The poetical works of Sir Walter Scott, with memoir of the author.

CANTO IV.] THE LAST MINSTREL. 119
III.
Now over Border dale and fell,
Full wide and far was terror spread;
For pathless marsh, and mountain cell,
The peasant left his lowly shed.'
1 The morasses were the usual refuge of the Border herdsmen, on the approach of an English army.-(Minstrelsy of
the Scottish Border, vol. i. p. 393.) Caves, hewed in the most
dangerous and inaccessible places, also afforded an occasional retreat. Such caverns may be seen in the precipitous
banks of the Teviot at Sunlaws, upon the Ale at Ancram,
upon the Jed at Hundalee, and in many other places upon
the Border. The banks of the Eske, at Gorton and Hawthornden, are hollowed into similar recesses. But even
these dreary dens were not always secure places of concealment. " In the way as we came, not far from this place,
(Long Niddry,) George Ferres, a gentleman of my Lord Protector's... happened upon a cave in the
grounde, the mouth whereof was so worne with the fresh
printe of steps, that he seemed to be certayne thear wear
some folke within; and gone doune to trie, he was redily
receyved with a hakebtit or two. He left them not yet, till he
had known wheyther thei wold be content to yield and come
out; which they fondly refusing, he went to my lorde's
grace, and upon utterance of the thynge, gat licence to deale
with them as he coulde; and so returned to them, with a
skore or two of pioners. Three ventes had their cave, that
we wear ware of, whereof he first stopt up on; anoother he
fill'd full of strawe, and set it a fyer, whereat they within
cast water apace; but it was so wel maynteyned without,
that the fyer prevayled, and thei within fayn to get them
belyke into anoother parler. Then devysed we (for I hapt
to be with him) to stop the same up, whereby we should
eyther smoother them, or fynd out their ventes, if thei hadde
any moe: as this was. done at another issue, about xii score
of, we moughte see the fume of their smoke to come out: the
which continued with so great a force, and so long a while,