from it. These men for the
most part believed, rightly or wrongly, that in despoiling and harassing
their English neighbours they were rendering an important service to their
country. They looked upon their reiving as being of the nature of
reprisal. Time and again they had been hunted and harried by their "auld
enemies," and they thought it no sin, whenever they found an opportunity,
to carry the war into the enemies' camp. Moreover, it seems to have been
an article of their creed--one of the "fundamentals"--that all property
was common by the laws of nature, a doctrine which, even at the present
day, is sometimes propounded with considerable show of logic by budding
Border politicians. Their ethical system was simplicity itself. Might was
right. The spoil belonged by natural law to the man who could either take
or keep it. Of course it may be said that such notions are opposed to the
foundation principles of all social and moral life. This may be conceded.
But the fact that the Border reivers looked at things from a different
point of view--while it may not mitigate the offence abstractly
considered--had an important bearing and influence on their own moral life
and character. There can be no doubt that it saved them from utter
demoralization. He that doubteth is damned. But the Borderers were fully
convinced that their action in plundering and despoiling those who lived
in the opposite Marches was commendable and right. Johnie Armstrong may be
taken as a faithful exponent of Border ethics when he says:--

For I've loved naething in my life,
I weel dare say it, but _honesty_.

He leaves us in no doubt as to what he means by the assertion. He does not
deny that he took everything he could lay his hands on from the
unfortunate English. He glories in the fact. It never occurs to him that
he ought to feel ashamed of his conduct. But he avers that though he had
lived for a hundred years never a Scot's wife could have said that "ere he
had skaithed her a puir flee." It was right to rob the English; it was
disgraceful to turn your hand against anyone belonging to your own
country. Here we have the ethical system of the Border reiver in a
nutshell.

But lawless as the Borders may have been in the olden time, they certainly
do not at the present day bear many traces of their evil past. The Border
counties, judging from the statistics of the Police and Sheriff Courts,
have an excellent record, whether we consider the num