"They had better hae staid at home," for the outcome was that one of their best men, Michael of Winfield, was killed, and Jock o’ the Side, nephew to the Laird of Mangerton, was taken prisoner, and promptly lodged in Newcastle Jail. When the news reached Jock’s mother she kilted her coats up to her knee, and ran down the water with the tears falling in torrents from her eyes. She ran to Mangerton House, on the banks of the Liddel, and told her brother, the good old lord, the bad news. "Michael is killed, and they have taken my son John." "Never fear, sister," quoth Mangerton, "I have eighty-three yokes of oxen, my barns, my byres, my folds are all filled, I’ll part with them all ere Johnie shall die." Then he thought out his plan. "Three men I’ll send to set him free, all harnessed in the best steel; the English loons shall feel the weight of their broad swords. The Laird’s Jock shall be one, the Laird’s Wat two, and Hobbie Noble, thou must be the third. Thy coat is blue, and since England banished thee thou hast been true to me." Now this Hobbie was an Englishman, born in Bewcastledale, the wildest district in Cumberland. Like numerous other English outlaws, he had made his own country too hot to hold him; his misdeeds had banished him to Liddesdale, and he was now in high favour with the Laird of Mangerton. The Laird gave the dauntless three orders to reverse the shoes of their horses, so that anyone crossing their trail might think they were proceeding in a contrary direction. He also warned them not to seem gentlemen, but to look like corn-carriers; not to show their good armour, nor appear like men of war, but to be arrayed as country lads, with halter and cart-collar on each mare. So Hobbie mounted his grey, Jack his lively bay, and Wat his white horse, and they rode for Tyne water. When they reached the Tyne they lighted down at a ford, and by the moonlight they cut a tree, with fifteen nogs on each side, to serve them as a scaling ladder, to climb Newcastle wall with. However, when they came to Newcastle town and alighted at the wall, their tree proved three ells too short, and there was nothing for it but to force the gates. At the gate a proud porter attempted to withstand them. The Armstrongs wrung his neck, took his life and his keys at once, and cast his body behind the wall. Soon they reached the jail, and called to the prisoner, "Sleeps thou, wakes thou, Jock o’ the Side, Or art thou weary of thy thrall?" Jock answered dolefully, "Often I wake, nay, sleep seldom comes to me—but who’s this knows my name so well?" Then out and spoke the Laird’s Jock, his cousin and namesake, "Now fear ye not, my billie!" quoth he; "for here are the Laird’s Jock, the Laird’s Wat, and Hobbie Noble the Englishman come to set you free." Jock o’ the Side did not think it possible that they could effect his release. "Now hold thy tongue, my good cousin," said he. "This cannot be—