Se 
And then he sadly turns to bid a last adieu to his 
Bonny Gilnock hall, 
Where, on Esk side thou standest stout. 
Miss Wordsworth, in her “Tour in Scotland” in the early years 
of the present century, tells us that her brother and herself were 
directed by Sir W. Scott, to look for the stumps of the trees where 
the reivers were hanged, still standing between Hawick and 
Langholm : at all events, you may still see the ruins of his old 
tower ; and when you visit it, remember the fate of Armstrong of 
Gilnockie. 
Such was a good specimen of the old mosstrooper, and his 
not unusual end; of the men who, during the 14th, 15th, and 16th 
centuries were the terror and dismay of every peaceable man and 
woman to the north and south of the district in which they lived 
—the men whom Sir Walter has painted in his “Lay of the last 
Minstrel” in William. of Deloraine— 
A stark mosstrooping Scot was he 
As e’er couched Border lance by knee ; 
Through Solway sands, through Tarras moss, 
Blindfold he knew the paths to cross ; 
By wily turns, by desperate bounds, 
Had baffled Percy’s best bloodhounds. 
In Esk and Liddell fords were none, 
But he would ride them one by one ;— 
Alike to him were time or tide, 
December’s snow or July’s pride ;— 
Alike to him were tide or time, 
Moonless midnight, or matin prime : 
‘Steady of heart and stout of hand 
As e’er drove prey from Cumberland. 
Of these men there is little but the memory left, and we cannot 
regret that they belonged to a period that is past and gone—that 
they have left only to their descendants something of their 
steadiness of heart, and something of their stoutness of hand, to be 
used, as we believe, for more useful and more honourable ends. 
We have, indeed (and they form one of the most characteristic 
features of our Border scenery) we have many a ruined tower or 
peel, and associated with it 
