But Willie lived in degenerate days; the times were out of joint, and reiving as a profession had gone out of fashion. People now resented having their eye "lifted," and meanly invoked the new-fangled aid of the Law in redressing such grievances. Nevertheless, Willie did his best to maintain old customs, and consequently he was feared and hated far beyond the bounds of Liddesdale.
Modern prejudice however at length became too strong for him. It so fell out that a dozen or so of cows, raided one night from Teviotdale, were traced to Westburnflat. In the dead of night, when Willie was peacefully asleep, tired perhaps, and soothed by the consciousness of a deed well done, the men of Teviotdale arrived, and, bursting in, before Willie could gather his scattered wits or realise what was happening he was overpowered by numbers, and they had bound him fast, hand and foot. His trial, along with that of nine friends and neighbours, was held at Selkirk, and though the lost cattle had not been found in his possession, and the evidence of this particular theft was in no way conclusive, on the question of general character alone the jury thought it safer to find all the prisoners guilty. Sentence of death was pronounced. Thereupon Willie arose in wrath, seized the heavy oak chair on which he had been seated, broke it in pieces by main strength, kept a strong leg for himself, and passing the remainder to his condemned comrades, called to them to stand by him and they would fight their way out of Selkirk. There is little doubt, too, that he would have succeeded had he been properly backed up. But his friends—poor "fushiunless," spiritless creatures, degenerate Armstrongs surely, if they were Armstrongs—seized his hands and cried to him to "let them die like Christians."
[Original]
Perhaps it was a kind of equivalent to turning King's Evidence; they may have hoped to curry favour and to be treated leniently because of their services in helping to secure the chief villain. But they might better have died fighting; pusillanimity availed them nothing. They were all duly hanged.
A few miles down the Liddel from Westburnfiat is the site of Mangerton Castle, home of the chief of the Armstrong clan, Johnie of Gilnockie's brother.
