The first tributary received by Teviot on the right bank is the Kale Water, running through the parish of Linton, which was in King David's time an appanage of Kelso Abbey. The church has been restored, but the walls are, like those of Kelso, Norman work, and in the porch is an enigmatic piece of sculptors' work; apparently somebody is fighting a dragon--Sir Herbert Maxwell suggests St. George, but St. Michael was the more orthodox dragon slayer. About the object grew an aetiological myth; a Somerville of old times "Slew the Worm of Worrnes glen And wan all Lintoun parochine." The dragon-slaying story is found in most parts of the world, from Troy to Dairy in the Glenkens. Here the Worm twisted himself round the Mote, or tumulus (apparently the basis of an old fort), and was killed by the local blacksmith. {085}In 1522-1533, Linton tower was among the scores of such Border Keeps which the English destroyed. They could hold their own against a Border raid; not in face of a regular English army. Roxburghshire was not so deeply tainted by Covenanting principles as Galloway, Lanarkshire, and the south-west, Ayrshire and Renfrewshire. Covenanters needed wild hills and wild wastes. They are said to have held coil venticles in a deep glen of Kale; but, as a rule, they knew enough to preach in places of wide outlook, where they could detect the approach of parties of dragoons. In the bed of a burn they would be at great disadvantage. A tower more interesting than that of Linton, namely Ormistoun, fell when Linton fell; but it must have been rebuilt, for here, in Mary Stuart's day, dwelt the Black Laird of Ormistoun, James, with Hob, his brother, two of Bothwell's most cruel and desperate "Lambs." The Black Laird was with Bothwell, Hay of Talla (on upper Tweed), and one of Bothwell's own clan, Hepburn of Bowton, when they placed the powder under Darnley's chamber in Kirk o'-Field (February 9-10, 1567), and so, in the feeling words of Bothwell, "sent him fleeing through the air." After doing another deed as treacherous as this murder, the Black Laird was taken, tried, and hanged in 1573. Bothwell was Warden of the Border, which he ruled from Hermitage Castle on the Liddel water, and all these loose Border lairds rode and slew at his bidding. They had probably, in that twilight of faith, no religion in particular; Catholicism lingered in the shape of oaths, Calvinism was not yet well settled in these regions. But, probably in prison, the Black Laird "got religion." He professed to be of the Elect, and confident of his salvation, while he drew a dark enough picture of life among lairds of his quality. On the day of his hanging he said, "With God I hope this night to sup.... Of all men on the earth I have been one of the proudest and most high-minded, and most filthy of my body. But specially, I have shed innocent blood {086}of one Michael Hunter with my own hands. Alas,