"My horse is young, he cannot swim; The water's deep, and will not wade; My children must be fatherless, 55 My wife a widow, whate'er betide." O then cried out him Little Dickie, And still the best fellow was he: "Take you my mare, I'll take your horse, And Devil drown my mare and thee!" 60 Now they have taken the wan water, Though it was roaring like the sea; And when they gat to the other side, I wat they bragged right crousilie. "Come thro', come thro', now, Lord Lieutenant, 65 O do come thro', I pray of thee; There is an alehouse not far off, We'll dine you and your companie." "Awa, awa, now, Little Dickie, O now let all your taunting be; 70 There's not a man in the king's army That would have tried what's done by thee. "Cast back, cast back my fetters again, Cast back my fetters, I say to thee; And get you gane the way you came, 75 I wish no prisoners like to thee." "I have a mare, she's called Meg, The best in all our low countrie; If she gang barefoot till they're done, An ill death may your Lordship die." 80 HOBIE NOBLE. From Caw's _Poetical Museum_, p. 193. "We have seen the hero of this ballad act a distinguished part in the deliverance of Jock o' the Side, and are now to learn the ungrateful return which the Armstrongs made him for his faithful services. Halbert, or Hobbie, Noble appears to have been one of those numerous English outlaws, who, being forced to fly their own country, had established themselves on the Scottish Borders. As Hobbie continued his depredations upon the English, they bribed some of his hosts, the Armstrongs, to decoy him into England under pretence of a predatory expedition. He was there delivered, by his treacherous companions, into the hands of the officers of justice, by whom he was conducted to Carlisle, and executed next morning. The Laird of Mangertoun, with whom Hobbie was in high favour, is said to have taken a severe revenge upon the traitors who betrayed him. The principal contriver of the scheme, called here Sim o' the Maynes, fled into England from the resentment of his chief; but experienced there the common fate of a traitor, being himself executed at Carlisle, about two months after Hobbie's death. Such is, at least, the tradition of Liddesdale. Sim o' the Maynes appears among the Armstrongs of Whitauch, in Liddesdale, in the list of Clans so often alluded to."--_Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_, ii. 90. Foul fa' the breast first treason bred in! That Liddisdale may safely say; For in it there was baith meat and drink, And corn unto our geldings gay.