INTO BALLAD-LAND. Ill 



And still more amusingly, when he is borne, heavily-ironed, 

 down the scaling-ladders on the shoulders of Red Rowan, 

 " the starkest man in Teviotdale : " 



" ' Oh mony a time,' quo' Kinmont Willie, 



' I have ridden horse baith wild and wood ; 

 But a rougher beast than Red Rowan 

 I ween my legs have ne'er bestrode. 



' And mony a time,' quo' Kinmont Willie, 



' I've pricked a horse out o'er the furs [furrows], 

 But since the day I backed a steed, 

 I never wore sic cumbrous spurs ! ' " 



Haribee Hill, outside Carlisle, has witnessed the death of 

 many a Border rover; the common gallows used to stand 

 there. The Rickergate, a street in the city, is commemorated 

 in " Hobbie Noble " in a picturesque verse, 



" They ha'e ta'en him up the Rickergate ; 



The wives they cast their windows wide ; 

 And every wife to another can say, 



' That's the man loosed Jock o' the Syde ! ' " 



A few more poetic memories still detain us in Liddisdale, 

 where the Liddell, tracked by the dark spires of fir-trees, runs 

 alongside of shady fells, with dark ravines cut through their 

 brown sides by the torrents of ages. At the site of Mangerton 

 Castle, for instance, below Castletown, it is difficult to avoid 

 sympathising, if we are troubled by unpunctuality at home, 

 with one commendable custom of the place, 



" It was then the use of Pudding-burn house, 



And the house of Mangerton, all hail, 

 Them that cam' na at the first ca', 



Got nae mair meat till the neist meal." 



At the Hollows, a few miles from Langholm, is the roofless 

 peel of Johnnie Armstrong of Gilnockie, another celebrated 

 personage in Border legend. The temptation is great to quote 

 his justification of himself when hailed as a traitor. That the 



