The day and place was appointed for our meeting in the Wastes, and, by the help of the foot of Liddisdale[112] and Risdale, wee had soone built a pretty fort, and within it wee had all cabines made to lye in, and every one brought beds or matresses to lye on.  There wee stayed, from the middest of June, till almost the end of August.  We were betweene fifty and sixty gentlemen, besides their servants and my horsemen; so that wee were not so few as two hundred horse.  Wee wanted no provisions for ourselves nor our horses, for the countrey people were well payed for any thing they brought us; so that wee had a good market every day, before our fort, to buy what we lacked.  The chiefe outlawes, at our coming, fled their houses where they dwelt, and betooke themselves to a large and great forest (with all their goodes), which was called the Tarras.  It was of that strength, and so surrounded with bogges and marish grounds, and thicke bushes and shrubbes, as they feared not the force nor power of England nor Scotland, so long as they were there.  They sent me word, that I was like the first puffe of a haggasse,[113] hottest at the first, and bade me stay there as long as the weather would give me leave.  They would stay in the Tarras Wood till I was weary of lying in the Waste; and when I had had my time, and they no whit the worse, they would play their parts, which should keep mee waking the next winter.  Those gentlemen of the countrey that came not with mee, were of the same minde; for they knew (or thought at least), that my force was not sufficient to withstand the furey of the outlawes.  The time I stayed at the fort I was not idle, but cast, by all meanes I could, how to take them in the great strength they were in.  I found a meanes to send a hundred and fifty horsemen into Scotland (conveighed by a muffled man,[114] not known to any of the company), thirty miles within Scotland, and the businesse was carried so, that none in the countrey tooke any alarm at this passage.  They were quietly brought to the back-side of the Tarras, to Scotland-ward.  There they divided themselves into three parts, and tooke up three passages which the outlawes made themselves secure of, if from England side they should at any time be put at.

[Footnote 112:  The foot of Liddisdale were the garrison of King James, in the castle of Hermitage, who assisted Carey on this occasion, as the Armstrongs were outlaws to both nations.]

[Footnote 113:  A haggis, (according to Burns, “the chieftain of the pudding-race,”) is an olio, composed of the liver, heart, &c. of a sheep, minced down with oatmeal, onions, and spices, and boiled in the stomach of the animal, by way of bag.  When the bag is cut, the contents, (if this savoury dish be well made) should spout out with the heated air.  This will explain the allusion.]

[Footnote 114:  A Muffled Man means a person in disguise; a very necessary precaution for the guide’s safety; for, could the outlaws have learned who played them this trick, beyond all doubt it must have cost him dear.]