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.