“Nec fossis, nee muris, patriam sed Marte tueri.”

[Footnote 40:  I have observed a difference in architecture betwixt the English and Scottish towers.  The latter usually have upon the top a projecting battlement, with interstices, anciently called machicoules, betwixt the parapet and the wall, through which stones or darts might be hurled upon the assailants.  This kind of fortification is less common on the south border.]

[Footnote 41:  I ought to except the famous Dand Ker, who was made prisoner in his castle of Fairnihirst, after defending it bravely against Lord Dacres, 24th September, 1523.]

Some rude monuments occur upon the borders, the memorial of ancient valour.  Such is the cross at Milholm, on the banks of the Liddel, said to have been erected in memory of the chief of the Armstrongs, murdered treacherously by Lord Soulis, while feasting in Hermitage castle.  Such also, a rude stone, now broken, and very much defaced, placed upon a mount on the lands of Haughhead, near the junction of the Kale and Teviot.  The inscription records the defence made by Hobbie Hall, a man of great strength and courage against an attempt by the powerful family of Ker, to possess themselves of his small estate[42].

[Footnote 42:  The rude strains of the inscription little correspond with the gallantry of a

  —­village Hampden, who, with dauntless breast,
  The little tyrant of his fields withstood.

It is in these words: 

Here Hobbie Hall boldly maintained his right, ‘Gainst reif, plain force, armed wi’ awles might.  Full thirty pleughs, harnes’d in all their gear, Could not his valiant noble heart make fear:  But wi’ his sword, he cut the foremost’s soam In two; and drove baith pleughs and pleughmen home. 1620.

Soam means the iron links, which fasten a yoke of oxen to the plough.]

The same simplicity marked their dress and arms.  Patten observes, that in battle the laird could not be distinguished from the serf:  all wearing the same coat armour, called a jack, and the baron being only distinguished by his sleeves of mail, and his head-piece.  The borderers, in general, acted as light cavalry; riding horses of a small size, but astonishingly nimble, and trained to move, by short bounds, through the morasses with which Scotland abounds.  Their offensive weapons were, a lance of uncommon length; a sword, either two-handed, or of the modern light size; sometimes a species of battle-axe, called a Jedburgh-staff; and, latterly, dags, or pistols.  Although so much accustomed to act on horseback, that they held it even mean to appear otherwise, the marchmen occasionally acted as infantry; nor were they inferior to the rest of Scotland in forming that impenetrable phalanx of spears, whereof it is said, by an English historian, that “sooner shall a bare finger pierce through the skin of an angry hedge-hog, than any one