There was a grim kind of humour characteristic of
the Border reiver. He certainly was not disposed to laugh on the slightest
provocation,--his calling was much too serious for that,--but when he once
relaxed, his mirth was not easily controlled. And, however degrading his
occupation may have been in its general tendency, there was often
displayed among the Border thieves, even among the very worst of them, a
spirit of the most splendid heroism, which helps to redeem the system from
the general contempt in which it is regarded by the moralist of modern
times. Many of the leaders were not only men of undaunted courage, but of
considerable military genius. In a later age, under other and happier
conditions, they would have won renown on many a well-fought battlefield.
They possessed the qualities, physical and moral, of which great soldiers
are made. The Bold Buccleuch, Little Jock Elliot, Johnie Armstrong of
Gilnockie, and his kinsman, Willie of Kinmont--not to mention other names
which readily occur to the mind in this connection--were men dowered by
nature with great courage and resource. They were strong of arm and
dauntless of heart. We do not seek to justify their deeds. These were
reprehensible enough, judged by almost any standard you may apply to them.
But just as some people find it impossible to smother a certain sneaking
kind of admiration of the Devil, so magnificently delineated in Milton's
"Paradise Lost"--a being who seems possessed of almost every quality save
that of consecrating his varied endowment to worthy ends--so in like
manner it is difficult to withhold a certain meed of admiration for some
of the "nobil thieves" whose names stand out prominently in, if they
cannot always be said to adorn, this long chapter of Border history. They
were undoubtedly men of ability, energy, and force of character, who would
have won their spurs in almost any contest into which they had chosen to
enter.

One of the most notable of this band was the famous Kinmont Willie,
renowned in Border song and story. He was an Armstrong, a descendant of
the laird of Gilnockie, whom James VI. put to death at Carlinrig in such
graceless fashion. He, like all his race, was a notorious freebooter. The
English Border, more especially the West and Middle Marches, suffered much
at his hands. He had a large and well armed following, and conducted his
marauding expeditions with an intrepidity and skill which created a
feeling of dismay amo