There is a change now. The bones of the bold Armstrongs lie in Carlenrig, and the descendants of their brother-rievers who got their lands sit in high places, and speak words of legislative command. But these things will be as they have ever been. We cannot change the world, far less remake it; but we can resuscitate a part of its moral wonders; and, while the property of Christie's Will, the last of the bold Armstrongs, is now possessed by another family, under a written title, we will do well to commit to record a part of his fame. It is well known that the chief of the family of Armstrongs had his residence[A] at Mangerton in Liddesdale. There is scarcely now any trace of his tower, though time has not exerted so cruel a hand against his brother Johnny Armstrong's residence, which lies in the Hollows near Langholme. We know no tumult of the emotions of what may be called antiquarian sentiment, so engrossing and curious as that produced by the headless skeleton of "auld Gilnockie's Tower," as it is seen in the grey gloaming, with a breeze brattling through its dry ribs, and a stray owl sitting on the top, and sending his eldritch screigh through the deserted hollows. The mind becomes busy on the instant with the former scenes of festivity, when "their stolen gear," "baith nolt and sheep," and "flesh, and bread, and ale," as Maitland says, were eaten and drunk with the _kitchen_ of a Cheviot hunger, and the sweetness of stolen things; and when the wild spirit of the daring outlaws, with Johnny at their head, made the old tower of the Armstrongs ring with their wassail shouts. This Border turret came--after the execution of Johnny Armstrong, and when the clan had become what was called a broken clan--into the possession of William Armstrong, who figured in the times of Charles I. He was called Christie's Will, though from what reason does not now seem very clear; neither is it at all evident why, after the execution of his forbear, Johnny, and his fifty followers, at Carlenrig, the Tower of Gilnockie was not forfeited to the crown, and taken from the rebellious clan altogether; but, to be sure it was in those days more easy to take a man's life than his property, insomuch as the former needed no guard, while the other would have required a small standing army to keep it and the new proprietor together. Certain, however, it is, that Christie's Will did get possession of the Tower of Gilnockie, where, according to the practice of the family, he lived "on Scottish ground and English kye;" and, when the latter could not easily be had, on the poorer land of his neighbours of Scotland. [A] In a MS. we have seen, as old as the end of the 15th century, "the Laird of Mangerton" is placed at the head of the Liddesdale chiefs--Harden, Buccleuch, and others coming after him in respectful order.