Chapter VIII (2)

He turn'd him on the other side,
And at Lord Scroope his glove flung he--
'If ye like na my visit to merry England,
In fair Scotland come visit me!'

All sore astonished stood Lord Scroope,
He stood as still as rock of stane;
He scarcely dared to trew[#] his eyes,
When through the water they had gane.

[#] Trust

'He is either himsell a devil frae hell,
Or else his mother a witch maun be;
I wadna have ridden that wan water,
For a' the gowd[#] in Christentie.'"

[#] Gold

*Chapter XXVIII*

*Dick o' the Cow*

"Fair Johnie Armstrong to Willie did say
'Billie, a-riding we will gae.'"

The ballad of this name, a popular one in Liddesdale, relates, like that of Kinmont Willie, to the time when Lord Scroope was Warden of the West Marches and Governor of Carlisle. Dick o' the Cow seems to have been his fool or jester. Dickie, some years after the events described in the ballad, fell a victim to the vengeance of the Armstrongs.

There had been no raids from Liddesdale for a considerable time, and no riding, and the horses had all grown so fat that they dare scarcely stir out of the stall. Then fair Johnie Armstrong said to his brother Willie, "Brother, we will go a-riding. We have long been at feud with England, and perhaps we shall find some spoil."

So they rode to Hulton Hall and round about it, but the laird, a wise man, had left neither goods nor cattle outside to steal, except six sheep in a meadow. Said Johnie, "I'd rather die in England than take those six sheep to Liddesdale."

"But who was that man we last met as we came over the hill?"

"Oh, he is an innocent fool, and men call him Dick o' the Cow."

"That fool has three good cows of his own, as good as there are in Cumberland. Betide me life or death, they shall go to Liddesdale with me!"

So they came to the house of the poor fool, broke down his thick wall, loosed his three cows, and took also three coverlets from his wife's bed.

In the morning at daylight when the loss was discovered, there were loud lamentations. "Hold thy tongue, wife," said Dickie, "and stop thy crying. I'll bring thee back three cows for each one that thou hast lost."

So Dickie went to Lord Scroope. "Hold thy tongue, fool," said Scroope. "I have no time for jesting."

"A shame on your jesting, my lord!" said Dickie, "jesting agrees not with me. Liddesdale was in my house last night and has taken my three cows. I can no longer dwell in Cumberland as your poor faithful fool, unless you give me leave to steal in Liddesdale."

"I give thee leave, fool!" said Scroope; "but thou speakest against me and my honour unless thou give me thy hand and pledge that thou wilt steal from none but those who stole from thee."

"There is my right hand and pledge! May my head hang on Haribee, and may I never again cross Carlisle sands if I steal from any man who stole not from me.",

Dickie joyfully took leave of his lord and master, and went and bought a bridle and a pair of new spurs which he packed up in the thigh of his breeches, then he came on as fast as he could to Pudding-burn house, where were thirty-three Armstrongs.

"O what has come to me now?" said Dickie, "what great trouble is this? For here is but one innocent fool against thirty-three Armstrongs?" Yet he went courteously up to the Hall board.

"Well may ye be, my good Laird's Jock, but the devil bless all your company. I'm come to complain of your man, Johnie Armstrong, and of his brother Willie, that they came to my house last night and took away my three cows."

Quoth fair Johnie Armstrong, "We'll hang him."

"Nay," said Willie, "we'll slay him."

But up spoke another young Armstrong, "We'll give him a thrashing and let him go."

Then up spoke the good Laird's Jock, the best fellow in all the company, "Sit down a while, Dickie, and we'll give thee a bit of thine own cow's thigh."

Dickie's heart was so sore that he could not eat a bit, but he went and lay down in an old peat-house where he thought to sleep the night, and all the prayers the poor fool prayed were, "I wish I had amends for my three good cows."

Now it was the custom of Pudding-burn house and of the house of Mangerton, whose laird was chief of the Armstrong clan, that any who came not to the table at the first summons got no more meat till the next meal, so some of the lads, hungry and weary, had thrown the key of the stable above the door-head. Dickie took good notice of that to turn it to his own account, went into the stable where stood thirty-three horses and tied thirty of them with St Mary's knot, tight to their stalls.

Of the remaining three, Dickie took two, which belonged to Johnie and Willie Armstrong, and the one belonging to the Laird's Jock he left loose in the stable. Leaping on one, he took the other along with him, and rode off as fast as he could.

When day came, there were great shouts and cries.

"Who has done this," quoth the good Laird's Jock; "see that ye tell me the truth."

"It is Dickie that has been in the stable last night, and has taken the horses."

"Ye never would listen to me," said the good Laird's Jock, "though I told ye true tales. Ye would never stay out of England but would steal everything, till ye were crooked and blind."

"Lend me thy bay," said fair Johnie; "he is the only horse loose in the stable, and I'll either fetch back Dick o' the Cow, or he shall die."

"Lend thee my bay!" said Jock; "he is worth gold and good money. Dick o' the Cow has taken two horses; I would not ye make them three."

Johnie, however, took the Laird's steel jacket on his back, and a two-handed sword by his side, and a steel cap on his head, and galloped after Dickie, who was barely three miles from the town when Johnie overtook him on Cannobie Lee, on the borders of Liddesdale.

"Abide, abide, thou traitor thief!" cried Armstrong; "the day is come that thou shalt die!"

Dickie looked over his left shoulder and said, "Johnie, hast thou no more in thy company? There is a preacher in our chapel who teaches all the livelong day, and when day is gone and night has come, there are only three words I remember--the first and second are Faith and Conscience--the third is 'Ne'er let a traitor free.' What faith and conscience was thine, Johnie, when thou tookest away my three cows? And when thou hadst taken them away, thou wast not satisfied. Thou sentest thy brother Willie, and took away three coverlets off my wife's bed!"

Then Johnie let his spear fall low by his side, and thought he would have killed Dickie, but the powers above were stronger than he, and he only succeeded in running through the fool's jerkin. Dickie out with his sword and ran after him, and when he could not get at him with the blade, he felled him with the butt-end over the eye, felled Johnie Armstrong, the finest man in the south country. "Gramercy," said Dickie, "I had but two horses, thou hast made them three!"--and he took Johnie's steel jacket off his back and his two-handed sword, and his steel cap. "Farewell, Johnie," said he, "I'll tell my master I met thee."

When Johnie wakened out of his swoon, he was a sad man. "Art thou gone, Dickie?" he said. "Then the shame and woe are left with me. Art thou gone? Then, Dickie, the devil go in thy company, for if I live to be a hundred, I'll never again fight with a fool."

Dickie came home to the good Lord Scroope as fast as he could. "Now, Dickie, I'll neither eat nor drink till thou art hanged on high." "Shame speed the liars, my lord," said Dickie, "this was not the promise ye made me, for I would never have gone to Liddesdale to steal if I had not got leave from thee." "But why did ye steal the Laird's Jock's horse? Ye might have lived long in Cumberland before the Laird's Jock had stolen from thee."

"Indeed, I knew ye lied, my lord. I won the horse from fair Johnie Armstrong hand to hand on Cannobie Lee. There is the jacket that was on his back, and the two-handed sword that hung by his side, and the steel cap that was on his head. I brought all these tokens to show thee."

"If that be true that thou tellest me (and I think thou durst not lie) I'll give thee fifteen pounds for the horse, all told out in the lap of thy cloak; I'll give thee one of my best milk cows to maintain thy wife and three children, and they will be as good as any two of thine would be."

"Shame speed the liars, my lord!" said Dickie. "Do ye think aye to make a fool of me? I'll either have twenty pounds for the horse or else I'll take him to Mortan fair."

So Scroope gave him twenty pounds for the horse, all in gold and good money, and one of his best milk cows to maintain his wife and three children.

Then Dickie rode as fast as he could through Carlisle town, and the first man he met was my lord's brother, Ralph Scroope, Bailiff of Glozenburrie.

"Well be ye met, Ralph Scroope!" said Dickie.

"Welcome, my brother's fool!" said Ralph. "Where did ye get Johnie Armstrong's horse?"

"Where did I get him? I stole him," said Dickie.

"Wilt thou sell me the bonny horse?"

"Ay, if thou count out the money in the lap of my cloak, for never a penny will I trust thee."

"I'll give thee ten pounds for the horse and count it into the lap of thy cloak, and one of my best milk cows to maintain thy wife and three children."

"Shame speed the liars, my lord! Do ye think aye to make a fool of me? I'll either have twenty pounds for the horse, or I'll take him to Mortan fair."

So Ralph gave him twenty pounds for the horse, all in gold and good money, and one of his milk cows to maintain his wife and three children.

Then Dickie leaped and laughed, and cried, "May the neck of the third horse be broken if either of the two were better than he!"

So he came home to his wife and ye may judge how the poor fool had succeeded. For her three stolen coverlets he gave her two score English pounds, and two cows as good as her own three. "And here," said he, "is a white-footed nag that I reckon will carry us both. But if I stay longer in Cumberland the Armstrongs will hang me." So Dickie took leave of his lord and went to live at Burgh under Stanmuir.

*Chapter XXIX*

*The Lochmaben Harper*

The castle of Lochmaben is said to have been the residence of Robert Bruce while Lord of Allandale. Hence, as a royal fortress, the keeping of it was always granted to some powerful lord. There is extant a grant giving to one of these, Robert Lauder, the office of Captain and Keeper of Lochmaben Castle for seven years, and among his perquisites were "lands stolen from the King"!

The inhabitants of four small villages near the castle have each still to this day a right to a small piece of ground. These people are descendants of Robert Bruce's retainers, to whom he assigned these portions of land in reward for faithful service, and there are still to be found some families (_e.g._ the Richardsons of Lochmaben) who hold their lands direct from the times of Bruce without a break.

"O heard ye na o' the silly blind Harper,
How long he lived in Lochmaben town?
And how he wad gang to fair England,
To steal the Lord Warden's Wanton Brown?

But first he gaed to his gude wyfe,
Wi' a' the haste that he could thole[#]
'This wark,' quo' he, 'will ne'er gae well
Without a mare that has a foal.'

[#] Suffer.

Quoth his wife, "Thou hast a good grey mare that can jump both high and low; so set thee on her back and leave the foal at home with me." Away went the Harper to England as fast as he might, and when he came to Carlisle gate, who should be there but the Warden himself?

"'Come into my hall, thou silly blind Harper,
And of thy harping let me hear!'
'O, by my sooth,' quo' the silly blind Harper,
'I wad rather hae stabling for my mare."

The Warden looked o'er his left shoulder,
And said unto his stable groom--
'Gae take the silly blind Harper's mare,
And tie her beside my Wanton Brown.'"

So the Harper harped and sang, the lordlings danced, and so sweet was the music that the groom forgot all about the stable door. Still the Harper harped on till all the nobles were fast asleep, when he quickly took off his shoes, crept softly down the stair, and hied with light tread to the stable door, which he opened and entered. He found there three-and-thirty steeds. He took a colt's halter which he had hidden in his hose, slipped it over Wanton Brown, tied it to the grey mare's tail, and turned them both loose at the castle gate.

Away they went over moor and moss and dale, and the mare never let Wanton rest a moment, but kept him galloping home to her foal. So swift of foot was she, and knew her way so well, that she reached Lochmaben a good three hours before daybreak.

When she came to the Harper's door, she neighed and snorted. "Rise up," shouted the Harper's wife, "thou lazy lass, and let in thy master and his mare." The lass rose up, put on her clothes and looked through the lock-hole. "By my sooth," cried she, "our mare has got a fine brown foal!"

"Hold thy tongue, thou foolish wench, the light is dazzling thine eyes. I'll wager all I have against a groat that it's bigger than ever our foal will be."

Still in merry Carlisle the Harper harped to high and low, and nought could they do but listen to him until day-dawn. But when it was daylight they discovered that Wanton Brown was gone and also the poor blind Harper's mare.

"Alas! alas!" cried the cunning old Harper, "alas that I came here; in Scotland I have lost a brown colt foal and in England they have stolen my good grey mare."

"Cease thy lamenting, thou silly blind Harper, and go on harping; we'll pay thee well for the loss of thy colt foal and thou shalt have a far better mare." So the harper harped and sang, and so sweet were his harpings that he was paid for the foal he never had lost and three times over for the gray mare.

*Chapter XXX*

*The Rookhope Ride*

This Durham border song is supposed to be spoken by a Weardale man, who begins by denouncing the inhabitants of the Tyne valley, "and all their companies there about" as false thieves,

"minded to do mischief
And at their stealing stands not out."

It must be confessed that the Tynedale men had an unenviable reputation. They were such lawless desperadoes, so addicted to rapine, that during more than two centuries the merchants of Newcastle regularly refused to take an apprentice born in that district. The date is December 1572. The rebel Earl of Northumberland, who had taken up arms for Mary Queen of Scots, and for the old religion, had been betrayed by the Scots and beheaded at York. Owing to this rebellion there was great confusion in the northern counties, hence the time was well chosen by the "limmer thieves" of Tynedale to make a predatory raid on their neighbours. They gathered together the stoutest men of arms and the best in gear, a hundred or more in number, and in the forenoon, about eleven o'clock, they came into a "bye-fell" and stopped for a meal--the last which some of them would eat. When they had eaten, they chose their captains, Harry Corbyl, Simon Fell, and Martin Ridley. Then they rode on over the moss, "with many a brank and whew," saying to one another that they were men enough,

"For Weardale-men have a journey ta'en,
They are so far out o'er yon fell,
That some of them's with the two earls,
And others fast in Bernard castell.

There we shall get gear enough,
For there is nane but women at hame;
The sorrowful fend that they can make.
Is loudly cries as they were slain."

They came in at Rookhope Head, which is the top of a rocky valley, about five miles long, at the end of which Rookhope Burn empties itself into the river Wear. This valley is as wild and open to-day as it was then. In some four hours they gathered together about six hundred sheep and they were engaged in "shifting" the horses, when the hue and cry was raised by one Rowley, whose horse they tried to take. He was the first man to see them. The cry spread rapidly down Rookhope burn and through Weardale, and word came to the bailiff's house at the East-gate. He was out, but his wife had his horse saddled and sent it to him, together with his sword, spear, and jacket quilted with iron plates, the sort of harness worn by the moss-troopers and other light horsemen of the time. The bailiff had already heard the bad news, and was sorely troubled thereby. His own brother had been attacked three days before by marauders, and lay sick with nineteen wounds. Yet the bailiff shrank not at all, but hied fast after the sheep-stealers, with as many of the neighbours as he could gather to bear him company.

The pursuers overtook the thieves in Nuketon Cleugh, and gave them all the fighting they wanted. Not one of them ever thought to see his wife again. They bore three banners against the Weardale men, "as if the world had been all their own." The fray lasted only an hour, but many a tall man lay weaponless and sore wounded before that hour was done, and four of the Northumbrian prickers were slain, including Harry Corbyl whom they had chosen to be their captain. Eleven of them were taken prisoners. Only one of the Weardale men fell but--

"These Weardale-men, they have good hearts,
They are as stiff as any tree;
For, if they'd everyone been slain,
Never a foot back man would flee.

And such a storm amongst them fell,
As I think you never heard the like;
For he that bears his head on high,
He oft-tymes falls into the dyke.

And now I do entreat you all,
As many as are present here,
To pray for the singer of this song,
For he sings to make blythe your cheer."

*Chapter XXXI*

*Barthram's Dirge*

The story of how this ballad came to be preserved to us is a very interesting one. A Mr Surtees, who was very interested in the old ballads, used to give work to a poor old Scotswoman to weed in his garden. Finding that she had learnt ballads in her young days, he encouraged her to talk about them, and this was amongst those which she recited to him. She told him that it referred to a young man named Bertram or Barthrum, who made love to a young lady against the wish of her brothers. The cruel brothers slew him, but the lady had him buried at the very spot where he was wont to come to visit her in the days of their love. Sir Walter Scott thinks that perhaps Barthram was an Englishman and the lady was Scottish, and that the anger of the lady's brothers against him was partly on that account.

It must be remembered that in those stormy days, when Border rivalry was keen, and all the Border chiefs, on both sides, were men of war-like mould, intermarriage between the two races was punishable by Border law. Each side felt equally that such mixed marriages would sooner or later produce a race that was neither loyal English nor loyal Scotch. A spirit of aloofness and rivalry was deliberately encouraged, right up to the time of the union of the two countries under one king.

*BARTHRAM'S DIRGE*

They shot him dead at the Nine-Stone Rig,
Beside the Headless Cross,
And they left him lying in his blood,
Upon the moor and moss.

* * * * *

They made a bier of the broken bough,
The sauch and the aspin gray,
And they bore him to the Lady Chapel,
And waked him there all day.

A lady came to that lonely bower,
And threw her robes aside,
She tore her long yellow hair,
And knelt at Barthram's side.

She bathed him in the Lady-Well,
His wounds so deep and sair,
And she plaited a garland for his breast,
And a garland for his hair.

They rowed him in a lily-sheet,
And bare him to his earth,
And the Gray Friars sung the dead man's mass,
As they pass'd the Chapel Garth.

They buried him at the mirk midnight,
When the dew fell cold and still,
When the aspin gray forgot to play,
And the mist clung to the hill.

They dug his grave but a bare foot deep,
By the edge of the Ninestone Burn,
And they covered him o'er with the heather-flower,
The moss and the Lady fern.

A Gray Friar staid upon the grave,
And sang till the morning tide,
And a friar shall sing for Barthram's soul,
While the Headless Cross shall bide.[#]

[#] Mr Surtees observes, on this passage, that in the return made by the commissioners, on the dissolution of Newminster Abbey, there is an item of a Chauntery, for one priest to sing daily _ad crucem lapideam_. Probably many of these crosses had the like expiatory solemnities for persons slain there. They certainly did bury, in former days, near the Ninestone Burn, for Sir Walter Scott found there, lying among the heather, a small monumental cross, with initials, which he reverently placed upright.

*Chapter XXXII*

*Queen Mary and the Borders*

The brief reign of Mary, Queen of Scots, was so crowded with incident that she was left with little time to visit the disturbed borderland of her kingdom. None-the-less her few visits to this district were fraught with important consequences. In 1565, when she married her cousin Lord Darnley, the head of the Douglas faction and a Roman Catholic, the Protestant nobles took up arms. In her very honeymoon she headed her soldiers, pursued the rebels to Dumfries, entered the town with a pistol in each hand, and laughed heartily at the fun of making her enemies "skip like rabbits" over the Border. She was only twenty-two years old--a fearless, dashing, attractive woman, with a clever head, a strong will, and a wild and lawless disposition.

In the next year she again visited the Border, but on a very different errand. Mary had developed an extreme fancy for that bold Border Lord, the Earl of Bothwell, whose Castle of Hermitage commanded the picturesque and important valley of the Liddel. The Queen had given him authority to control the fierce Borderers; and when the earl was riding out he met the most lawless of them, Jock Elliot, of whom the couplet--

"My name is little Jock Elliot
And who dare meddle wi' me?"

Bothwell fired straight at Elliot with his pistol, wounding him in the leg. Elliot aimed a mighty blow at Bothwell with his two-handed sword, giving the earl so sore a wound that he was glad enough to gallop home while there was yet time to save his life.

Mary was holding solemn court at Jedburgh when she heard of her favourite's danger. She straightway took horse and rode to Hermitage, a hard cross-country ride of twenty miles, through a district infested with reckless men. When she galloped back to Jedburgh, she was in high fever and nearly died. Later on, in the misery of her long imprisonment, she often said, "Would I had died at Jedburgh!" Years later, a broken piece of a silver spur was found at Queensmire, on this difficult and dangerous road, just where Queen Mary's horse was said to have come to grief.

Yet another time Queen Mary came to the Border, this time to cross it--after her imprisonment at Lochleven, her escape, and the disastrous rout of her followers at Langside. Daring and resourceful as ever, she fled across the Solway in an open boat; Scotland had failed her, she sought the protection of England. She landed at Cockermouth, and was led to Carlisle by Sir R. Lowther, and kept there, in reality a prisoner, while Elizabeth was musing of the dangers of the position. The Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland took up Mary's cause and attempted to rescue her, but the Warden of Carlisle, Lord Scroope, defended the town successfully against the two earls, and they were soon in flight, eastward for their very lives. After this attempt at rescue Mary was, for greater safety, sent down to Bolton Castle in Yorkshire.

Leonard Dacre, a member of the powerful Cumberland family of the Dacres, seems to have played a treacherous part, first promising the earls his help, and then betraying them to Elizabeth. He seized Nawarth Castle, which properly belonged to his young niece, and collected together three thousand men to the old Border war-cry, "A Red Bull, a Red Bull!" (probably the nickname of some fierce red-haired Celtic champion). The defeated earls came to Nawarth for shelter, and Dacre refused to harbour them. But by this time Elizabeth was convinced of Dacre's treason, and ordered Lord Hudson, the Governor of Berwick, to arrest him.

Hudson appears to have marched by rather a round-about way, for Dacre met him at Geltbridge, on the west of Nawarth. A bridge is always a good point of vantage for meeting an enemy, especially when the river runs, as the Gelt does, through a deep and wooded gorge. The enemy has only a narrow way by which to approach, and no doubt Dacre posted his archers behind the trees and among the great rocks. The fight was a desperate one, but Hudson's men prevailed and pursued their foes far up the hill of Gelt, scuffling fiercely among the forest trees and dyeing a deeper hue the red sandstone cliffs and quarries.

All the rebels who could escape fled across the Border to Scotland, where the Borderers, who were till then their enemies, received them with that open and fair hospitality which was one of their many great qualities. Elizabeth demanded that the leading noblemen should be given up to her; but although the Scottish Regent, Murray, made a pretence of trying to secure the Earl of Westmoreland, the Scots had too much sense of honour to allow him to proceed.

The Earl of Northumberland, was however betrayed to the Scottish Regent by Hector Armstrong of Harelaw; but this the gallant Borderers held to be shameful, and Armstrong was a ruined man from that day forth.

Two years later, this Earl was actually sold to Elizabeth and beheaded at York. Thus ended this small rebellion, called in history the Rising of the North, but which is known locally in Cumberland as Dacre's Raid.

There is a little stream which rushes down a deep and beautiful glade to join the river Gelt above Geltbridge; this stream is known as "Hellbeck," and villagers tell us that the reason for this name is that it was stained with blood for two whole days after some battle that took place there. This battle is probably the one spoken of here.

A wicket gate by Geltbridge leads us to the path through Gelt woods. The noble gorge is deeply cleft through the grand red sandstone rocks. Below roars and dashes the impetuous river; the path winds, sometimes high, sometimes low, through wonderful weeds, carpeted with beautiful mosses, gemmed with delightful flowers. On one of the rocks is an inscription carved by a Roman soldier, over fifteen hundred years ago. Follow the river, up, up, till the little Hellbeck is seen trickling down from the east; cross the little bridge and follow the streamlet on its opposite bank, along a path so little trod as to be scarcely visible; wander among ferns along one of the loneliest glens in the whole of Britain, passing the great railway bridge (_under_ if the stream be low or _over_ if it be high) till you join the main road again. There is no spot more beautiful or more peaceful. Yet this is the Hellbeck where men fought and hacked, and slashed and slew, among these woods, up and down these steep hillsides. These old trees, when young, have felt warm blood at their roots; and all because of a young, wild wilful queen, who fascinated men's hearts then, and the memory of whom fascinates them still.

*Chapter XXXIII*

*The Raid of the Reidswire*

"To deal with proud men is but pain,
For either must ye fight or flee,
Or else no answer make again,
But play the beast, and let them be."

Reidswire, the name of a place about ten miles from Jedburgh, means the Red Swire. Swire is an old northern term for the descent of a hill, and the epithet red may refer to the colour of the heath.

The affair about which we are to tell took place on the 7th of July 1575, at a meeting held, on a day of truce, by the Wardens of the Marches, for redressing wrongs and adjusting difficulties which could not be prevented from arising upon the Border. The Scottish Warden was Sir John Carmichael, and among his following were the Armstrongs and Elliots, Douglas of Cavers (a descendant of the Douglas who fell at Otterbourne), Cranstoun, whose ferocious motto was "Ye shall want ere I want," Gladstain, "good at need," and the ancient head of the Rutherfoords, called in tradition the Cock of Hunthill, "with his nine sons him about." The English Warden was the haughty Sir John Forster, and he had full fifteen hundred men with him, chiefly Northumbrians, Tynedale, and Reedsdale men, who looked with scorn upon the much smaller array of their hereditary foes.

The meeting, however, began meekly enough, with merriment and jests. Such Border meetings of truce, though they might wind up in blood, as was to happen now, always began as occasions of marketing and revelry. Both parties came fully armed to such a tryst, yet intermixed in mutual sports and familiar intercourse,

"Some gaed to drink, and some stood still,
And some to cards and dice them sped."

The Scots planted their pavilions or tents and feared no ill, even when they saw five hundred Fenwicks (a powerful Northumbrian clan) "marching in a flock." The clerk began to call the rolls, and to deal with one complaint after another for the loss of cows or ewes or other property. In the course of the proceedings an accusation was raised against an English freebooter named Farnstein, at the instance of a Scotch complainant. A "true bill" was found against the man, which means that he ought to be handed over to justice. But the English Warden alleged that he had fled, and could not be found. Carmichael, considering this as a pretext to avoid making compensation for the felony, bade the Northumbrians speak out plainly, and "cloke no cause for ill nor good." Upon this Sir John Forster, a proud and insolent man, "began to reckon kin and blood," by which picturesque phrase the ballad probably means that he swiftly added up his forces. Then he drew himself up, backed by his Dalesmen, all fingering their bows, and with insulting expressions against Carmichael's kin he bade him "match with his equals." The men of Tynedale, who only wanted a pretext for a quarrel, drew their bows and let off a flight of arrows among the Scots. The more moderate men on both sides at first tried to quell the tumult, but in vain. The fight was bound to come.

"Then there was naught but bow and spear,
And every man pulled out a brand."

The English showed their usual dexterity with the bow. The Scots, for some reason, never took to this weapon; they had fire-arms, pistolets, and the like. The terrible cloth-yard arrows "from tackles flew," and the old proverb bade fair to justify itself, that every English archer carried twenty-four Scots under his belt--an allusion to his bundle of shafts. Success seemed certain for the English side; some of the foremost men among the Scots fell, and even Carmichael was thrown to the ground and was within an ace of being made a prisoner. The air resounded with the rallying cries of the English, the names of their captains, "A Shaftoe! A Shaftoe!" "A Fenwick! A Fenwick!" The Scots had little harness among them, only a few had the jack which served them as a defence for the body. Nevertheless, they laid about them sturdily, with "dints full dour," and there was many a cracked crown. Then suddenly a shout was heard. "Jedburgh's here!" A body of Jedburgh burgesses appear to have arrived just in the nick of time to add to the outnumbered force of Scots. They probably wore armour and what were called "white hats," that is steel caps. Meanwhile, the English, too confident of easy victory, instead of slaying more Scots and turning the repulse into a rout, thought only to plunder the unhappy merchants, who, trusting to the truce which had been proclaimed, had attached themselves to the meeting. Had it not been for the English greed, the Scots would have been defeated. As it was, the Tynedale men, throwing themselves on the merchants' packs, fell into disorder, their adversaries recovered from their surprise, and the timely arrival of the Jedburgh men turned the tables. A short, sharp bout ended in the triumph of the Scots and the Northumbrians fled, "Down ower the brae, like clogged bees." The Scots took many prisoners, amongst whom were the English Warden, and his son-in-law, Sir Francis Russell; but the most gallant soldier taken that day was that courteous knight, Sir Cuthbert Collingwood, to whose family Admiral Collingwood belonged. Several of those "Fenwicks fierce," who had turned up five hundred strong at the commencement of the fray, had the mortification of being carried off in triumph by their enemies. All these prisoners were sent to the Earl of Morton, Regent of Scotland, who detained them at Dalkeith for some days, until the bitter feeling natural after such an affair had died down, at any rate in part, and by this prudent precaution the Regent is thought to have probably averted a war between the two kingdoms. He ultimately permitted them to return to their own country, parting from them with great expressions of regard. The interest taken in the matter by Queen Elizabeth, and the representations of her Ambassador at Edinburgh, no doubt had something to do with this happy issue.

It will probably occur to the careful reader of this book as somewhat strange to find the ruling powers of England and Scotland both so set upon peace; but it must be remembered that at this period in the reign of Queen Elizabeth the heir-apparent to the English throne was the young James VI., King of Scotland, who would naturally not wish for any quarrel with the country which he hoped later on to rule. Elizabeth, on the other hand, had Mary Queen of Scots as her prisoner, and did not wish in any further way to strain the already delicate relations between the two countries.

The Carmichael mentioned in this ballad, known in full as Sir John Carmichael of Edrom, Scottish Warden of the Middle Marches, was afterwards murdered by one of the wild Armstrongs, who is said to have composed, the night before his execution, the following manly and pathetic "Good-night." The third and fourth lines show clearly the disrepute into which this once honoured clan was falling; the seventh and eighth lines could only have been written by one who, despite his faults, had the true gallant instincts deep in his blood.

ARMSTRONG'S GOOD-NIGHT

"This night is my departing night,
For here nae langer must I stay;
There's neither friend nor foe o' mine,
But wishes me away.

What I have done thro' lack of wit,
I never, never can recall;
I hope ye're a' my friends as yet;
Good-night and joy be with you all!"

*Chapter XXXIV*

*Jock o' the Side*

"He is well kend, John of the Syde,
A greater thief did never ryde."

The subject of this ballad bears some resemblance to Kinmont Willie, and such adventures were not uncommon in those turbulent times. The events we are to relate originated in a raid ridden by the famous Liddesdale spearmen (the hardiest of the Scotch moss-troopers) upon English ground.

"They had better hae staid at home," for the outcome was that one of their best men, Michael of Winfield, was killed, and Jock o' the Side, nephew to the Laird of Mangerton, was taken prisoner, and promptly lodged in Newcastle Jail. When the news reached Jock's mother she kilted her coats up to her knee, and ran down the water with the tears falling in torrents from her eyes. She ran to Mangerton House, on the banks of the Liddel, and told her brother, the good old lord, the bad news. "Michael is killed, and they have taken my son John." "Never fear, sister," quoth Mangerton, "I have eighty-three yokes of oxen, my barns, my byres, my folds are all filled, I'll part with them all ere Johnie shall die." Then he thought out his plan. "Three men I'll send to set him free, all harnessed in the best steel; the English loons shall feel the weight of their broad swords. The Laird's Jock shall be one, the Laird's Wat two, and Hobbie Noble, thou must be the third. Thy coat is blue, and since England banished thee thou hast been true to me." Now this Hobbie was an Englishman, born in Bewcastledale, the wildest district in Cumberland. Like numerous other English outlaws, he had made his own country too hot to hold him; his misdeeds had banished him to Liddesdale, and he was now in high favour with the Laird of Mangerton. The Laird gave the dauntless three orders to reverse the shoes of their horses, so that anyone crossing their trail might think they were proceeding in a contrary direction. He also warned them not to seem gentlemen, but to look like corn-carriers; not to show their good armour, nor appear like men of war, but to be arrayed as country lads, with halter and cart-collar on each mare. So Hobbie mounted his grey, Jack his lively bay, and Wat his white horse, and they rode for Tyne water. When they reached the Tyne they lighted down at a ford, and by the moonlight they cut a tree, with fifteen nogs on each side, to serve them as a scaling ladder, to climb Newcastle wall with. However, when they came to Newcastle town and alighted at the wall, their tree proved three ells too short, and there was nothing for it but to force the gates. At the gate a proud porter attempted to withstand them. The Armstrongs wrung his neck, took his life and his keys at once, and cast his body behind the wall. Soon they reached the jail, and called to the prisoner,

"Sleeps thou, wakes thou, Jock o' the Side,
Or art thou weary of thy thrall?"

Jock answered dolefully, "Often I wake, nay, sleep seldom comes to me--but who's this knows my name so well?" Then out and spoke the Laird's Jock, his cousin and namesake, "Now fear ye not, my billie!" quoth he; "for here are the Laird's Jock, the Laird's Wat, and Hobbie Noble the Englishman come to set you free." Jock o' the Side did not think it possible that they could effect his release. "Now hold thy tongue, my good cousin," said he. "This cannot be--

'For if all Liddesdale were here the night,
The morn's the day that I must die.'

They have laid full fifteen stone of Spanish iron on me, I am fast bound with locks and keys in this dark and dreary dungeon." But the Laird's Jock replied. "Fear not that; faint heart never won fair lady. Work thou within, we'll work without, and I'll be sworn we'll set thee free." They loosed the first strong door without a key, the next chained door they split to flinders. The Laird's Jock got the prisoner on his back, irons and all, and brought him down the stairs with no small speed and joy. Hobbie Noble offered to bear some of his weight, but the Laird's Jock said that he was lighter than a flea. When they had all gone out at the gates, the prisoner was set on horseback, and they all joked wantonly. "O Jock," they cried, "you ride like a winsome lady, with your feet all on one side." The night was wet, but they did not mind. They hied them on full merrily until they came to the ford at Cholerford, above Hexham. There the water was running mountains high. They asked an old man, "Honest man, tell us in haste, will the water ride?" "I've lived here thirty years and three," replied he, "and I never saw the Tyne so big, nor running so like a sea." The Laird's Wat counselled them to halt. "We need not try it, the day is come we all must die!" "Poor faint-hearted thief!" cried the Laird's Jock. "There'll no man die but him that's fated; I'll guide you safely through; lift the prisoner behind me." With that they took to the water and managed to swim through. "Here we are all safe," said the Laird's Jock triumphantly. "Poor faint Wat, what think ye now?" They now saw twenty men pursuing them, sent from Newcastle, all English lads, stout and true. But when their leader saw the water he shook his head. "It won't ride, my lads," said he. Then he cried to the party of Scots: "Take the prisoner, but leave me my fetters." But the Laird's Jock was not a Scot for nothing. "I wat weel no," he shouted back, "I'll keep them, they'll make horse-shoes for my mare--for I am sure she's bought them right dear from thee." Then they went on their way to Liddesdale, as fast as they could, and did not rest until they had brought the rescued prisoner to his own fireside, and made him free of his irons.

*Chapter XXXV*

*Hobbie Noble*

"Keep ye weel frae the traitor Mains!
For gold and gear he'll sell ye a'."

In the ballad of "Jock o' the Side," we have seen Hobbie Noble act a distinguished part in the deliverance from captivity of Jock, cousin of the Laird of Mangerton, chief of the Armstrong clan. Now in the following ballad we shall learn how ungrateful the Armstrongs were for his faithful services. The Armstrongs were one of those outlawed or broken clans, whose hand was against every man, and living as they did in what was called the Debateable Land, on the frontier between Liddesdale and England, these stark cattle-lifters and arrant thieves levied tribute from English and Scotch alike. Halbert or Hobbie Noble was an Englishman, a Cumbrian born and bred, but his misdeeds were so great, they banished him never to return, and he established himself among the Armstrongs. From their territory he continued his depredations upon the English, in resentment of which they at length offered a bribe to the Armstrongs to decoy him into England under pretence of inviting him to join them in a foray.

"At Kershope foot the tryst was set,
Kershope of the lily lee,"

and the name of the chief traitor and leader of the gang was Sim o' the Mains. Hobbie harnessed himself "both with the iron and with the steel," buckled spur on his heel and belted brand to his side, leaped upon his "fringed grey," and rode down the banks of the Liddel. As soon as he saw the others, "Well be ye met, my comrades five," he cried. "Now, what is your will with me?" They all answered, with one consent, "Thou'rt welcome here, brave Noble; wilt thou ride with us into England, and we will be thy safe warrant? If we get a horse worth a hundred pounds thou shalt soon be upon its back." But Hobbie said that he dared not ride into England by day, as he had a feud with the Land-Sergeant (an officer under the Warden, to whom was entrusted the arrest of delinquents).

"But will ye stay till the day gae down,
Until the night come o'er the ground,
And I'll be a guide worth any two
That may in Liddesdale be found?
Though the night be black as pitch and tar,
I'll guide ye o'er yon hill so high;
And bring ye all in safety back,
If ye'll be true and follow me."

They let him guide them over moss and moor, over hill and hope, and over many a down, until they came to the Foulbogshiel. But meanwhile word was gone to the Land-Sergeant, in Askerton, about seventeen miles from Carlisle. "The deer that you have hunted so long, is in Bewcastle Waste this day." The Sergeant understood at once. Quoth he, "Hobbie Noble is that deer! He carries the style full high. He has often driven our bloodhounds back. Now go, warn the bows of Hartlie Burn, see they sharpen their arrows on the wall! Warn Willeva and Speir Edom, take word to them that they meet me on the Rodric-haugh at break of day. We will on to Conscouthart-green, for there, I think, we'll get our quarry." In the meantime Hobbie had alighted and was sleeping in the Foulbogshiel. He dreamed that his horse was shot beneath him, and he himself was hard put to it to get away. The cocks crowed, the day dawned, and if Hobbie had not wakened he would have been taken or slain in his sleep.

"Awake, awake, my comrades five!
I trow here makes a full ill day;
Yet the worst cloak o' this company
I hope shall cross the Waste this day,"

Thus cried he to his companions, thinking the gates were clear. But alas! it was not so. They were beset by the Land-Sergeant's men, cruel and keen, and while the Englishmen came before, the traitor Sim o' the Mains came behind. Had Noble been as masterful a champion as Wallace himself, he could not have won under such untoward circumstances. He had but a laddie's sword, but he did more than a laddie's deeds, for that sword would have cleared Conscouthart-green had it not broken over one of the English heads. So his treacherous companions delivered Hobbie up to the officers of justice; they bound him with his own bowstring, but what made his heart feel sorest of all, was that it was his own five who bound him. They took him on to Carlisle. They asked him mockingly if he knew the way. He thought much, but said little, though he knew it as well as they did. As they took him up the Carlisle streets, the old wives cast their windows wide, every woman whispering to another, "That's the man loosed Jock o' the Side." The poor fellow cried out, "Fie on ye, women! why call ye me man? It's no like a man that I'm used, but like a beaten hound that's been fighting in the gutter." They had him up through Carlisle town, and set him by a chimney fire, where they gave him a wheaten loaf to eat, and a can of beer. "Confess my lord's horse, Hobbie," they said, "and to-morrow in Carlisle thou shalt not die." "How can I confess them," says the poor man, "when I never saw them." And he swore a great oath, by the day that he was born, that he had never had anything of my lord's. He had but short shrift and they hung him the next morning.

According to the ballad, his last words were of manly pride:--

"Yet wad I rather be ca'd Hobbie Noble,
In Carlisle, where he suffers for his fault,
Than I'd be ca'd the traitor Mains,
That eats and drinks o' meal and malt."

Thus died the doughty Noble. It is proper to add, however, that the Armstrong's chief, Lord Mangerton, with whom Hobbie had been a favourite, took a severe revenge on the traitors who betrayed him. The contriver of the scheme, Sim o' the Mains, fled into England to escape the resentment of his chief, and was there caught by the English, and himself executed at Carlisle, two months after Hobbie's death in the same place! Such is, at least, the tradition of Liddesdale.

*Chapter XXXVI*

*The Laird o' Logie*

In 1592, the Earl of Bothwell, Francis Stuart, failed in an attempt against King James VI., whom he tried to surprise in the palace of Falkland. Amongst his adherents, whom he sought about the King's person, was the hero of this ballad, the Laird of Logie, who was taken prisoner and laid in Edinburgh chapel in the keeping of Sir John Carmichael, the hero of the ballad called the "Raid of Reidswire." Carmichael was at this time captain of the King's Guard, and had the keeping of State criminals.

I will sing, if ye will hearken,
If ye will hearken unto me;
The King has ta'en a poor prisoner,
The wanton laird o' young Logie.

Young Logie's laid in Edinburgh chapel,
Carmichael's the keeper o' the key;
And may Margaret's lamenting sair,
A' for the love of young Logie.

"Lament, lament na, may Margaret,
And of your weeping let me be;
For ye maun to the King himsell,
To seek the life of young Logie."

May Margaret has kilted her green cleiding,[#]
And she has curl'd back her yellow hair--
"If I canna get young Logie's life,
Farewell to Scotland for evermair."

[#] Clothing.

When she came before the King,
She kneelit lowly on her knee--
"O what's the matter, may Margaret?
And what needs a' this courtesie?"

"A boon, a boon, my noble liege,
A boon, a boon, I beg o' thee!
And the first boon that I come to crave,
Is to grant me the life of young Logie."

"O na, O na, may Margaret,
Forsooth, and so it mauna be;
For a' the gowd o' fair Scotland
Shall not save the life of young Logie."

But she has stown[#] the King's redding kaim,[#]
Likewise the Queen her wedding knife,
And sent the tokens to Carmichael,
To cause young Logie get his life.

[#] Stolen. [#] Dressing comb.

She sent him a purse of the red gowd,
Another o' the white monie;
She sent him a pistol for each hand,
And bade him shoot when he gat free.

When he came to the Tolbooth stair,
There he let his volley flee;
It made the King in his chamber start,
E'en in the bed where he might be.

"Gae out, gae out, my merrymen a',
And bid Carmichael come speak to me;
For I'll lay my life the pledge o' that,
That yon's the shot o' young Logie."

When Carmichael came before the King,
He fell low down upon his knee;
The very first word that the King spake,
Was--"Where's the laird of young Logie?"

Carmichael turn'd him round about
(I wot the tear blinded his ee),
"There came a token frae your grace,
Has ta'en away the laird frae me."

"Hast thou play'd me that, Carmichael?
And hast thou play'd me that?" quoth he;
"The morn the justice-court's to stand,
And Logie's place ye maun supplie."

Carmichael's awa to Margaret's bower,
Even as fast as he may dree--
"O if young Logie be within,
Tell him to come and speak with me!"

May Margaret turn'd her round about
(I wot a loud laugh laughed she),
"The egg is chipp'd, the bird is flown,
Ye'll see nae mair of young Logie."

*Chapter XXXVII*

*Jamie Telfer of the Fair Dodhead*

"'Tis I, Jamie Telfer, of the fair Dodhead,
And a harried man I think I be!
There's nothing left at the fair Dodhead
But a woeful wife and bairnies three!"

About Martinmas time, when Border steeds get corn and hay, the Captain of Bewcastle rode over to Tividale to forage. And first he met a guide high up in Hardhaughswire, and next he met a guide low down in Borthwick water.

"What tidings, what tidings, my trusty guide?" "No tidings have I--yet if ye go to the fair Dodhead, I'll let ye see many a cow's calf." Right hastily they came to the fair Dodhead, loosed the cows and ransacked the house.