*[1] Sir Waiter Scott, in his notes to the 'Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,' says that the common people of the high parts of Liddlesdale and the country adjacent to this day hold the memory of Johnnie Armstrong in very high respect. *[2] It was long before the Reformation flowed into the secluded valley of the Esk; but when it did, the energy of the Borderers displayed itself in the extreme form of their opposition to the old religion. The Eskdale people became as resolute in their covenanting as they had before been in their free-booting; the moorland fastnesses of the moss-troopers becoming the haunts of the persecuted ministers in the reign of the second James. A little above Langholm is a hill known as "Peden's View," and the well in the green hollow at its foot is still called "Peden's Well"--that place having been the haunt of Alexander Peden, the "prophet." His hiding-place was among the alder-bushes in the hollow, while from the hill-top he could look up the valley, and see whether the Johnstones of Wester Hall were coming. Quite at the head of the same valley, at a place called Craighaugh, on Eskdale Muir, one Hislop, a young covenanter, was shot by Johnstone's men, and buried where he fell; a gray slabstone still marking the place of his rest. Since that time, however, quiet has reigned in Eskdale, and its small population have gone about their daily industry from one generation to another in peace. Yet though secluded and apparently shut out by the surrounding hills from the outer world, there is not a throb of the nation's heart but pulsates along the valley; and when the author visited it some years since, he found that a wave of the great Volunteer movement had flowed into Eskdale; and the "lads of Langholm" were drilling and marching under their chief, young Mr. Malcolm of the Burnfoot, with even more zeal than in the populous towns and cities of the south. *[3] The names of the families in the valley remain very nearly the same as they were three hundred years ago--the Johnstones, Littles, Scotts, and Beatties prevailing above Langholm; and the Armstrongs, Bells, Irwins, and Graemes lower down towards Canobie and Netherby. It is interesting to find that Sir David Lindesay, in his curious drama published in 'Pinkerton's Scottish Poems' vol. ii., p. 156, gives these as among the names of the borderers some three hundred years since. One Common Thift, when sentenced to condign punishment, thus remembers his Border friends in his dying speech: "Adew! my bruther Annan thieves, That holpit me in my mischeivis; Adew! Grosaws, Niksonis, and Bells, Oft have we fairne owrthreuch the fells: Adew! Robsons, Howis, and Pylis, That in our craft hes mony wilis: Littlis, Trumbells, and Armestranges; Baileowes, Erewynis, and Elwandis, Speedy of flicht, and slicht of handis; The Scotts of Eisdale, and the Gramis, I haf na time to tell your nameis."