There stands at this day on the banks of the Esk, only a few miles from the English border, the ruin of an old fortalice, called Gilnockie Tower, in a situation which in point of natural beauty is scarcely equalled even in Scotland. It was the stronghold of a chief popularly known in his day as Johnnie Armstrong.*[1] He was a mighty freebooter in the time of James V., and the terror of his name is said to have extended as far as Newcastle-upon-Tyne, between which town and his castle on the Esk he was accustomed to levy black-mail, or "protection and forbearance money," as it was called. The King, however, determining to put down by the strong hand the depredations of the march men, made a sudden expedition along the borders; and Johnnie Armstrong having been so ill-advised as to make his appearance with his followers at a place called Carlenrig, in Etterick Forest, between Hawick and Langholm, James ordered him to instant execution. Had Johnnie Armstrong, like the Scotts and Kers and Johnstones of like calling, been imprisoned beforehand, he might possibly have lived to found a British peerage; but as it was, the genius of the Armstrong dynasty was for a time extinguished, only, however, to reappear, after the lapse of a few centuries, in the person of the eminent engineer of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the inventor of the Armstrong gun. The two centuries and a half which have elapsed since then have indeed seen extraordinary changes.*[2] The energy which the old borderers threw into their feuds has not become extinct, but survives under more benignant aspects, exhibiting itself in efforts to enlighten, fertilize, and enrich the country which their wasteful ardour before did so much to disturb and impoverish. The heads of the Buccleugh and Elliot family now sit in the British House of Lords. The descendant of Scott of Harden has achieved a world-wide reputation as a poet and novelist; and the late Sir James Graham, the representative of the Graemes of Netherby, on the English side of the border, was one of the most venerable and respected of British statesmen. The border men, who used to make such furious raids and forays, have now come to regard each other, across the imaginary line which divides them, as friends and neighbours; and they meet as competitors for victory only at agricultural meetings, where they strive to win prizes for the biggest turnips or the most effective reaping-machines; while the men who followed their Johnstone or Armstrong chiefs as prickers or hobilers to the fray have, like Telford, crossed the border with powers of road-making and bridge-building which have proved a source of increased civilization and well-being to the population of the entire United Kingdom.