Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 10.pdf/528

 The Border Law. complaint to his own warden; and the bill, even as put into official form, was simplicity itself. It is said that A. complained upon B. for that —, and then followed a list of the stolen goods, or the wrongs done. It was verified by the complainant's oath, and thereafter sent to the opposite warden, whose duty was to arrest the accused, or at least to give him notice to attend on the next Day of Truce. The wardens agreed on the day, and the place was usually in the north ern kingdom, where most of the defendants lived. The meeting was proclaimed in all the market towns on either side. The parties, each accompanied by troops of friends, came in; and a messenger from the English side demanded that assurance should be kept till sunrise the following day. This was granted by the Scots, who proceeded to send a similar message, and were presently rich in a similar assurance. Then each warden held up his hand as a sign of faith, and made proclamation of the day to his own side (the evident purpose of this elabo rate ritual was to keep north and south from flying, on sight, at each other's throats). The English warden now came to his Scots brother whom he saluted and embraced; and the business of the Day of Truce, or Diet, or Day Marche, or Warden Court, as it was variously called, began. That busi ness was commerce and pleasure, as well as law. Merchants came with their wares; booths were run up; a brisk trade ran in articles tempting to the savage eye. Both sides were ready for the moment to forget their enmities. If they could not fight, they could play, and football was ever your Borderer's favorite pastime (from the des perate mauls which mark that exhilarating sport as practiced along the border line, one fancies that the " auld riding bluid" still stirs in the veins of the players). Gambling, too, was a popular excitement. There was much of feasting and drinking, and sure some Border Homer, poor and old and blind, even as him of Chios, was there

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to charm and melt his rude hearers with the storied loves and wars of other days. The conclave fairly hummed with pleasure and excitement. Yet with such inflammable material, do you wonder that the meeting ended now and again in most admired dis order? One famous fray (17th of June, 1575) is commemorated in "The Raid of the Reidswire," a ballad setting forth many features of a Day of Truce. For our Bill of Complaint, it might be tried in more than one way. It might be by " the honor of the warden," who often had knowledge of the case, personal or acquired, and felt competent to decide the matter off-hand. On his first appearance he had taken an oath (yearly renewed), in' presence of the opposite warden and the whole assemblage, to do justice, and he now officially " fyled " or " cleared the bill " (as the technical phrases ran) by writing on it the words : " Foull (or ' Clear,') as I am verily persuaded upon my conscience and honor." — a deliverance recalling the method wherein individual peers give their voice at a trial of one of their order. This did not of necessity end the matter; for the com plainant could present a new bill and get the verdict of a jury thereon, which also was the proper tribunal where the warden declined to interfere. It was thus chosen : The English warden named and swore in six Scots; the Scots did the like to six Eng lishmen. The oath ran in these terms : — "Yea shall cleane noe bill worthie to fild, Yea shall file no bill worthie to be cleaned," and so forth. Warden sergeants were ap pointed who led the jury to a retired place; the bills were presented and the jurymen fell to work. It would seem that they did so in two sections, each considering com plaints against its own nationality. If the bill was " fyled," the word " foull " was written upon it (of course, a verdict of guilty) : but how to get such a verdict under such conditions? The assize had more than a fellow-feeling for the culprit;