the high position held by these Border chiefs in the national estimation, is supplied by the spirited ballad "Johnie Armstrong." The tragedy it records is an authentic historical event. The Border chief, not looking upon his occupation as either criminal or disreputable, went to meet his king with an open, guileless countenance, attended by a following which imprudently paraded not only his strength, but his sense of independent authority. In fact, he went to meet his sovereign as one of the secondary princes of the Continent might have gone to show respect to the supreme monarch to whom he paid homage for his dominion-as, for instance, Charles of Burgundy went to meet Louis the Eleventh at Peronne. James V. was, however, at that time aggrandising the crown of Scotland, and he was little scrupulous as to the methods by which he accomplished his object. It sounds well for respectable conventional history to speak about this sagacious monarch's resolution to strengthen the power of the executive, to keep in awe the independent feudal authorities, which created perpetual anarchy and disturbance throughout his dominions, and, above all, to suppress the bands of Border marauders, who fostered anarchy at home and enmity abroad. But there are evil ways of doing things ultimately wise, and without committing one's self to the opinion that Border reiving was a sound national institution, yet we cannot forget that a national institution it was, and that the Armstrongs had no reason to suppose themselves to be criminals. However suddenly and sternly the institution was to be put down, its extinction should have been accomplished with fair notice given, and by fair compulsion; and the tone in which contemporary narrators take up the matter shows that the king gained little in the good esteem of his subjects, by the treacherous slaughter of one who, as a deadly scourge of the English, was reputed a national champion.

Then, if these Armstrongs led an illegal life doubtless they did so, and many acts of Parliament wit nessed against them-was there any more law for what they suffered than for what they did? If we could sup

pose some faint modern repetition of the execution done by the monarch on these Armstrongs made the object of a question to the Home Secretary at the present day, and that responsible gentleman to have no more law on his side than James V. had when he extirpated the Armstrongs, there would be opposition cheers with a witness. Many unjust and cruel deeds were done then in Scotland, in strict conformity with law. But the hanging of the Armstrongs appears to have been done in the course of that kind of rapid execution by which the commander of a force disposes of spies. It is true that, about the date of this transaction, a short significant entry appears in the records of the Court of Justiciary, as preserved by Mr Pitcairn, to this effect: April 1. John Armestrang alias Blak Jok, and Thomas his brother, convicted of common theft, reset of theft, &c., hanged." Although it was not uncommon for the law thus to vulgarise the occupation of the robber chief, yet a comparison of dates shows that Black Jock must have been some remnant of the clan who had survived the slaughter in Liddesdale, and found his way within the pale of the law; and it is pretty certain that no record and no form of trial solemnised the execution of the mighty chief and his immediate followers. Hence a kind of national grief and indignation were echoed by the minstrel, in the tone of proud sadness which he throws into the chief's farewell, and the solemn indignation with which his own narrative concludes.

"Wist England's King that I was ta'en, O gin a blythe man he wad be!

For ance I slew his sister's son,

And on his breast-bane brak a tree!'

"Had I my horse, and my harness good,
And riding as I wont to be,
It should have been tauld this hundred year,
The meeting of my King and me!

God be with thee, Christy, my brother!

Lang live thou laird of Mangertoun ! Lang mayst thou live on the Border-side,

Ere thou see thy brother ride up and doun. And God be with thee, Christy, my son, Where thou sits on thy nurse's knee! But an' thou live this hundred year, Thy father's better thou'lt never be.

Fareweel, my bonnie Gilnock-ha',

Where on the Esk thou standest stout; Gif I had lived but seven years mair, I wad have gilt thee round about.' Johnie murder'd was at Carlinrigg, And all his gallant companie; But Scotland's heart was ne'er so wae, To see sae mony brave men die. Because they saved their countrie dear

Highland farm, represents, or used to represent, the mansion-house of the old domain of Brackley, where the fierce freebooter Inverey made his appearance one morning with a set of red-haired followers, drove off all the cattle, as Donald Bean Lean did at Tully Veolan, and slew the worthy baron, who came forth in defence of

While Johnie lived on the Border-side, None of them durst come near his hauld."

There is no such sympathy as this with the Highland freebooters. For the substantial reason already referred to, that, while the Borderers took the fray into England, the Celts plundered the Lowland Scots, these are condemned in verse as well as

prose. It is true that, in the ballad of "Gilderoy," we find the sentiment,

"Wae worth the louns that made the laws, To hang a man for gear; To reive of life for sic a cause

As stealing horse or mear!" But these words are put into the mouth of the outlaw's bereaved widow; and, as far as the author of the ballad meant them to tell, are said more in sarcasm than sincerity. The tone in which the Highland reiver's deeds are chronicled is usually that of indignation against the wrong done, and pity for the sufferer, than the kind of fierce exultation in successful marauding which the Border ballads express. The short sad metrical narrative of the fate of the Baron of Brackley is a fair illustration of this side of the distinction. Brackley, on the eastern edge of the north Highlands, was a domain of a branch of the Gordons. This family, though they had a large Highland following, were, like the Campbells in the south, a great middle power, overawing the unruly clans among the mountains behind them through the power of their chief as a great lord, and able, on the other hand, to play a large game in national politics by calling out their Highland strength. Among them reiving was not encouraged, and their retainers were among the plundered rather than the plunderers. A small farmhouse, looking down upon the pleasant watering-village of Ballater and across to Prince Albert's

stones, on which we were told that drank after the deed was done. Of Inverey and his followers sat and Inverey's grim old square tower, the remains, giving shelter to a few sheep, ther up among the mountains, and may be seen some fifteen miles faralmost beneath the shadow of the precipices of Lochnagar. We are tempted here to mention a characteristic little matter of personal_recollection. Being directed to a hut, where lived a guide, reputed to possess old and curious knowledge about a certain tract of country, there issued from the doorway a figure which it was difficult to believe so humble a tenement could contain. Tall he was almost to the giantheight, but perfectly symmetrical, and, though past seventy years of age, without any stoop or other trace of decay, except the grizzling of his long massive locks. He had a large, full, rich dark eye, a high forehead, and an aquiline nose, and bore himself with the dignity of a barbarian prince. Happening, in conversation, to allude to the family whose name he bore, we asked, in the way in which it is thought that a compliment is generally expressed towards a Highlander, if he were nearly related to the head of the clan. Like Sir Edward Seymour, when complimented by Charles II. as a member of the Duke of Somerset's family, the old man drew himself up yet a little higher, and, with a faint blush of pride, said he was the head of the clan himself, the lineal representative of the fallen house of Inverey. It was natural to ask him whether he had ever made the existing head of the clan aware that one following his humble occupation had such claims on their kind attention, but he received the hint as an exiled prince might any such reference to the reigning house. Whether he was

justified either in claiming descent from Inverey or the headship of the clan for that great freebooter, we know not. We have nothing to say in justification of this digression, save that the ballad about Brackley and Inverey happened to recall an incident which impressed itself on the mind as curious and interesting. And now comes a stanza or two from the pathetic ballad itself, in illustration of that great difference which we have referred to between the popular estimation of the Border and of the Highland reiver :

"Then up gat the baron, and cried for his graith;

Says, Lady, I'll gang, though to leave you I'm laith.

'Come, kiss me, then, Peggy; and gie me

Twa gallanter Gordons did never sword draw:

But against four and thirty, wae's me, what is twa?

Wi' swords and wi' daggers they did him surround;

And they've pierced bonnie Brackley wi' mony a wound.

Frae the head o' the Dee to the banks o' the Spey,

tragic fate of those who tempted the wrath of the potent lords of Glenurchy. Warton, the historian of English poetry, had seen a copy of it, and speaks of it as "an anonymous Scotch poem, which contains capital touches of satirical humour not inferior to those of Dunbar and Lindsay." Warton took the hero to be a mere mythical personage, established as a type of the Highland freebooter. But, to the misfortune of many a neighbouring strath, Duncan was an extremely real person, and his name was as familiar in certain courts of justiciary and regality as those of the Turpins and the Abershaws became at assize-courts in later times. He was a M'Gregor, which is equivalent to saying that he was endowed with a caput lupinum-made a sort of human wolf, whom it was lawful sport for all men to hunt, and who might be put to death in any way, with or without torture, by a fortunate captor-and no questions asked. His territorial patronymic seems to have been a place called Laedassach, whence the poet has called him Laedius for the benefit of Saxon lips. We find him hard pressed by both branches of the hostile Campbells-Argyll and Breadalbane-and, after in vain seeking refuge in Lochaber, caught at last by Sir Duncan Campbell of Glenurchy. The national calamity at Flodden was the reverse of a calamity to him -there Glenurchy and many of the Campbells were slain, and, in the confusion at Lochawe, Duncan managed to escape. Soon afterwards he is indicted before the Court of Justiciary for the robbery and murder of two retainers of the Breadalbanes,

Inverey."

There is a poem rather than a ballad, which is not to be found in Professor Aytoun's collection, and indeed, not being traditionary, would have no legitimate claim to be there, which professes to contain the testament and confession of a celebrated Highland freebooter. It is called the testimony of Duncan Laedius, and has long lain in the archives of the house of Breadalbane, among other documents commemorative of the

took from one of them "his purs, and in it the soum of fourtie pounds." But the indictment was a mere brutum fulmen, for Duncan's foot was still on his native heather. The Breadalbane required to strengthen his hands against this audacious and revengeful depredator; and, accordingly, the family titles contain a bond of manrent, or service and retainery, by which two of the Clan Drummond, and a certain Stewart of Ballinderan, bind themselves to the special service of hunting him, or as

it is in legal form of style set forth by some dry technical conveyancer of that day, they covenant "with their whole power, with their kin, friends, and partakers, to invade and pursue to the death Duncan Laedassach, M'Gregor, Gregor his son, their servants, partakers, and accomplices; by reason that they are our deadly enemies, and our sovereign lady's rebels." The conclusion to the by-feud, which seems to have been thus established between the M'Gregors and the Drummonds, was so more than usually tragical as to have become historical. The reader will remember it when told the outlines;-how Drummond, the keeper of the forest of Glenurchy, having gone to get venison for the feasting at the marriage of King James, was slain by the M'Gregors-how they cut off his head and swore a deep oath before it in the Kirk of Glenurchy-how they then went to the new-made widow demanding hospitality, and the poor Highland woman, having nothing but bread and cheese to give them, they indulged her with the sight of her husband's bloody head, with a portion of the sordid viands stuck into the mouth. But, in the mean time, the original feud had an odd termination, but not an uncommon one, when one of the great houses, guided by an aggrandising policy, was one of the parties. Duncan was bought over and taken into the service of the Breadalbane, entering on a bond of manrent, such as that which had been devised against him, but in more general terms; the chief stating that zeal and love of good conscience has prompted him to forgive his enemy, and remit to him all manner of actions and faults; he and his son, on the other hand, fulfilling their bond of manrent to the chief and his heirs. How these parties fell out again does not appear, but it is simply stated that, on the 15th of June 1552, “Duncan M'Gregor and his sons Gregor and Malcolm were beheaded by Colin Campbell of Glenurchy, Campbell of Glenlyon, and Menzies of Rannoch."* It was when

he had fallen into this, the last of his scrapes, and his fate had come, that the freebooter is supposed to give forth his confession and testament.

He is penitent to a very edifying extent, and solemnly religious. He favours the Reformed creed, not yet triumphant, but secretly strengthening itself, and an opportunity is taken for sarcastic taunts against the clergy, by making the robber dispose of his vices among those whom they will suit. He leaves to the abbot "pride and arrogance," "with trapped mules in court to ride." To the friars are bequeathed "flattery and false dissembling," for "they gloss the Scripture ever when they teach." In another strain the departing robber bids a sentimental adieu to the various spots of local interest connected with his career;- the fair straths where he found an ample prey-the glens dear to his memory by many a drive of the reft oxen through their sinuosities-his rocky resort at Rannoch, the retreat of safety-the only place that was "richt traist both even and morn," and "did him nought beguile when oft he was at the King's horn." The reader will judge for himself by the following specimen, whether Warton's eulogium of this long hidden fragment of national literature is justified:

"Farewell Glenurchy, with thy forest free; Farewell Fesnay, that oft my friend has been,

Farewell Monich-alass and woe is me, Thou was the ground of all my wo and tyne;

Farewell Breadalbane and Loch Tay, so shene

Farewell Glenurchy and Glenlyon baith, My death to you will be but little skaith. Farewell Glenalmond-garden of pleas

ance,

For many a fair flower have I fra you tane,

Farewell Strathbrann-and have rememberance

That thou will never mair see Duncan again.

Atholl-Strathtay-of my death be fain, For oft-times I took your readiest geer. Therefore for me see ye greet not ane teer. Farewell Stratherne-most comely for to knaw,

Plenish'd with pleasant policies, preclair

SELDOM has it fallen to the lot of a general to enter upon a more hopeless-looking command than it was Sir Colin Campbell's fate to do when, on the 13th August 1857, he landed at Calcutta. A great empire was on the point of being lost-the edifice erected with so much toil, and cemented with SO much blood, seemed to be crumbling away. The dominion won by the genius of Clive and Warren Hastings, extended and supported by the statesmanship of Wellesley, Hastings, Ellenborough, and Dalhousie, subdued by the swords of Lake, Wellington, and Gough, was now one vast scene of revolt, bloodshed, and massacre. A magnificent army, trained with the utmost care, organised with the utmost skill, supplied to overflowing with every requisite, had broken into revolt. An arsenal adequate to the wants of such an army, and suitable to the extent of such a dominion, had fallen into its possession. The whole of northern, central, and western India seemed to be either lost or on the verge of destruction.

Far away in our recently acquired dominion in the Punjaub, Lawrence, with a high hand and a stout will, held his now isolated domain. Measuring at once both the extent and the imminence of the danger, he boldly took a course from which most men would have shrunk with dread, but which in reality saved India. Cut off from external aid, isolated from all hope of immediate succour, he threw himself entirely into the arms of our recently acquired Sikh subjects. Disarming or destroying all

the Sepoy battalions, he raised, upon his own responsibility, a new Sikh army, to whom he confided the guard of his territory, whilst he hurried up every disposable man and gun of his European force towards Delhi, to meet the tide of rebellion where it was strongest, and check it where it was flowing with all the whirl and violence of first success and apparently irresistible force. Had it not been for that man and that resolution, and the iron grasp of his stern will, and the calm bold front with which he met and broke the rush of that rebellious torrent, the campaign of 1857-58 would have opened not in upper India with the conquest of Delhi and the relief of Lucknow, but around the gates of Calcutta, and amidst the ghauts above Bombay.

The Doab, Rohilcund, and the kingdom of Oude, were gone. The great arsenal of Delhi, the gun-carriage manufactory of Futtyghur, Cawnpore, where all our saddlery and harness were made, had fallen into the hands of the rebels. From the Punjaub we were entirely cut off. Agra and Lucknow were the only two points beyond Allahabad where we held garrisons in all that broad tract of country which extends from the Himalayas to the territories of the Saugur and Nerbudda states, from the frontier of the Punjaub to that of Bengal proper, and the line of the Ganges below Allahabad.

The military position which we held at the time of the arrival of Sir Colin Campbell was thus much as follows: From Delhi and the Punjaub we were entirely cut off.