Thus perished one of the characteristic products of an age whose standards were so different from ours that we can hardly judge him fairly. He was banned before his birth, a scion of a race so indomitably and innately ferocious that the law attempted to extirpate them, root and branch. The very name of Gregor could be given by no clergyman at baptism, under penalty of deprivation and banishment. Cunning and politic neighbours were not slow to take advantage of the stubborn disposition of the MacGregors, and gradually stripped them of their once extensive lands in Argyle and Perthshire. Gilderoy might well consider that he was "an honester man than stood on any of their shanks," and we may be excused for feeling a very lively sympathy with him, and for echoing in our inmost hearts the exquisitely feminine point of view expressed by the lady composer of the ballad. "If Gilderoy had done amiss, He might have banished been; Ah! what sore cruelty is this To hang such handsome men! To hang the flower of Scottish land, So sweet and fair a boy! No lady had so white a hand As thee, my Gilderoy! When he had yielded up his breath I bare his corpse away; With tears, that trickled for his death, I washt his comely clay; And sicker[#] in a grave sae deep I laid the dear lo’ed boy; And now for ever maun I weep, My winsome Gilderoy." [#] Safely. *Chapter XLII* *Archie Armstrong’s Oath* "And oft since then, to England’s King, The story he has told; And aye, when he ’gan rock and sing, Charlie his sides would hold." Archie Armstrong lived in Eskdale, where he did his best to keep up the grand reputation of his family as being among the very boldest sheep-stealers of the Border. His house was at Stubholm, where the Wauchope stream runs into the river Esk, near where the picturesque town of Langholm now stands. Living in the reign of Charles I., after the union of crowns, the profession of freebooter was far less honourable than of old. He could not now plead that he was a Border soldier, fighting against his nation’s enemy. The wild Border blood in him might cry out for the old adventurous career, but he could no longer hope for the aid of powerful Border families. When cornered, his sole protector would be his own wits, and woe betide him if they failed!