moss-trooping

_ -- Can any of your readers give me a clue to the personality of Long Lonkin, the hero of a moss-trooping ballad popular in Cumberland, which commences --

Notes and Queries, Number 41, August 10, 1850 Various

With the early part of the seventeenth century, moss-trooping in the

Stories of the Border Marches Jeanie Lang

Saunders Ker of Howpaslet Mains -- one of a family who had laid aside moss-trooping in order to take with the same hereditary birr to psalm-singing and church politics.

Bog-Myrtle and Peat Tales Chiefly of Galloway Gathered from the Years 1889 to 1895 1887

Fenwicks had done in the palmiest days of the moss-trooping.

Bog-Myrtle and Peat Tales Chiefly of Galloway Gathered from the Years 1889 to 1895 1887

The Armstrongs and other Border clans, who had been moss-trooping in their ancient way, were also reduced, and new fortresses and garrisons bridled the fighting clans of the west.

A Short History of Scotland Andrew Lang 1878

But where did yon lang-leggit, long-lockit, Fish River moss-trooping callant win haud o 'him?

Robbery under Arms; a story of life and adventure in the bush and in the Australian goldfields Rolf Boldrewood 1870

He had mony a long year o 'shepherding an' moss-trooping, an 'rugging an' riving i 'the wilderness, I'll warrant, afore he got thae gran' lyrics o 'his oot o' him.

Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet An Autobiography Charles Kingsley 1847

He had been all his life, except for a single year in his youth when he broke bounds, a Marrow man of the strictest type; and it had been the wonder and puzzle of his life (to others, not to himself) how he came to make up to Ailie Gordon, the daughter of the old moss-trooping Lochenkit Gordons, that had ridden with the laird of Redgauntlet in the killing time, and more recently had been out with Maxwell of Nithsdale, and Gordon of Kenmure, to strike a blow for the "King-over-the-Water."

The Lilac Sunbonnet 1887

But where did yon lang-leggit, long-lockit, Fish River moss-trooping callant win haud o’ him?

Robbery Under Arms 2004

"Only a Warden's raid or twain, on the moss-trooping Scots of Liddesdale.

A Monk of Fife Andrew Lang 1878