COQUET SIDE. 505 



a' hope o* hearing about them, and had sunk down into a sullen, savage, 

 bloodthirsty border-trooper. It fell out, however, on a Lammas night, that 

 Will was out amang the hills wi' his bloodhound Death ; for there was 

 word that the Scotts o' Yarrow had held a football match about Benger, 

 and that its like was aye the beginning o' the raids in the auld times. He 

 had been through about Ridland and the Reidswire, and up maist to Jed- 

 dart, but had neither seen nor heard tell o' the Scotts ; sae Will was gang- 

 ing his ways hame again, when, stopping at change-house, and calling for 

 a stoup o' brandy, his voice was answered by a nicker frae the stable that 

 he kenn'd must be his mear's, if she was above ground. I said before, 

 Will was a wily loun, and his wit didna fail him at this pinch. He 

 slipped off his horse, set his bloodhound to keep ony body frae coming 1 out 

 o' the change-house, and gaed away into the stable. Odd ! it was Will's 

 mear sure enough, and ye may think that as he wadna hae scrupled much 

 to hae taken anither man's mear, he wad think nae sin to take his ain ; so 

 he stooped down lo loose the halter, when, bang ! came down some deadly 

 weapon upon him, and Will felt c-auld steel creeping atween his back- 

 piece and his back-bone. Then there was sic a struggle in the stall as 

 never was the mear biting, and screaming, and plunging, and the two 

 troopers grappling at each other, arid blaspheming God in the dark. At 

 last they got warsled out to the foot o' the stall, and then Will, keeping 

 his grip wi' one hand, and watching his time, touched the rnear in the flank 

 wi' the other up went her heels, and away flew the trooper like an arrow 

 frae a bow. His armour clashed against the opposite wall, and the next 

 moment he was lying a bloody corpse at the far side o' the stable. Sma' 

 time had Will to think, and sma' time he needed. He gaed straight into 

 the house, and naebody was there but the gudeman and the gudewife. 

 Now Will kenn'd fine that the gudeman o' the Slymefoot was but an un- 

 friend to the Coquet lads, and he had lang, it seems, suspected that he 

 carried intelligence to the Scotch bordermen. So he says till him : 



" ' Sandy Dors, ye ken and / ken that the Yarrow men are amang the 

 Cheviots, and that the lad in the stable is arie o' Dickie o' Dryhope's 

 troopers. Now, Sandy, I winna be camsteary wi' a man I've drucken as 

 often wi' as you ; but ye see here's the bitch and me, we're two to ane, and 

 ye maun do as I want ye the day, whatever ye do the morn. If ye'll gang 

 wi' me quietly, so be it, let the dame bring a stoup and we'se be gane ; 

 if not, see ye, Sandy, I'll pin ye to your ain door-cheek afore ye can swear 

 an aith or say a prayer/ So Sandy was of needcessity obligated to gang 

 wi' him, and presently Will brought him to the glen where he had left all 

 the Coquet-dale callants, for they had turned out to meet the Scots. Weel, 

 it was wrung out o' Sandy wi' the thumbscrews, that the Scots were in a 

 dell not three miles off, waiting the return o' their scouts before they 

 poured down upon the villages at the head o' Coquet. But what was mair 

 than a' that, Will discovered that Frank Scott, o' the Douglas burn, was 

 the man that had in the last foray, while the others were plundering, thrown 

 his bairn into the flames, and it was thought had made away wi' his lady 

 after violating her. Think ye whether Will's blood boiled at having the 

 incarnate devil, who had wrought him the grievous vvrang, within his grasp 

 or no. They tell that he opened a vein in his arm, let out some blood into 

 his steel cap, garr'd each o' his men taste it, and swear that they wadna 

 turn their backs on the Scots that night, and that they would do all in their 

 power to take Frank Scott alive. Weel, the upshot of a' was that they 

 cam upon the Scots by surprise, and slew them almost to a man. Ai'ter 

 the butchering was over, the names were ca'd, and Rough-Riding Will 

 was na to the fore. It turned out that he and the murderer o' his wife and 

 bairn, had come together almost at the beginning o' the struggle, and that 

 the Scot, pricked by his bad conscience, had fled away down the burn 



