encounter the brunt of their pikes.”  At the battle of Melrose, for example, Buccleuch’s army fought upon foot.  But the habits of the borderers fitted them particularly to distinguish themselves as light cavalry; and hence the name of prickers and hobylers, so frequently applied to them.  At the blaze of their beacon fires, they were wont to assemble ten thousand horsemen in the course of a single day.  Thus rapid in their warlike preparations, they were alike ready for attack and defence.  Each individual carried his own provisions, consisting of a small bag of oatmeal, and trusted to plunder, or the chace, for ekeing out his precarious meal.  Beauge remarks, that nothing surprised the Scottish cavalry so much as to see their French auxiliaries encumbered with baggage-waggons, and attended by commissaries.  Before joining battle, it seems to have been the Scottish practice to set fire to the litter of their camp, while, under cover of the smoke, the hobylers, or border cavalry, executed their manoeuvres.—­There is a curious account of the battle of Mitton, fought in the year 1319, in a valuable MS. Chronicle of England, in the collection of the Marquis of Douglas, from which this stratagem seems to have decided the engagement.  “In meyn time, while the wer thus lastyd, the kynge went agane into Skotlonde, that hitte was wonder for to wette, and bysechyd the towne of Barwick; but the Skottes went over the water of Sold, that was iii myle from the hoste, and prively they stole awaye be nyghte, and come into England, and robbed and destroyed all that they myght, and spared no manner thing til that they come to Yorke.  And, whan the Englischemen, that wer left att home, herd this tiding, all tho that myght well travell, so well monkys and priestis, and freres, and chanouns, and seculars, come and met with the Skottes at Mytone of Swale, the xii day of October.  Allas, for sorow for the Englischemen! housbondmen, that could nothing in wer, ther were quelled and drenchyd in an arm of the see.  And hyr chyftaines, Sir William Milton, ersch-biishop of Yorke, and the abbot of Selby, with her stedes, fled and com into Yorke; and that was her owne folye that they had that mischaunce; for the passyd the water of Swale, and the Skottes set on fiir three stalkes of hey, and the smoke thereof was so huge, that the Englischemen might nott se the Scottes; and whan the Englischemen were gon over the water, tho cam the Skottes, with hir wyng, in maner of a sheld, and come toward the Englischemen in ordour.  And the Englischemen fled for unnethe they had any use of armes, for the kyng had hem al almost lost att the sege of Barwick.  And the Scotsmen hobylers went betwene the brigge and the Englischemen; and when the gret hoste them met, the Englischemen fled between the hobylers and the gret hoste; and the Englischemen were ther quelled, and he that myght wend over the water were saved, but many were drowned.  Alas! for there were slayn many men of religion, and seculars, and pristis, and clerks, and with much sorwe the erschbischope scaped from the Skottes; and, therefore, the Skottes called that battell the White Battell”