Читать книгу Story-Telling Ballads. Selected and Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the Boys' and Girls' Own Reading онлайн

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So give us all your things!”

“We’ll give ye that,” said one o’ them,

“Ye’ll no forget, I wiss,

This many a day, good Jock o’ the Sheugh,

And that my billie’s this!”

They threw the cloaks from off their hides,

And back and breastplate shone;

They grippit their swords, the first blow struck

Was echoed with a groan.

Good faith! but Jock had found his match,

For the Southrons hacked about;

The Thirlwall boys were fain to fight,

But soon put to the route.

Of twelve o’ Jock’s good freebooters,

But three fled o’er the lea,

The other nine lay still enough

Beside the Witches’ Tree.

Poor Jock is down upon his back,

Wi’ a fair clour on the head;

His billies all are stiffening,

And three o’ them are fled.

Out spoke the twenty travellers,

“Why, Jock, how’s this of a’,

Ye bid us to a meal, good faith,

And then ye run awa’?”

Quo’ Jock, as they bound fast his arms,

And raised him from the lea,

“If I had kenned ye were Belted Will’s men,

The Devil might stopped ye for me!”

The Baron o’ Thirlwall looked abroad,