298 The Ballad of Kinmont Willie. 



And there the laird garr'd leave our steeds, 

 For fear that they should stamp and nie. 



And when we left the Staneshaw-bank, 



The wind began full loud to blaw ; 

 But 'twas wind and weet, and fire and sleet. 



When we came beneath the castle wa'. 



We scarce had won the Staneshaw-bank, 



When a' the Carlisle bells were rung, 

 And a thousand men in horse and foot, 



Cam' wi' the keen lord Scroope along. 



Buccleuch has turn'd to Eden Water, 

 Even where it flowed frae bank to brim. 



And he has plunged in wi' a' his band, 

 And safely swam them thro' the stream." 



But I must now conclude. It is not beyond the bounds of 

 possibility that an independent version of " Kinmont Willie " may 

 yet turn up and enable us to check Scott's ballad. In our own 

 day an extra version of "Jamie Telfer in the Fair Dodhead," 

 another ballad of the western Border which has recently been the 

 subject of controversy, has been discovered by Mr Macmath and 

 printed in Professor Child's monumental work, " The English 

 and Scottish Popular Ballads." 



Letters of Horning Directed Against the Armstrongs, 

 1582. Transcribed by Mr G. W. Shirley. 



The following transcript of Letters of Horning directed 

 against Sandies Ringan Armstrong, brother german to Will of 

 Kinmont, and other Armstrongs, dated at Edinburgh, 22nd 

 November, 1582, found in a Sheriff Court book of the period, has 

 a few points of interest apart from its being a literal transcript of 

 a document iiot to be found in the National Records and the 

 well-known names of some of the persons involved in the affair 

 which caused its production. It reveals, as only similar docu- 

 ments do, the lawless condition of the Borders prior to James VI. 's 

 act of 1605, establishing a body of forty well-equipped horsemen 

 to hunt down outlaws, which finally reduced the Borders to com- 

 parative quietness. 



