"Wi' coulters, and wi' forehammers,
We garr'd[2] the bars bang merrilie,
Until we cam' to the inner prison,
Where Willie o' Kinmont he did lie.
"And when we cam' to the lower prison,
Where Willie o' Kinmont he did lie:
'O sleep ye, wake ye, Kinmont Willie,
Upon the morn that thou's to die?'
"'O I sleep saft, and I wake aft;
It's lang since sleeping was fley'd frae me!
Gie my service back to my wife and bairns,
And a' gude fellows that spier[3] for me.'"
But his spirits rose to the occasion, and when Red Rowan,
"The starkest man in Teviotdale,"
hoisted Kinmont Willie, whose fetters there was no time to knock off, on his back and carried him up to the breach they had made in the wall, from which they went down by a ladder they had brought with them, the man so narrowly delivered from the noose had his jest ready:
"Then shoulder-high with shout and cry
We bore him down the ladder lang;
At every stride Red Rowan made
I wot the Kinmont's airns[4] play'd clang.
"'O mony a time,' quo' Kinmont Willie,
'I have ridden horse baith wild and wood.[5]
But a rougher beast than Red Rowan
I ween my legs have ne'er bestrode.
"'And mony a time,' quo' Kinmont Willie,
'I've pricked a horse out owre the furse,
But since the day I back'd a steed,
I never wore sic cumbrous spurs.'"