In the fighting of days long gone by, in
questions social or political of more modern times, lack of zeal has not
been one of her characteristics; nor, perhaps, in past times have her
inhabitants, or those resident in the district, been conspicuous for
tolerance of the religious or political convictions of neighbours who
might chance not to see eye to eye with them in such matters.
The first half of the eighteenth century was a time more fully charged
than most with questions which, on the Border as elsewhere, goaded men
to fury. There was, for example, the Union; there had been, prior to
that, the unhappy Darien Scheme, which ruined half Scotland and raised
hatred of England to white heat; there was, later, the advent of George
the First and his "Hanoverian Rats," to the final ousting of the
rightful King over the water; there was the Rising of 1715, and,
finally, there was the gallant attempt by Bonnie Prince Charlie to
regain his father's crown in 1745. Thus they had, indeed, a superfluity
of subjects over which men might legitimately quarrel. And when it is
remembered that gentlemen in those days universally carried swords, and
as a rule possessed some knowledge of how to use them, and that the man
who did not habitually drink too much at dinner was a veritable _rara
avis_--a poor creature, unworthy to be deemed wholly a man--the wonder
will be, not that so many, but rather that so few, fatal quarrels took
place.
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