story of Border reiving it may appear, on the
first glance, somewhat inexplicable that in those districts where the
system was most deeply rooted there should now be found one of the most
orderly and law-abiding communities in the country. The old leaven, it
would seem, has worked itself out, and that, too, with a rapidity and
thoroughness which some may find difficult to reconcile with the modern
doctrine of heredity. The laws of evolution, whether in the physical or
social sphere, may operate with the precision and certainty of destiny,
but the changes effected are brought about slowly, and with well-graded
regularity. No doubt fifty or a hundred years is a considerable period
measured by the standard of the individual life, but it is a brief term in
the history of a nation or people. While considerable changes may take
place in the course of a century, yet these are often of a more or less
superficial character, affecting only to a limited extent the thoughts,
habits, and customs of a community. In the present instance, however, the
changes which took place in the life of the Border clans seem to have been
as thorough as they were rapid. In a comparatively short time the Borders,
from being one of the most lawless and disorderly districts in the
country, became an example to both kingdoms in honesty, sobriety, and true
patriotism. Such epithets as "brutal Borderers" and "lewd Liddesdales," so
freely banded about in earlier times, especially by the English wardens,
speedily lost their significance. Those lawless reivers, whom neither
warden nor king could effectively control, were not difficult to induce,
when the proper time came, to turn their swords into ploughshares and
their spears into pruning hooks, and to settle down to a well-ordered,
industrious, and peaceful mode of life. This phenomenon may doubtless be
accounted for on purely natural principles. The explanation, indeed, is
not difficult to discover. As we have already seen, the worst characters,
the "broken men"--those who had no chiefs who could be made responsible
for their good behaviour--were expatriated--sent to Holland and
elsewhere--and consequently ceased to give further trouble. And it may be
said in regard to those who remained that while they had spent the best
part of their lives in appropriating the goods and chattels of their
English neighbours, they were not by any means the depraved and degraded
wretches they have so often been described. Far