But with Elizabeth still on the English throne, and with Queen Mary, and
afterwards her son, reigning in Scotland, the dance could go merrily on,
and when we look at those days in retrospect it seems to us that the
last bars of the music, the last turns in the dance, went more rapidly
than any that had gone before.
In Kinmont Willie's lifetime the Wardens of the Marches had but little
leisure. It was necessary for them to be fighting men with a good head
for figures, for on the days of truce when the Wardens of the Scottish
and English Marches met to redd up accounts, not only had they to work
out knotty arithmetical problems with regard to the value of every sort
of live stock, of buildings, of "insight," and the payment of such
bills, but they had to have expert knowledge in fair exchange of a
Scottish for an English life, an English for a Scotch. Little wonder if
their patience sometimes ran short, as did that of a Howard of Naworth
upon one famous occasion. He was deeply engrossed in studies that had no
bearing upon Border affairs when an officer came to announce the
capture of some Scottish moss-troopers, and to ask for the Warden's
commands with regard to them. The interruption was untimely, and Lord
Howard was exasperated.
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