"But I may nae langer in Cumberland bide; The Armstrongs they'll hang me hie:"-- 250 So Dickie's tane leave at lord and master, And [at] Burgh under Stanmuir there dwells he. 54. The place of execution at Carlisle.--P. M. 61. This was a house of strength held by the Armstrongs. The ruins at present form a sheep-fold on the farm of Reidsmoss, belonging to the Duke of Buccleuch.--S. 94. The Laird of Mangerton was chief of the clan Armstrong--S. 103. Hamstringing a horse is termed, in the Border dialect, _tying him with St. Mary's knot_. Dickie used this cruel expedient to prevent a pursuit. It appears from the narration, that the horses left unhurt, belonged to fair Johnie Armstrang, his brother Willie, and the Laird's Jock--of which Dickie carried off two, and left that of the Laird's Jock, probably out of gratitude for the protection he had afforded him on his arrival.--S. 136. A rising-ground on Cannobie, on the borders of Liddesdale.--P. M. 188. The commendation of the Laird's Jock's honesty seems but indifferently founded; for, in July, 1586, a bill was fouled against him, Dick of Dryup, and others, by the Deputy of Bewcastle, at a warden-meeting, for 400 head of cattle taken in open foray from the Drysike in Bewcastle: and in September, 1587, another complaint appears at the instance of one Andrew Rutlege of the Nook, against the Laird's Jock, and his accomplices, for 50 kine and oxen, besides furniture, to the amount of 100 merks sterling. See Bell's MSS., as quoted in the _History of Cumberland and Westmoreland_. In Sir Richard Maitland's poem against the thieves of Liddesdale, he thus commemorates the Laird's Jock:-- "They spuilye puir men of their pakis, They leif them nocht on bed nor bakis: Baith hen and cok, With reil and rok, The _Lairdis Jock_ All with him takis."--S. JOCK O' THE SIDE. From Caw's _Poetical Museum_, p. 145. The rescue of a prisoner from the hands of justice was a very favourite subject with ballad-makers, and, it is to be feared, no uncommon event in the actual experience of the police of former days. We have in the fifth volume seen how such an affair was conducted by Robin Hood and his associates; and in _Kinmont Willie_ have had an authenticated account of a remarkable exploit of this description at the close of the reign of Elizabeth. The two ballads which follow have this same theme; but only the authority of tradition. _Jock o' the Side_ has one circumstance in common with _Kinmont Willie_--the daring passage of the river: with _Archie of Ca'field_ it agrees throughout.