When sentence was pronounced, Willie arose;
and, seizing the oaken chair in which he was placed, broke it into
pieces by main strength, and offered to his companions, who were
involved in the same doom, that, if they would stand behind him, he
would fight his way out of Selkirk with these weapons. But they held
his hands, and besought him to let them _die like Christians_. They
were accordingly executed in form of law. This was the last trial at
Selkirk. The people of Liddesdale, who (perhaps not erroneously) still
consider the sentence as iniquitous, remarked, that--, the prosecutor,
never throve afterwards, but came to beggary and ruin, with his whole
family.
Johnie Armstrong, of Gilnockie, the hero of the following ballad, is a
noted personage, both in history and tradition. He was, it would seem
from the ballad, a brother of the laird of Mangertoun, chief of
the name. His place of residence (now a roofless tower) was at the
Hollows, a few miles from Langholm, where its ruins still serve to
adorn a scene, which, in natural beauty, has few equals in Scotland.
At the head of a desperate band of freebooters, this Armstrong is said
to have spread the terror of his name almost as far as Newcastle, and
to have levied _black mail_, or _protection and forbearance money_,
for many miles around.
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