"If Gilderoy had done amiss,
He might have banished been;
Ah! what sore cruelty is this
To hang such handsome men!
To hang the flower of Scottish land,
So sweet and fair a boy!
No lady had so white a hand
As thee, my Gilderoy!
When he had yielded up his breath
I bare his corpse away;
With tears, that trickled for his death,
I washt his comely clay;
And sicker[#] in a grave sae deep
I laid the dear lo'ed boy;
And now for ever maun I weep,
My winsome Gilderoy."
[#] Safely.
Chapter XLII
Archie Armstrong's Oath
"And oft since then, to England's King,
The story he has told;
And aye, when he 'gan rock and sing,
Charlie his sides would hold."
Archie Armstrong lived in Eskdale, where he did his best to keep up the grand reputation of his family as being among the very boldest sheep-stealers of the Border. His house was at Stubholm, where the Wauchope stream runs into the river Esk, near where the picturesque town of Langholm now stands. Living in the reign of Charles I., after the union of crowns, the profession of freebooter was far less honourable than of old. He could not now plead that he was a Border soldier, fighting against his nation's enemy. The wild Border blood in him might cry out for the old adventurous career, but he could no longer hope for the aid of powerful Border families. When cornered, his sole protector would be his own wits, and woe betide him if they failed!
Archie's house was about eight miles from the Border, and he could not help strolling towards the fascinating line and tasting the sweetness of temptation. When the chance came that seemed to him sufficiently safe, he would go home in company though he had walked out alone; the "company" being a good fat English sheep. One night a shepherd had marked him lingering about, and had watched him, and raised an alarm. Away went stout Archie at a Marathon pace; half way home he passed Gilnockie tower, where his ancestor bold Johnie Armstrong lived so gaily. "Alas!" thought Archie, dolefully, "he too was hanged in the end!"
He got home well in front of his pursuers, but his wife gave him small encouragement. With typical Scottish dourness she remarked to him, "Ye will be ta'en this night and hanged i' the morning."
But Archie put a braw face on it, and declared that he would never hang for one silly sheep. Quicker than any butcher he skinned and roughly trimmed the dead animal, throwing the rejected parts into the swift stream. Then rejoicing in the fact that his child was away with its aunt, he put the carcase carefully in the cradle and began rocking it and singing a lullaby to it, as if he were the most loving father in all the British Isles.
The pursuers now rushed in, and began to accuse Archie triumphantly; but he rebuked them for making so much noise, telling them that his child was at death's door! As for stealing their sheep, he took a solemn oath that if he had done such a thing he would ask to be doomed to "eat the flesh this very cradle holds!"