas, being the Regent's
second daughter. It was not his good fortune, however, t