Or answer by the Border law?
Or answer to the bauld Buccleuch?"

"Now haud thy tongue, thou rank reiver!
There's never a Scot shall set thee free:
Before ye cross my castle yate
I trow ye shall take farewell o' me."

"Fear ye na that, my lord," quo' Willie:
"By the faith o' my body, Lord Scroope," he said,
"I never yet lodged in a hostelrie,
But I paid my lawing before I gaed."

Now word is gane to the bauld keeper,
In Branksome Ha', where that he lay,
That Lord Scroope has ta'en the Kinmont Willie,
Between the hours of night and day.

He has ta'en the table wi' his hand,
He garr'd the red wine spring on hie,
"Now a curse upon my head," he said,
"But avengA"d of Lord Scroope I'll be!

"O is my basnet a widow's curch?
Or my lance a wand of the willow-tree?
Or my arm a lady's lily hand,
That an English lord should lightly me?

"And have they ta'en him, Kinmont Willie,
Against the truce of Border tide,