84 
under cover of the darkness, from the side of ‘‘the Sacray, a plaine 
place under the towne and castell”—the breaking of the prison 
bars, and the confusion of the garrison numbering 1o0oo men—the 
release of the astonished prisoner on the very eve of his execution, 
carried in his irons shoulder-high on the back of one of the band 
—the alarm that followed—the tolling of the city bells and the 
beating of the drums—and the recrossing of the flooded Eden in 
the grey dawn of an autumn morning—all these are graphically 
touched, and make a striking picture. 
Buccleugh has turned to Eden waters, 
F’en where it flowed from bank to brim ; 
And he has plunged in wi’ a’ his band 
And safely swam them through the stream. 
Lord Scrope, in amazement, standing on the bank exclaims— 
He is either himsel’ a devil from hell, 
Or else his mother a witch maun be: 
I wouldna hae ridden that wan water 
For a’ the gowd in Christantie. 
We may imagine the glee of the little party when they reached 
their own neighbourhood again, passing through Longtown at the 
break of day, and the stir the incident would cause. Queen 
Elizabeth was deeply incensed at the conduct of Buccleugh, and 
not very easily pacified. Some time after, when he was presented 
to her, she demanded of him how he dared undertake an enterprise 
so desperate and presumptuous. ‘‘ What is it,” he replied, “that 
a man dares not do?” ‘With ten thousand such men,” said the 
Queen, “our brother of Scotland could shake the firmest throne 
in Europe!” She little thought that ere half a century had passed, 
the crown the Scotchmen would shake, would be her own, in the 
hands of her successors. 
Some years later the Queen died, and James VI. of Scotland, 
succeeding to the throne, made the two countries one. Renewed 
efforts were made to pacify the Border. You remember the remark 
of James when a favourite cow he had taken with him to London 
found its way back to Fife: nothing, he said, surprised him so 
much as its being able to pass without interruption through the 
