or two exceptions, we may say, that, in the country which this warlike
clan once occupied, there is hardly left a land-holder of the name.
One of the last border reivers was, however, of this family, and lived
within the beginning of the last century. After having made himself
dreaded over the whole country, he at last came to the following end:
One--, a man of large property, having lost twelve cows in one
night, raised the country of Tiviotdale, and traced the robbers into
Liddesdale, as far as the house of this Armstrong, commonly called
_Willie of Westburnflat_, from the place of his residence, on the
banks of the Hermitage water. Fortunately for the pursuers he was
then asleep; so that he was secured, along with nine of his friends,
without much resistance. He was brought to trial at Selkirk; and,
although no precise evidence was adduced to convict him of the special
fact (the cattle never having been recovered), yet the jury brought
him in _guilty_ on his general character, or, as it is called in our
law, on habite and repute. When sentence was pronounced, Willie arose;
and, seizing the oaken chair in which he was placed, broke it into
pieces by main strength, and offered to his companions, who were
involved in the same doom, that, if they would stand behind him, he
would fight his way out of Selkirk with these weapons. But they held
his hands, and besought him to let them _die like Christians_. They
were accordingly executed in form of law. This was the last trial at
Selkirk. The people of Liddesdale, who (perhaps not erroneously) still
consider the sentence as iniquitous, remarked, that--, the prosecutor,
never throve afterwards, but came to beggary and ruin, with his whole
family.

Johnie Armstrong, of Gilnockie, the hero of the following ballad, is a
noted personage, both in history and tradition. He was, it would seem
from the ballad, a brother of the laird of Mangertoun, chief of
the name. His place of residence (now a roofless tower) was at the
Hollows, a few miles from Langholm, where its ruins still serve to
adorn a scene, which, in natural beauty, has few equals in Scotland.
At the head of a desperate band of freebooters, this Armstrong is said
to have spread the terror of his name almost as far as Newcastle, and
to have levied _black mail_, or _protection and forbearance money_,
for many miles around. James V., of whom it was long remembered by
his grateful people, that he made the "rush-bush keep the