But after the cause aforesaid was decided, the Lord
Durie was carried back by incognitos, and dropt in the same place where
he had been taken up." (Forbes's _Journal of the Session_, Edinburgh,
1714.)
With the early part of the seventeenth century, moss-trooping in the
Border country had not yet come to an end. Its glory, no doubt, and its
glamour, had begun to fade before even the sixteenth century was far
spent, and where were now to be found heroes such as the far-famed
Johnnie Armstrong of Gilnockie? Yet, as a few stout-hearted leaves,
defiant of autumn's fury, will cling to the uttermost branches of a
forest tree, so, in spite of King or Court, there were even now some
reckless souls, scornful of new-fangled modern ways and more than
content to follow in the footsteps of their grandsires, who still held
fast to precept and practice of what seemed to them "the good old days."
It is true their reiving partook now somewhat more of the nature of
horse-stealing pure and simple. No longer were fierce raids over the
English Border permissible; not now could they, practically with
impunity, "drive" the cattle of those with whom they were at feud, and
live on the stolen beeves of England till such time as the larder again
grew bare.
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