104 MR HENDERSON ON THE LOCAL PROVERBS OF BERWICKSHIRE. 



seeched them for mercy, telling them at the same time, that he was 

 not present at the battle of Kelloe,* (for so the village is called, in the 

 neighbourhood of which it was fought) ; nay, says he, so very inno- 

 cent am Ij that I was that very .day confined to the house with 

 phys'c, and dined upon chickens.^ Both these stories went into 

 proverbs, and continue so to this day." J They are " Langton's coat 

 of mail," and " Bowmakers' purgative." By the one is marked a 

 presumptuous (though brave) security ; by the other cowardly inno- 

 cence, or *' ane innocent coward." 



15. "_ Fast-Castle, if ye be ta'en, 



Fair fa' you Johnny Robertson !" 

 Fast Castle was, about the year 1650, taken by stratagem from 

 the English. Tradition avers, that a person of the name of John 

 Robertson planned the process by which it was regained to the Scots. 

 The surrounding district being under the sw^y of the English, while 

 they held this stronghold by the sea, they had ordered the natives 

 to bring in a quantity of peats for fuel, for the use of the garrison. 

 The peats had to be carried in sacks on men's shoulders, along the 

 narrow drawbridge which led to the gate ; a considerable number of 

 Scotsmen arriving together with their loads of peats, each one took 

 up his sack, and proceeded to the castle. Two or three of them 

 passed in with their loads without throwing them down, the more 

 readily to lull suspicion — ^but those following threw down their sacks 

 in the gate-way, which effectually prevented the gate from being 

 shut, and drawing the weapons which they had concealed under 

 their garments, they quickly overpowered the astonished garrison. 

 When John had planned this exploit his neighbours congratulated him 

 with the rhyme at the head of this paragraph ; and no doubt when 

 the plan was accomplished, he would be duly rewarded for the de- 

 liverance he had achieved. The rhyme is still passed from mouth 

 to mouth, among the peasants in the neighbourhood. 



Chienside, 

 13tA December 1844. 



* Kelloe is beautifully situated on the northern bank of the Blackadder, in 

 the parish of Edrom. It is now the property of George Buchan, Esq. 



t It is still the custom in some parts of the country for mothers, when they 

 put their children under physic, to give thein chicken broth, in order to assist the 

 operation of the medicine. 



{ Home's history was composed about the beginning of the seventeenth cen- 

 ttory. 



