Both Sides the Border | Page 2

parapet three feet high surrounded it. In the centre was the lookout
tower, rising twelve feet above it; and over the door another turret,
projecting some eighteen inches beyond the wall of the house, slits
being cut in the stone floor through which missiles could be dropped,
or boiling lead poured, upon any trying to assault the entrance. Outside
was a courtyard, extending round the house. It was some ten yards
across, and surrounded by a wall twelve feet high, with a square turret
at each corner.
Everything was roughly constructed, although massive and solid. With
the exception of the door, and the steps leading to it, no wood had been
used in the construction. The very beams were of rough stone, the
floors were of the same material. It was clearly the object of the
builders to erect a fortress that could defy fire, and could only be
destroyed at the cost of enormous labour.
This was indeed a prime necessity, for the hold stood in the wild
country between the upper waters of the Coquet and the Reed river.
Harbottle and Longpikes rose but a few miles away, and the whole
country was broken up by deep ravines and valleys, fells and crags.
From the edge of the moorland, a hundred yards from the outer wall,
the ground dropped sharply down into the valley, where the two
villages of Yardhope lay on a little burn running into the Coquet.
In other directions the moor extended for a distance of nearly a mile.
On this two or three score of cattle, and a dozen shaggy little horses,
were engaged in an effort to keep life together, upon the rough herbage

that grew among the heather and blocks of stones, scattered
everywhere.
Presently the lad caught sight of the flash of the sun, which had but just
risen behind him, on a spearhead at the western edge of the moor. He
ran down at once, from his post, to the principal room.
"They are coming, Mother," he exclaimed. "I have just seen the sun
glint on a spearhead."
"I trust that they are all there," she said, and then turned to two women
by the fire, and bade them put on more wood and get the pots boiling.
"Go up again, Oswald; and, as soon as you can make out your father's
figure, bring me down news. I have not closed an eye for the last two
nights, for 'tis a more dangerous enterprise than usual on which they
have gone."
"Father always comes home all right, Mother," the boy said confidently,
"and they have a strong band this time. They were to have been joined
by Thomas Gray and his following, and Forster of Currick, and John
Liddel, and Percy Hope of Bilderton. They must have full sixty spears.
The Bairds are like to pay heavily for their last raid hither."
Dame Forster did not reply, and Oswald ran up again to the lookout. By
this time the party for whom he was watching had reached the moor. It
consisted of twelve or fourteen horsemen, all clad in dark armour,
carrying very long spears and mounted on small, but wiry, horses. They
were driving before them a knot of some forty or fifty cattle, and three
of them led horses carrying heavy burdens. Oswald's quick eye noticed
that four of the horsemen were not carrying their spears.
"They are three short of their number," he said to himself, "and those
four must all be sorely wounded. Well, it might have been worse."
Oswald had been brought up to regard forays and attacks as ordinary
incidents of life. Watch and ward were always kept in the little fortalice,
especially when the nights were dark and misty, for there was never

any saying when a party of Scottish borderers might make an attack;
for the truces, so often concluded between the border wardens, had but
slight effect on the prickers, as the small chieftains on both sides were
called, who maintained a constant state of warfare against each other.
The Scotch forays were more frequent than those from the English side
of the border; not because the people were more warlike, but because
they were poorer, and depended more entirely upon plunder for their
subsistence. There was but little difference of race between the peoples
on the opposite side of the border. Both were largely of mixed Danish
and Anglo-Saxon blood; for, when William the Conqueror carried fire
and sword through Northumbria, great numbers of the inhabitants
moved north, and settled in the district beyond the reach of the Norman
arms.
On the English side of the border the population were, in time,
leavened by Norman blood; as the estates were granted by William to
his barons. These often married the heiresses of