Alistair Moffat - The Reivers: The Story of the Border Reivers

The night wind whistled out of the west, sudden squalls spattering the ramparts, keeping the sentries moving, stamping their feet against the November chill. When the clouds scudded away into the formless mirk and the sky cleared, the moon lit the pale winter landscape. Bewcastle Waste stretched away to the north of the old fort, and beyond it lay Liddesdale, Teviotdale and trouble.

Leaning on their spears, the sentries peered into the darkness, searching the horizon, scanning the dark heads of the fells. Sometimes a shape seemed to move but another pair of eyes saw it was nothing. The cold and the wet and the sleepless hour could numb the senses and make a fool of the most experienced soldier. The Captain had set four troopers on the night watch but allowed only one brazier between them. While two warmed themselves, the others walked the rampart, watching for raiders, for horsemen who might appear out of nowhere, from any direction. But it was a foul night, surely even the most desperate thieves on the Border would stay snug by their fire.

Ten miles to the north, silently snaking through the hills, they were coming. Walter Scott of Buccleuch led 120 riders up over the pass at Whitrope, their ponies looking for the glint of the burn and the narrow path beside it. There was none of the martial jingle of heavily armed cavalry as the column wound its way quietly down through the willow scrub to the mosses of Liddesdale. Sodden now, but much better than nothing, cloaks were wound tight against the midnight chill. Looming out of the darkness, off to their right, Scott and his captains could see the black shape of the castle at Hermitage. No lights showed and if there was a watch, it was only nominal and probably looking the other way. The riders stayed on the east bank of the burn and moved silently on. No patrol would come out of the castle gate but it would not do to embarrass the Keeper by making the presence of a passing raiding party obvious. Only a short way downstream Whithaugh and the tryst with the Armstrongs were waiting.

At the end of September, having left them out on the fells as late as he dared, Willie Routledge and his herd-laddies had ingathered their cattle for the winter. The high summer pastures of the Bewcastle fells had begun to die back and the ground around the sikes and burns had churned to clinging clatch. After cropping for winter hay, Routledges inbye fields had recovered and his cows would keep their summer condition on through the turn of the year and maybe beyond, if only the incessant rains of last winter would hold off. And his prized ponies were fat and sleek, swinging big grass-bellies in their winter coats.

All four sentries heard it. Each looked up and out to the north. And then at each other. Birdcalls in the dead of a winters night? Only when their roost is disturbed. Was it a fox or something more? The sentries waited for clouds to clear the full moon, holding their breath for another shriek from out in the waste, straining to focus in the formless dark. The Captain slept warm in his chamber; who would be bold enough to rattle down the rickety wooden stairs and wake him because a bird had called? Moments passed. No other alarm. Whatever it was had moved on, nothing of any moment. It came on to rain, again.

Sims Jock Armstrong was in no doubt. Simplest was best, particularly on a filthy night like this. The old reiver wheeled his pony to come alongside Scotts, his eyes were hooded by the dripping rim of his steel bonnet but his rasping voice was clear enough. Scott and his riders should cross the border at Kershopefoot and then strike directly south towards the Bewcastle Fells. And they should come back on exactly the same track. The ponies would find their own scent and their own hoofprints in the dark. And once they had regained the Scottish side, everything should be left to the Armstrongs. They would be waiting, and not even Scott would see them as he passed. It was their ground and they knew its every brake and bush. By early morning all would be done, one way or another, and it would be done well, would it not? Sims Jock and his riders would earn their cut. Walter Scott smiled and nodded. The board was set let the game begin.

In the hay barn, the Routledges dogs dozed in their own body-warmth, cocking an occasional ear as rats scratched and scuttled in the ratters. Bielded from the breeze by the farm steading, most of the ponies were quiet, some sleeping on their feet, all waiting patiently for the night to pass. And the black cattle snuffled in small groups, nosing around the inbye fields, nibbling now and again at the cold and bitter winter grass. One or two splashed across the burn to the farther pasture. The beasts at night somehow seemed peaceful to Willie Routledge, their steaming warmth consoling, their herding instincts a comfort. He and his boys had had a good summer with plenty of calves to sell on at Brampton Market and some to keep through the winter. Up on the shielings, the summertowns, the sun had shone and the good grass grown up through the yellow tussocks of the old. Next year would be even better. If only they could get through the long dark winter stretching out before them.

Towards midnight mist crept over the moonlit landscape, muffling sound, its damp chill seeping through the sentries warmest cloaks. Beyond the ramparts the world slept, cold and still under a grey blanket. Only wakefulness kept the men warm; it was easy to lean on a spear and nod into a doze. But to allow that was to numb the bones for the rest of the long night. Activity, doing their duty, was what helped and after all Bewcastle Fort had been built and regularly repaired for good reason. It guarded a well-trodden byway into the west marches of England. To its south were vulnerable farmsteads, valuable herds and poorly defended villages.