ort of
people they are.' But Mr Welch said, 'Go your way, Ritchie, and set the
fire of hell to their tails.' He went, and the first day he preached on
the text--_How shall I put thee among the children, &c._ In the
application he said, 'Put you among the children! the offspring of thieves
and robbers! we have all heard of Annandale thieves.' Some of them got a
merciful cast that day, and told afterwards that it was the first field
meeting they had ever attended, and that they went out of mere curiosity,
to see a minister preach in a tent, and people sit on the ground."[19]

During the period of religious decadence, prior to the Reformation, a
remarkable custom, not unknown elsewhere, prevailed on the Borders. Owing
to the scarcity of clergymen, especially in the Vales of Ewes, Esk, and
Liddle, the rites of the church were only intermittently celebrated, a
circumstance which gave rise to what was known as _Hand-fasting_. Loving
couples who met at fairs and other places of public resort agreed to live
together for a certain period, and if, when the _book-a-bosom_ man, as the
itinerant clergyman was called, came to pay his yearly visit to the
district, they were still disposed to remain in wedlock they received the
blessing of the church; but if it should happen that either party was
dissatisfied, then the union might be terminated, on the express
condition, however, that the one desiring to withdraw should become
responsible for the maintenance of the child, or children, which may have
been born to them. "The connection so formed was binding for one year
only, at the expiration of which time either party was at liberty to
withdraw from the engagement, or in the event of both being satisfied the
'hand-fasting' was renewed for life. The custom is mentioned by several
authors, and was by no means confined to the lower classes, John Lord
Maxwell and a sister of the Earl of Angus being thus contracted in January
1577."[20]

IV.

RAIDS AND FORAYS.

"Then forward bound both horse and hound,
And rattle o'er the vale;
As the wintry breeze through leafless trees
Drives on the pattering hail.

"Behind their course the English fells
In deepening blue retire;
Till soon before them boldly swells
The muir of dun Redswire."

LEYDEN.

To give anything like an adequate account of the various raids and forays,
on the one side of the Border and the other, wou