his men up the Tweed towards Melrose, and the Warden his troopers across the Border to the siege of Roxburgh, a band of twelve men and thirty horses came up out of Eskdale towards Craik-Cross, the most motely group that had ever been[194] seen traversing that wild country. The men were dressed as English peasants of the lowest order, with broad unshapely hats, made of a rude felt of wool and hair mixed; wide coarse jockey-coats that came below their knees; and, instead of loops or buttons, these were bound round the middle with a broad buff-belt; the rest of their dress was all conformable, save that each of them had a noble broad-sword girded by his side. Some of their horses were loaden, some of them half-loaden, and a few had scarcely any thing on their backs at all. But no man will guess what that loading consisted of. Not to keep the reader in suspense, it was of nolt-hides; that is, of cow-hides, oxen-hides, bull-hides, and all sorts of hides that ever came from the backs of cattle. There were raw hides and dried hides, black hides and white hides, hides with horns, and hides without horns; and of these consisted their loading, and nothing else.
The men alighted at Craik-Cross to bait their horses, and the following conversation ensued, which will let the reader into[195] the secret who these skin-dealers were, thus strangely accoutred.
"Will Laidlaw o' Craik, ye're a gayan auld-farrant chield. Come near me, and sit down, and tell me gin ye can hae ony guess what our master the Warden can be wanting wi' a' thir confoundit ill-smelled hides?"
"I hae puzzled my brain to nae purpose about it, Dan Chisholm; but am convinced it is some way connected wi' the siege of that unlucky castle; and the maist part o' us trows that they are for making raip-ladders, or rather whing-ladders, for climbing ower the wa's; an gin that be the case, Dan, there will mony ane o' us throw away our lives to little purpose."
"Now to hear you talk about fock throwing away their lives! You that wad risk your life for naething but a broken crown every day o' the year. Why, Will Laidlaw, I hae foughten often in the same field wi' you afore this time, and I never saw you set your life at a cow's