They had their scoutes on the tops of hills, on the English 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 foote,[115] 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 safe, 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 themselves to their passages towards Scotland.  There was presently five taken of the principall of them.  The rest, seeing themselves, as they thought, betrayed, retired into the thicke woodes and bogges,[116] 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 Sim of Whitram.  These five they brought to mee to the fort, and a number of goodes, both of sheep and kine, which satisfied most part of the countrey, that they had stolen them from.

[Footnote 115:  From this it would appear, that Carey, although his constant attendants in his fort consisted only of 200 horse, had, upon this occasion by the assistance, probably, of the English and Scottish royal garrisons, collected a much greater force.]

[Footnote 116:  There are now no trees in Liddesdale, except on the banks of the rivers, where they are protected from the sheep.  But the stumps and fallen timber, which are every where found in the morasses, attest how well the country must have been wooded in former days.]

“The five, that were taken, were of great worth and value amongst them; insomuch, that, for their liberty, I should have what conditions I should demand or desire.  First, all English prisoners were set at liberty.  Then had I themselves, and most part of the gentlemen of the Scottish side, so strictly bound in bondes to enter to mee, in fifteen dayes warning, any offendour, that they durst not, for their lives, break any covenant that I made with them; and so, upon these conditions, I set them at liberty, and was never after troubled with these kind of people.  Thus God blessed me in bringing this great trouble to so quiet an end; wee brake up our fort, and every man retired to his owne house.”—­Carey’s Memoirs, p. 151.

The people of Liddesdale have retained, by tradition, the remembrance of Carey’s Raid, as they call it.  They tell, that, while he was besieging the outlaws in the Tarras they contrived, by ways known only to themselves, to send a party into England, who plundered the warden’s lands.  On their return, they sent Carey one of his own cows, telling him, that, fearing he might fall short of provision during his visit to Scotland, they had taken the precaution of sending him some English beef.  The anecdote is too characteristic to be suppressed.