Comes wading through the flood.
Full oft the Tynedale snatchers knock
At his lone gate and prove the lock;
It was but last St. Barnabright
They sieged him a whole summer night,
But fled at morning; well they knew
In vain he never twanged the yew.’”
This Watt was a shoemaker and a soldier, and if he had no large field for the display of his skill and valor in the Border skirmishes of his time, he nevertheless deserves a place among his more illustrious brethren of the craft, if only for the sake of the following note respecting him. “This person was in my younger days,” says Sir Walter Scott,[104] “the theme of many a fireside tale. He was a retainer of the Buccleuch family, and held for his Border service a small tower on the frontiers of Liddesdale. Watt was by profession a sutor, but by inclination and practice an archer and warrior. Upon one occasion, the captain of Bewcastle, military governor of that wild district of Cumberland, is said to have made an incursion into Scotland, in which he was defeated and forced to fly. Watt Tinlinn pursued him closely through a dangerous morass; the captain, however, gained the firm ground, and seeing Tinlinn dismounted and floundering in the bog, used these words of insult, “Sutor Watt, ye cannot sew your boots; the heels risp and the seams rive.“[105] ”If I cannot sew,” retorted Tinlinn, discharging a shaft which nailed the captain’s thigh to his saddle—“if I cannot sew I can yerk.”[106]