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Some of the young ones had been Philip's scholars viz., the Boyles and the Blakes. They were friends of the Bartons, and Old John, the ex-flogger, trained them in the art of cattle-lifting. His teaching was far more successful than that of Philip's, and when in course of time Hugh Boyle appeared in the dock on a charge of horse-stealing, I was pained but not surprised.
It is to be remembered, too, that the excepting of the best of the spoil from the general destruction, changed the whole character of the transaction, and brought it down from the level of a solemn act of divine justice, of which Saul and his army were the executors by divine mandate, to that of a mere cattle-lifting foray, in which they were but thieves for their own gain.
Were not our ain folk cattle-lifting Hieland thieves lang after the days o' the Covenant?" "Christine, ye'll speak nae wrang o' the Sabays. It's an ill bird 'files its ain nest." "Weel, weel, John! The gude name o' the Sabays is i' thy hands now. But to speak from the heart, this thing touches thee nearer than Ragon Torr. Thou did not bring me out to speak only o' him."
For centuries the warlike nomads stoutly resisted all encroachments on their pasture-grounds, and considered cattle-lifting, kidnapping, and pillage as a legitimate and honorable occupation. "Their raids," says an old Byzantine writer, "are as flashes of lightning, and their retreat is at once heavy and light heavy from booty and light from the swiftness of their movements.
The Zulus of Natal belong to the same family, and they are as famed for their honesty as their brethren who live adjacent to our colonial frontier are renowned for cattle-lifting.
A police-post in the top right-hand corner and a tiny mud fort in the top left-hand corner prevented as much salt-smuggling and cattle-lifting as the influence of the civilians could not put down; and in the bottom right-hand corner lay Jumala, the district headquarters a pitiful knot of lime-washed barns facetiously rented as houses, reeking with frontier fever, leaking in the rain, and ovens in the summer.
To protect the agricultural population of the Steppe against the raids of these thieving, cattle-lifting, kidnapping neighbours, the Tsars of Muscovy and the Kings of Poland built forts, constructed palisades, dug trenches, and kept up a regular military cordon. The troops composing this cordon were called Cossacks; but these were not the "Free Cossacks" best known to history and romance.
They passed along a border of aquatic reeds, tenanted by crocodiles and hippopotami, the latter staring, grunting, and snorting, as if vexed at the intrusion on their privacy. Many parts of the shore were desolate, the result of slave-hunting and cattle-lifting parties.
"Oh," said the major, carelessly, "I did not specify the offence. Cattle-lifting, probably." Miss Carry's fierce onslaught was thus laughed away, and they proceeded to other matters; the major meanwhile not failing to remark that this luncheon differed considerably from the bread and cheese and glass of whiskey of a shooting-day in Mull.
Llewellyn, King of Wales, was made to restore three manors of which he had obtained unlawful possession; and Lord Clifford, for cattle-lifting and maltreating the Bishop’s tenants, was compelled to walk barefoot to the high altar in the cathedral, while the Bishop personally chastised him with a rod.