"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.