Tushielaw was a tower, or peel-house, now in ruins, overhanging the wild banks of the Ettrick. Here the same feat was performed. It is understood that other executions followed this, but of these none was of so bold a character as the killing of the famous Johnnie Armstrong of Gilnockie.

Johnnie Armstrong is a noted person both in history and tradition. He appears to have been a Border depredator on a singularly magnificent scale. His tower is still extant. It occupies a pleasant situation among the bewildering beauties of Eskdale, in the south-eastern part of Dumfriesshire, and within an hour's ride of the Cumberland side of the Border. It is of considerable extent and space, though now only serving in the capacity of a cow-house to the neighbouring farmer. There is now reason to believe that Johnnie, the proprietor of this castle, and the head of a potent clan of Armstrongs, was not ignorant of the exterminating principles which actuated the king. It is rather evident that he had determined on braving it out before 'his grace.' As the sovereign proceeded down the Vale of the Ewes towards Langholm, the freebooter presented himself before him with a gallant companie' of thirty-six well-mounted Elliots and Armstrongs, arrayed in all the pomp of Border chivalry. The spot at which the meeting took place was at Carlinrigg Chapel, ten miles south of Hawick. It turned out that Johnnie had entirely miscalculated on the effect likely to be produced by the imposing appearance of his train. The king was incensed to see a freebooter so gallantly equipped, and commanded him instantly to be led to execution, saying: 'What wants this knave, save a crown, to be as magnificent as a king? On this, John Armstrong made earnest entreaty for his life, offering, at first poll, four-and-twenty milkwhite steeds, and afterwards increasing his ransom in amount to twenty-four 'ganging-mills,' with as much 'gude red wheit' as would keep them in grinding for a whole year; but all was of no avail. He, as a last shift, offered to maintain himself with fifty men, ready to serve

the king at a moment's notice, at his own expense; engaging never to hurt or injure any Scottish subject, as, indeed, had never been his practice; and undertaking, that there was not a man in England, of whatever degree-duke, earl, lord, or baron-but he would engage, within a certain time, to present to the king, dead or alive. But the king would listen to no offer, however great, whereupon John broke out into a fume of proud indignation, and, as the ballad has it, exclaimed:

'To seek het water aneath cauld ice,

Surely it is a great folie;

I have asked grace at a graceless face,

But there is nane for my men and me;'

continuing that, had he anticipated such usage, he would have lived on the Borders in despite of both King Harry and James, and that the former would downweigh his best horse with gold to know that he had been put to death. No further parley took place. Johnnie and all his retinue were immediately hanged upon some growing trees near the above-mentioned chapel. They were buried in its deserted church-yard, where their graves are yet shewn. The country people, who hold the memory of the unfortunate marauders in very high respect, believe that, to manifest the injustice of their execution, the trees immediately withered away.

THE LITTLE PILGRIM:

A SIMPLE STORY.

THE only youthful inmate of a large old-fashioned house in an ancient town in the very centre of Old England, was Maria Walker. She lived with her grandmamma and two maiden aunts, whom she would have called very old indeed, though they by no means were of the same opinion. Indeed, the little girl most strenuously maintained on all suitable, and many very unsuitable

.occasions, that they never could have been so young as they seemed in their pictures, which represented them as two tall awkward girls, just struggling into womanhood; one with a parrot on her hand, the other with an ominous kitten in her arms, and both with the blackest of hair, the reddest of cheeks, the whitest of frocks, and the pinkest of sashes.

Most people would have expected to find little Maria a very dull unhappy child, it seemed such an uncongenial atmosphere for the buoyant spirits of a merry little girl; for the stillness of death reigned through the house, whose echoes were seldom awakened by any sound, save that of Lilly's tail patting against the drawingroom door, when, finding it shut, she took that method of gaining admittance to the fireside circle, where her beautiful white fur contrasted very well with the rich folds of grandmamma's black silks and satins. Lilly was the descendant of the kitten in Aunt Maria's pictured embrace, and this was a circumstance which sadly perplexed the youthful mind of Maria, who could not reconcile the idea of so old a creature being the grandchild of so young a one; her grandmamma and herself, she justly observed, were the very reverse.

Maria, however, was a very happy child, though she durst not make a noise anywhere except in her own play-room at the top of the house. Of course she had her troubles like all other little girls, even those whose voices are never checked, and she used to get into sad scrapes sometimes; but then she used soon to get out of them, and she was neither perplexed by regrets for the past nor fears for the future.

The very first serious difficulty Maria could recollect finding herself in, occurred one day when grandmamma and both aunts were gone out to dinner; an event of very rare occurrence, and of momentous interest in the family. Both aunts had had some scruples about the propriety of leaving Maria so very long alone, for company dinners at Oldtown were celebrated at two o'clock; but as neither of them seemed for a moment to

contemplate the possibility of staying at home to take care of her, their anxieties assumed the form of strict injunctions to Mrs Martha, the housekeeper, on no account to let her out of her sight. Now, Mrs Martha had not the slightest intention of being guilty of a breach of trust. But she had bought some fine green tea, and baked a very superior cake, and had asked two ladies-maids to drink tea with her, and it did not at all comport with her ideas of comfort, that Miss Maria should be beside them all the afternoon, and have it in her power to retail in the drawing-room next day all the news which she hoped to hear.

Anxious to avoid equally the frying-pan and the fire, as she said afterwards to Hannah the housemaid, she determined to give Miss Maria the materials whereof to make a little feast, with her Tunbridge-ware dinnerservice, and conveyed the little girl's little table and little chair to a spot on the grass-plot opposite the large window that opened to the ground from her own room. There she placed them, with a large basket of toys, in the shade which the spreading wings of a monstrous eagle cut in box afforded, believing that the child would be constantly within sight, and, if she strayed, that she should miss her directly, and would quickly follow. Why the ladies were so very anxious on this particular day that she should be watched, she did not know, as Miss Maria was accustomed to play by herself in the garden for hours every day; 'But I daresay it's but natural,' she soliloquised, 'when they so seldom go a pleasuring, that they should be frightened about her.'

Maria was, in general, a very good little girl, and if she had been allowed to have her childish curiosity reasonably gratified, the desire that now filled her whole mind would have had no place there. But Aunt Charlotte so invariably insisted that little girls were never allowed to ask questions, for that, when they grew up, they would know everything that was good for them to know; and she had very recently smarted so severely under the

laughter of her aunts, when she had asked if rivers had teeth as well as mouths, that she resolved she would ask no questions, but try to find out for herself what at present she so much wished to know; and the day when grandmamma and aunts were to dine out, appeared so suitable for the attempt, that it was with unqualified pleasure she heard that Mrs Martha was to exercise the rites of hospitality on the same evening. Maria's education had been far from neglected. She could read very well, had begun to learn to write, and had received lessons in geography and history, though, from the dry tedious manner in which they were administered, her ideas of time and space were very confused. She had formed a theory of her own, that all celebrated persons of different countries whose names began with the same kind of sound, were contemporaries; that, for instance, Queen Anne and Hannibal, Queen Mary and Marius, Brutus and Bruce the traveller, might have known each other, if they had but lived near enough. Her ideas of geography were not much less vague, as may be inferred from the fact, that she believed certain mounds in the church-yard to be really what Mrs Martha asserted them to be-the graves of the infants slaughtered by Herod. Her grandmamma told all her friends what very great pains she took to give Maria good principles. Her lectures on these points might all be reduced to five heads-namely, to put everything in its proper place, to do everything in its proper time, to keep everything to its proper use, to be genteel, and to hate the French. It will not be surprising that, with such training, the perusal of the Pilgrim's Progress, a copy of which had recently been presented to her, gave an entirely new bias to her thoughts. Sorely puzzled was she to guess how much of it might be true, when, one day as they were driving out in the carriage, she saw at a little distance from the road a very handsome house. On some one asking the name of it, she did not hear the answer distinctly, but was quite sure sho heard the word beautiful; and as they presently