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Looking out in the dim grey of the morning, the child saw "more gentlemen than she had ever seen before in one place, all on horseback, in armour, and dripping wet and that Kinmont Willie, who sat woman-fashion behind one of them, was the biggest carle she ever saw and there was much merriment in the party."
The triumph of putting an end to the daring deeds of so bold a Scottish reiver when they had him safely in chains in Carlisle Castle, was one that they were not likely lightly to forego. It would be indeed a merry crowd of English Borderers that flocked to Haribee Hill on the day that Will of Kinmont dangled from the gallows. Buccleuch saw that he had no time to lose.
"But He can make use of instruments," argued Boyd, who had learned his lesson, "and Israel Kinmont is one of them. He has showed me where to get grace." "Maybe," snapped Jen, that unswerving Calvinist, "seeing is believing. Boyd Connoway may have got grace. I put no limit to the Almighty's power. But it takes more than grace to convert a man from laziness!"
You know the man by report at least; he is more a collector than a bookseller, though poor; and I verily believe that he would sell all his children Douglas Bell, Percy Bell, Hobbie Bell, and Kinmont Bell "for a song." Ballads are his foible, and he can hardly be made to part with one of the broadsides in his broken portfolios. However, I am delaying your natural eagerness.
No time was lost in making an appeal to King James, which resulted in an application to the English Government. But while the English authorities quibbled, paltered, and delayed with a little evasion, a little extra red-tapism, a little judicious procrastination the days of Kinmont Willie were being numbered by his captors.
Wi' coulters and wi' forehammers We garr'd the bars bang merrily, Until we came to the inner prison, Where Willie o' Kinmont he did lie. Old Border Ballad. We return to Portanferry, and to Bertram and his honest-hearted friend, whom we left most innocent inhabitants of a place built for the guilty. The slumbers of the farmer were as sound as it was possible.
'He is either himsel' a devil frae hell, Or else his mother a witch maun be; I wadna' have ridden that wan water For a' the gowd in Christentie." At a place called "Dick's Tree," not far from Longtown, there still stands the "smiddy" where lived the blacksmith who had the honour of knocking off Kinmont Willie's fetters.
King James refused at first, for he said that Lord Scroope had been the first to break the truce by carrying off Kinmont Willie in time of peace; but at length he was obliged to yield, for Queen Elizabeth was very powerful, and always would have her own way. So the 'bauld Buccleugh' was sent to London and brought before the great, haughty English queen.
Queen Elizabeth demanded Buccleuch's punishment, and he argued. She nagged, and he wriggled. Finally, after continual angry remonstrances from the insulted English monarch, he had to give in, and Buccleuch and Ker had both, at different periods, to suffer imprisonment for the sin, in the virgin Queen's eyes, of the rescue of Kinmont Willie, and of its bloody consequences.
Black Rob o' Garlies or Roaring Imrie from Douglas-ha' thought nothing of taking such a one by convenient parts of his clothing and dropping him overboard. "Aye," said Boyd, encouraged by my grandfather's request, "Israel Kinmont has made a new man of many a hardened sinner!" "I dare you to say so," cried my grandmother; "only the Lord that is on High can do that."
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