This Watt was a shoemaker and a soldier, and if he had no large field for the display of his skill and valor in the Border skirmishes of his time, he nevertheless deserves a place among his more illustrious brethren of the craft, if only for the sake of the following note respecting him. "This person was in my younger days," says Sir Walter Scott,[104] "the theme of many a fireside tale. He was a retainer of the Buccleuch family, and held for his Border service a small tower on the frontiers of Liddesdale. Watt was by profession a sutor, but by inclination and practice an archer and warrior. Upon one occasion, the captain of Bewcastle, military governor of that wild district of Cumberland, is said to have made an incursion into Scotland, in which he was defeated and forced to fly. Watt Tinlinn pursued him closely through a dangerous morass; the captain, however, gained the firm ground, and seeing Tinlinn dismounted and floundering in the bog, used these words of insult, "Sutor Watt, ye cannot sew your boots; the heels risp and the seams rive."[105] "If I cannot sew," retorted Tinlinn, discharging a shaft which nailed the captain's thigh to his saddle--"if I cannot sew I can yerk."[106] [104] Note IV. to Canto IV., "Lay of the Last Minstrel." [105] Risp and rive, creak and tear. [106] To twitch the thread as shoemakers do in securing the stitches. COLONEL HEWSON, THE "CERDON" OF "HUDIBRAS." In the turbulent days of the Stuarts and the Commonwealth, when the lofty were laid low and the lowly were set in high places, it can hardly be matter of surprise that the shoemaker should have had his share of the favors of fortune. The circumstances of the time had led to the adoption of the rational rule of granting promotion by merit. In an army commanded by Cromwell it is not likely that any other rule would be adopted. His two chief requirements were military capacity and moral character. With men of this class he made up his invincible _Ironsides_. One of his colonels was John Hewson. "This man," Grainger says,[107] "once wore a leather apron, and from a mender of old shoes became a reformer of government and religion. He was, allowing for his education, a very extraordinary person. His behavior in the army soon raised him to the rank of a colonel; and Cromwell had so great an opinion of him as to intrust him with the government of the city of Dublin, whence he was called to be a member of Barebones'[108] parliament. He was a frequent speaker in that and the other parliament of which he was a member, and was at length thought a fit person to be a lord of the upper house. He was one of the committee of safety, and was, with several of his brethren, very intent upon a new model of the republic at the eve of the Restoration." Rugge, in his "Diurnal," 5th December, 1659, says that Hewson "was a very stout man, and a very good commander;" and adds, "But in regard of his former employment, they (the city apprentices) threw at