It is not our fault. They
are ever raiding and plundering, and heed not the orders of Douglas, or
the other Lords of the Marches."
"We are almost as bad as they are, Oswald."
"Nay, Mother, we do but try to take back our own; as father well said,
the cattle that were brought in are all English, that have been taken
from us by the Bairds; and we do but pay them back in their own coin.
It makes but little difference whether we are at war or peace. These
reiving caterans are ever on the move. It was but last week that Adam
Gordon and his bands wasted Tynedale, as far as Bellingham; and carried
off, they say, two thousand head of cattle, and slew many of the
people. If we did not cross the border sometimes, and give them a
lesson, they would become so bold that there would be no limit to their
raids."
"That is all true enough, Oswald, but it is hard that we should always
require to be on the watch, and that no one within forty miles of the
border can, at any time, go to sleep with the surety that he will not,
ere morning, hear the raiders knocking at his gate."
"Methinks that it would be dull, were there nought to do but to look
after the cattle," Oswald replied.
It seemed to him, bred up as he had been amid constant forays and
excitements, that the state of things was a normal one; and that it was
natural that a man should need to have his spear ever ready at hand,
and to give or take hard blows.
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