Where on Esk side thou standest stout! Gif I had lived hut seven yeirs mair, I wad hae gilt thee round about." [Illustration: 0222] John murdered was at Carlinrigg, And all his gallant companie; But Scotland's heart was ne'er sae wae, To see sae mony brave men die-- {203} Because they saved their country deir Frae Inglishmen! Nane were sa bauld, Whyle Johnie lived on the Border syde, Nane of them durst cum neir his hauld. It will be observed that Gilnockie puts forward as his claim to respect the very robberies in England for which, says the poet, he was hanged. The only sign of treachery is that Johnnie did come to Caerlanrig, probably in hope of making his peace like many other lairds. Whether he were "enticed by some courtiers," or whether he risked the adventure is not manifest. According to Pitscottie he had held England as far as Newcastle under blackmail. Above Caerlanrig, Teviot winds through the haughs and moors and under the alders to its source at Teviot-stone. {204} CHAPTER VII TWEED, ST. BOSWELLS, DRYBURGH, NEWSTEAD, AND THE LEADER |We now return from Teviotdale to Tweed, which we left at Kelso. The river passes through one of its rock-fenced and narrow defiles at the Trows of Makerstoun, (accent the penultimate,) itself the home from ancient days of a branch of the once great Argyll clan--and generally western clan--of Mac-dougal. How they came so far from their Celtic kindred, potent in Dalriadic Scotland before the Campbells came to the front as allies of Robert Bruce, is not known to me. As foes of Bruce, the Macdougals of Lome suffered much loss of lands after the king's triumph. At the Trows the river splits into very deep and narrow channels, and to shoot one of them in a canoe needs a daring and a fortunate paddler.