J. F. Campbell Collection > Minstrelsy of the Scottish border > Volume 1

114 MINSTRELSY OF
" They had their scoutes on the tops of hills, on the Eng-
" lish side, to give them warning if at any time any
" power of men should come to surprise them. The three
" ambushes were safely laid, without being discovered,
" and, about four o'clock in the morning, there were
" three hundred horse, and a thousand foot,* that came
" directly to the place where the scoutes lay. They gave
" the alarm ; our men brake down as fast as they could
" into the wood. The outlawes thought themselves afe,
" assuring themselves at any time to escape ; but they
" were so strongly set upon, on the English side, as they
" were forced to leave their goodes, and betake them-
" selves to their passages towards Scotland, There was
" presently five taken of the principal of them. The rest,
" seeing themselves, as they thought, betrayed, retired
" into the thicke woodes and bogges,t that our men
" durst not follow them for fear of loosing themselves.
" The principall of the five, that were taken, were two
" of the eldest sonnes of 'S'//« of Whitram. These five
" they brought to mee to the fort, and a number of
• From this it would appear, that Carey, although his constant at-
tendants in his fort consisted only of 200 horse, had upon tliis occa-
sion, by the assistance, probably, of the English and Scottish royal
garrisons, collected a much greater force.
•f There are now no trees in Liddcsdale, except on the banks of the
rivers, where they are protected from the sheep. But the stumps and
fallen timber, which arc every where found in the morasses, attest how
well the country must have been wooded in former days.