On the following day, Sir William Selby set out upon his mission; and before he had proceeded far, he found himself at the head of a thousand horsemen. They burned and destroyed the strongholds of the Borderers, as they went, and the more desperate amongst them who fell into their hands were sent in fetters to Carlisle. It was early in May, and the young leaves, bursting into beauty and being, were spreading their summer livery over Tarras forest, and the breeze wafted their grateful fragrance over the morass; even on the morass itself, a thousand simple flowers, like fragments of beauty scattered in hand-fuls amidst the wide-spread desolation, peeped forth; and over the sharp cry of the wheeling lapwing rang the summer hymn of the joyful lark, when, as we have said before, Sandy Armstrong sat on the turret of Cleughfoot with his son by his side. "Archy," said the freebooter, "this warld is turning upside down, an' honest men hae nae chance in't. We hear o' naething noo but law! law! law!--but the fient a grain o' justice is to be met wi' on the Borders. A man canna take a bit beast or twa in an honest way, or make a bonfire o' an enemy's haystack, but there's naethin' for't but Carlisle and a hempen cravat. But mind, callant, ye ha'e the bluid o' the Armstrongs in your veins, and their hands never earned bread by ony instrument but the sword, and it winna be the son o' Sandy o' Cleughfoot that will disgrace his kith and kin by trudging at a ploughtail, or learning some beggarly handicraft. Swear to me, Archy, that ye will live by the sword like your faithers afore ye--swear to your faither, callant, an' fear neither Jamie Stuart, his twa kingdoms, nor his horsemen--they'll ha'e stout hearts that cross Tarras moss, and there will be few sheep in Liddesdale before the pot at Cleughfoot need nae skimming." "I will live like my faither before me--king o' Tarras-side," said the youth. "That shall ye, Archy," rejoined the freebooter; "an' though the Scotts an' the Elliots may, like fause louns, make obeisance to the king, and get braid lands for bending their knees, what cares Sandy Armstrong for their lands, their manrents, or their sheep-skins, scrawled owre by a silk-fingered monk--his twa-handed blade and his Jeddart-staff shall be a better title to an Armstrong than an acre o' parchment." The boy caught the spirit of his sire, and flourished his Jedburgh-staff, or battle-axe, in his hand. The father raised the quegh to his lips--"Here's to ye, Archy," he cried, "ye'll be cooper o' Fogo!"