It is not our fault.

They are ever raiding and plundering, and heed not the orders of Douglas, or the other Lords of the Marches." "We are almost as bad as they are, Oswald." "Nay, Mother, we do but try to take back our own; as father well said, the cattle that were brought in are all English, that have been taken from us by the Bairds; and we do but pay them back in their own coin.
It makes but little difference whether we are at war or peace.

These reiving caterans are ever on the move.

It was but last week that Adam Gordon and his bands wasted Tynedale, as far as Bellingham; and carried off, they say, two thousand head of cattle, and slew many of the people.

If we did not cross the border sometimes, and give them a lesson, they would become so bold that there would be no limit to their raids." "That is all true enough, Oswald, but it is hard that we should always require to be on the watch, and that no one within forty miles of the border can, at any time, go to sleep with the surety that he will not, ere morning, hear the raiders knocking at his gate." "Methinks that it would be dull, were there nought to do but to look after the cattle," Oswald replied.
It seemed to him, bred up as he had been amid constant forays and excitements, that the state of things was a normal one; and that it was natural that a man should need to have his spear ever ready at hand, and to give or take hard blows.
"Besides," he went on, "though we carry off each others' cattle, and fetch them home again, we are not bad friends while the truces hold, save in the case of those who have blood feuds.