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

THE SC(JTTISH BOKDEIJ. 301
those days, however^ the royal auspices seem to have
carried as little good fortune as effective strength with
them. A desperate conflict, still renowned in tradition,
took place at the Dryffe sands, not far from Lockerby,
in which Johnstone, although inferior in numbers, partly
by his own conduct, partly by the valour of his allies,
gained a decisive victory. Lord Maxwell, a tall man,
and heavily armed, was struckfrom his horse in theflight,
and cruelly slain, after the hand, which he stretched out
for quarter, had been severed from his body. Many of
his followers Avere slain in the battle, and many cruelly
wounded, especially by slashes in the face, which wound
was thence tex'med a " Lockerby lick." The Bax'ons of
Lag, Closeburn, and Drumlanrig, escaped by the fleet-
ness of their horses ; a circumstance alluded to in the
following ballad.
This fatal battle was followed by a long feud, attended
with all the circumstances of horror, proper to a barba-
rous age. Johnstone, in his diffuse manner, describes it
thus : " Ab eo die ultro citroque in Aiinandia et Nithia
" magnis utriusque regionis jaciuris certatum. Ccedes, in-
" cendia, rapinoe, et nefandajacinora ; liberi in rnaternis
" gremiis trucidati ; mariti in conspectu conjugum sua-
" rum ; incensoB villce lamentabiles ubique querimonice et
" horribiles armorum fremitus." — Johnstoni Historia,
Ed. AmstceL p. 182.
John, Lord Maxwell, with whose Goodnight the reader
is here presented, was son to him who fell at the battle