Not far from Longtown, at a place called Dick's Tree, on the farther side of Esk, there still stands the "smiddy" (or smith's shop) where Kinmont's irons were struck off. In one of Sir Walter Scott's M.S. letters of 1826 it is told that: "Tradition preserves the account of the smith's daughter, then a child, how there was a _sair clatter_ at the door about daybreak, and loud crying for the smith; but her father not being on the alert, Buccleueh himself thrust his lance thro' the window, which effectually bestirred him. On looking out, the woman continued, she saw, in the grey of the morning, more gentlemen than she had ever before seen in one place, all on horseback, in armour, and dripping wet--and that Kinmont Willie, who sat woman fashion behind one of them, was the biggest carle she ever saw--and there was much merriment in {400}the company." Except for this event, Dick's Tree is quite uninteresting, and quite unpicturesque; it is merely a cottage like a thousand others to be seen in the Border, possessing no special feature, or even any indication of antiquity. [Illustration: 0420] And no one works the "smiddy" now, except at odd times; modern requirements have, I understand, taken the business away to Longtown. What was the end of Kinmont Willie no one knows, but he {401}certainly lived to pay, to some small extent, for his "lodging maill;" he was engaged in a raid on Lord Scrope's tenants in the year 1600, and doubtless he did not forget the debt incurred at Carlisle. Later than this I think there is no record of him, but it would not be surprising to learn that at the last Lord Scrope was able to give a receipt in full. Many an Armstrong in old days danced at the end of a rope at "Hairribie." Not improbably, Kinmont was one of them. There is a grave in an old churchyard not far from the Tower of Sark, which is pointed out as his. But the date on the tombstone makes it impossible that the veritable Willie of Kinmont lies underneath. The name of "William Armstrong called Kynmount" is in Lord Maxwell's Muster Roll of 1585, together with those of his seven sons. Willie, therefore--if at that date he had seven sons fit to fight--could have been no youth. Now the William Armstrong to whose memory the Sark tombstone is erected died in 1658, which, if he had been the famous Kinmont, would give him an age of considerably over a hundred years. But in any case, it is an interesting old stone. Many years ago steps were taken to preserve it from further decay, and the lettering and other points were retouched. Round the edges of the stone is cut: "_HEIR LYES. ANE. WORTHIE. PERSON. CALLIT. WILLIAM. ARMSTRONG. OF. SARK. WHO. DIED. TE IO. DAY. OF. JUNE. 16. 58. AETATIS. SVAE. 56_." On the body of the stone: "Man as grass to grave he flies. Grass decays and man he dies. Grass revives and man doth rise. Yet few they be who get the prise."