--Scotland's King is a hunting gone: Willie o' Scales, he runs alone: Knights and Nobles many a score: Hounds full twenty tongues and more. Through the covert the deer he sprang: Over the heather the music rang. Dogs and steeds well speeded they: But Willie o' Scales, he show'd the way. For speed of foot had Willie no peer. He outstripp'd the horses, dogs, and deer. He left the Nobles far behind. He pass'd the King like a puff of wind. At the close of day, with a greenwood bough, Beside the deer he fann'd his brow. And "There, my liege!" to the Monarch he said, "Is as gallant a stag as ever lay dead. "I count him fleet, for a stag of ten!"-- --"And I count thee chief of my Border men. No gallanter heart, I dare be sworn, Ever drew the shaft or wound the horn. "No trustier hand than thine was found When foes to Scotland hemm'd us round. Now swifter of foot than our fleetest deer-- We'll try thy hold upon land and gear. "For his speed in sport, for his might in fray, Write, 'GILL'S broad lands' to 'Willie, THE RAE!' And for ever a Willie the Rae be here, When the King comes by to hunt the deer."-- Thus spoke King William, where he stood, The Lion of Scotland, fierce of mood. And musing turned, and look'd again On his Border vassal; and cross'd the plain. Centuries long have rolled away: The Monarch is dust, his Nobles clay: Old lines are changed, are changing still: But Willie the Rae is lord of Gill. NOTES TO "WILLIE O' SCALES." The long and scattered hamlet of High and Low Scales, is on the west side of Crummock Beck, near Bromfield, and a few miles from Wigton in Cumberland. Skells or scales, from a Saxon or Gothic word signifying a cover, was the name given to those slight temporary huts made of turf or sods which in the mountainous district of this county and Scotland are called Bields. They were erected most commonly for the shelter of shepherds; and during the later periods, in the border wars to protect the persons who were appointed to watch the cattle of the neighbourhood. Few estates in the kingdom have belonged to one family longer than this of THE GILL, which was formerly, however, much more extensive, comprising most probably the neighbouring hamlet of Scales. Another somewhat uncommon circumstance belonging to it is, that, to the close of last century, and for anything we know to the contrary, to a much later date, the owner had always lived on and occupied it himself; it had never been in the hands of a farmer.