they put their enemies “to the horn,” as the process of outlawry (by trumpet blast) was called. True, the indifference with which those enemies “went to the horn” would scandalise the legal pedants. Sometimes a superior officer, called “Lieutenant,” was sent to the Borders; the Wardens were under him; he more fully represented the royal power. Now and again the Sovereign himself made a progress, administering a rough and ready justice, and so “dantoning the thieves of the Borders, and making the rush bush keep the cow.” So it was said of James V.’s famous raid in 1529. The chief incident was the capture of Johnie Armstrong of Gilnockie, the ruins of whose picturesque tower at the Hollows still overlook the Esk. Gilnockie came to meet his King with a great band of horsemen richly apparelled. He was captain of Langholm Castle, and the ballad tells how he and his companions exercised themselves in knightly sports on Langholm Lee, whilst “The ladies lukit frae their loft windows. ‘God bring our men well hame agen!’” the ladies said; and their apprehensions were more than justified, for Johnie’s reception was not so cordial as he expected. “What wants yon knave that a King should have?” asked James in angry amaze, as he ordered the band to instant execution. Gilnockie and company were presently strung up on some convenient yew-trees at Carlenrig, though, in accordance with romantic precedent, one is said to have escaped to tell the tale. Many of Johnie’s name, among them Ill Will Armstrong, tersely described as “another stark thieff,” went to their doom; but the act, however applauded at Edinburgh, was bitterly condemned on the Borders. Gilnockie only plundered the English, it was urged, and the King had caught him by a trick unworthy a Stuart. The country folk loved to tell how the dule-trees faded away, and they loved to point out the graves of the Armstrongs in the lonely churchyard. But the stirring ballad preserves the name better than all else. It unblushingly commends Gilnockie’s love of honesty, his generosity, his patriotism, and directly accuses his Sovereign of treachery, in which accusation there is perhaps some truth. Anyhow, his execution was the violent act of a weak man, and had no permanent effect. The Wardens had twofold duties: first, that of defence against the enemy; second, that of negotiation in times of peace with their mighty opposites. Thus the Border laws were part police and part international, and were administered in different courts. Offences of the first class were speaking or conferring with Englishmen without permission of the King or the Warden, and the warning Englishmen of the Scots’ alertness in the matter of forays. In brief, aiding, abetting, or in any way holding intercourse with the “auld enemy” was march treason (to adopt a convenient English term).