Judging from this account, one is led to suppose that the force which Cary had at his command was comparatively small. He tells us that he took a list of those that offered to go with him, and found that with his officers, gentlemen, and servants there would be about two hundred good men and horse; a competent number he thought for such a service. But we find in a letter which he sent to Cecil that he speaks of having "a 1000 horse and foot."[76] But whatever may have been the strength of the forces at his command, it is quite certain that, on this occasion at least, he proved himself more than a match for the "Lewd Liddesdales." The tradition of this famous raid, which was long preserved in the district, differs considerably from the account here given. "The people of Liddesdale have retained," says the editor of the "Border Minstrelsy," "the remembrance of _Cary's raid_," as they call it. "They tell that, while he was besieging the outlaws in the Tarras, they contrived, by ways known only to themselves, to send a party into England, who plundered the warden's lands. On their return, they sent Cary one of his own cows, telling him that, fearing he might fall short of provisions during his visit to Scotland, they had taken the precaution of sending him some English beef." The anecdote is worth preserving, as it indicates how anxious the Liddesdale reivers were to forget one of the most unpleasant episodes in their history, or at least to make their discomfiture appear in as favourable a light as possible. X. AFTER THE HUNTING. "_Efter the hunting the King hanged Johnie Armstrong._" PITSCOTTIE. "Here is ane cord baith grit and lang, Quhilk hangit Johne Armstrang, Of gude hempt soft and sound, Gude haly pepil, I stand ford, Whaevir beis hangit wi' this cord, Neidis never to be drowned!" SIR DAVID LINDSAY. We have already seen that the Armstrongs were a numerous and powerful clan, and that for a considerable period they had been known on the Borders as "notour thieves and limmers." They levied blackmail over a wide district, and appropriated whatever came readiest to hand with a sublime indifference either to neighbourhood or nationality. "They stole the beeves that made them broth From Scotland and from England both."