"Throw me my irons," quo' Lieutenant Gordon;
"I wot they cost me dear eneugh;"
"The shame a ma," quo' mettled John Ha',115
"They'll be gude shackles to my pleugh."
"Come thro', come thro', Lieutenant Gordon!
Come thro', and drink some wine wi' me!
Yestreen I was your prisoner,
But now this morning am I free."120
[17]. Mettled John Hall, from the laigh Teviotdale, is perhaps John Hall of Newbigging, mentioned in the list of Border clans as one of the chief men of name residing on the Middle Marches in 1597.—S.
[70]. The gold twist means the small gilded chains drawn across the chest of a war-horse, as a part of his caparison.—S.
BILLIE ARCHIE.
Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 335.
A North-Country version of [the preceding ballad]. There is another copy in Buchan's larger collection, i. 111, The Three Brothers.
"Seven years have I loved my love,
And seven years my love's loved me,
But now to-morrow is the day
That Billie Archie, my love, must die."