Were ever two such loving friends!-- How could they disagree?
Oh, thus it was, he loved him dear, And thought how to requite him, And having no friend left but he, He did resolve to fight him.

DUKE UPON DUKE.
The pair of friends had traversed with their usual cordiality the grassy wilds of Liddesdale, and crossed the opposite part of Cumberland, emphatically called The Waste.

In these solitary regions the cattle under the charge of our drovers derived their subsistence chiefly by picking their food as they went along the drove-road, or sometimes by the tempting opportunity of a START AND OWERLOUP, or invasion of the neighbouring pasture, where an occasion presented itself.

But now the scene changed before them.

They were descending towards a fertile and enclosed country, where no such liberties could be taken with impunity, or without a previous arrangement and bargain with the possessors of the ground.