"If I be guilty," said Hughie the Gr[ae]me, 45 "Of me my friends shall have small talk;" And he has louped fifteen feet and three, Though his hands they were tied behind his back. He looked over his left shoulder, And for to see what he might see; 50 There was he aware of his auld father, Came tearing his hair most piteouslie. "O hald your tongue, my father," he says, "And see that ye dinna weep for me! For they may ravish me o' my life, 55 But they canna banish me fro' Heaven hie. "Fair ye weel, fair Maggie, my wife! The last time we came ower the muir, 'Twas thou bereft me of my life, And wi' the Bishop thou play'd the whore. 60 "Here, Johnie Armstrang, take thou my sword, That is made o' the metal sae fine; And when thou comest to the English side, Remember the death of Hughie the Gr[ae]me." KINMONT WILLIE. In the year 1596, Mr. Salkeld, the deputy of Lord Scroope, the English warden of the West Marches, and Robert Scott, the representative of the Laird of Buccleuch, then keeper of Liddesdale, held a meeting on the border line of the kingdoms, according to the custom of the times, for the purpose of arranging such differences, and redressing such grievances, as either party might have to allege. On these occasions a truce was always proclaimed, inviolable on pain of death, from the day of the meeting to the next day at sunrise. After the conference in question, as William Armstrong of Kinmonth, a notorious freebooter, whose ordinary style was Kinmont Willie, was returning to his home, accompanied by only three or four persons, he was pursued by a couple of hundred Englishmen, taken prisoner, and in contravention of the truce, lodged in the castle of Carlisle. The Laird of Buccleuch sought to obtain the enfranchisement of his client and retainer, through the mediation, first of the English warden, and then of the Scottish ambassador. Receiving no satisfaction, he took the matter into his own hands, raised a party of two hundred horse, surprised the castle of Carlisle, and carried off the prisoner by main force. This dashing achievement was performed on the 13th of April, 1596. According to a rhymester who celebrated the daring feat of Buccleuch about a hundred years later, Kinmont Willie was a descendant of Johnie Armstrong of Gilnockie. Interesting details of the surprise of the castle, and further notices of Kinmont Willie are given by Scott in the _Border Minstrelsy_ (ii. 32), where the ballad was first published. "This ballad is preserved," says Scott, "on the West Borders, but much mangled by reciters, so that some conjectural emendations have been absolutely necessary to render it intelligible."