It is uncertain if Lieutenant Walter Scott ever returned to settle in
the Border; but he was a cousin of Sir Walter, who gave to Captain Basil
Hall, R.N., some outline of such a story as is here told.
SHEEP-STEALING IN TWEEDDALE
"The cattle thereof shall ye take for a prey unto yourselves."
(Josh. viii. 2.)
"The men are shepherds, for their trade hath been to feed cattle."
(Gen. xlvi. 32.)
In days even earlier than those of the early Israelites, to a certain
class of persons the flocks and herds of a neighbour have been an
irresistible temptation. The inhabitants of few, if indeed of any, lands
have been quite free from the tendency to "lift" their neighbour's
live-stock (though probably it has not been given to many, in times
either ancient or modern, to emulate the record in "cattle duffing" of
Australia and Western America). In the Scottish Border in the days of
our not very remote forefathers, to take toll of the Southron's herds
was esteemed almost more a virtue than a vice, and though times had
changed, even so recently as a couple of centuries back it may have
seemed to some no very great crime to misappropriate a neighbour's
sheep. March dykes or boundary fences were then things unknown; the
"sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill.
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