By Loch and by Lin: Tales from Scottish Ballads Read online

“Why should I tell my trouble to you?” said Baby. “I have no friends in this strange place.”

  “Then take me for your friend,” said Jean. “I promise that I will help you if I can.”

  “Your brother, the Laird of Glenlion, has stolen me away from my family and all my friends, and from my true love in Dundee. Oh, if I but had pen and ink and paper, and someone to carry the letter I’d write, I’d send it to me true love. There might be time for him to come and rescue me.”

  “I will help you,” said Jean, “if you will swear to me that my brother will never know. Heaven knows what he would do to me if he found out.”

  Then Jean brought paper, pen, and ink, and a candle so that Baby could see to write a letter to her true love, Johnnie Hay.

  Then Jean went away again and came back with a young Highland laddie whom she had secretly brought into the tower. He was a bonnie lad in his philabeg and bonnet, and Jean had chosen him because he was both fleet of foot and strong.

  “This lady,” Jean told him, “has an errand for you to go.”

  “If you would win my blessing this night,” said Bonnie Baby Livingston, “carry this letter to Johnnie Hay at Dundee. Bid him make haste to come and rescue me.” Then she showed the laddie a golden chain, and three golden guineas beside, and promised he should have them all if his errand was well-sped.

  No lad in the Highlands could run so swiftly. He ran over hill and dale as fast as a bird could fly. As the hour of midnight struck, he came to the town of Dundee, and knocked loud and long at Johnnie Hay’s door. Johnnie rose up in alarm and threw open his window and cried out, “Who’s there?”

  “I’ve brought you a letter from your lady,” said the laddie. “If you want to save her, you’ll have to come down quickly and speed back to Glenlion with me.”

  When Johnnie read the letter, an angry man was he! He swore that before the morning broke, the Laird of Glenlion would give up Bonnie Baby Livingston, and if any harm had come to her, the Highland laird would sorely rue this day.

  He cried to his grooms, “Come saddle the gray horse for this braw laddie. And saddle for me my milk-white steed, for it is the fleetest that ever rode out of Dundee. He sent word to all his kinsmen for them to come out to join him, and they came riding, one hundred strong.

  “Arm yourselves well and follow me,” cried Johnnie Hay. “We’re off to Glenlion castle, for the Laird of Glenlion has stolen my true love away. I swear I’ll neither eat nor sleep until Bonnie Baby Livingston is safe at home in Dundee!”

  Then Johnnie mounted his milk-white steed and put the laddie on the gray, and with his kinsmen he galloped off, and reached Glenlion in sight of the castle walls about the break of day. They left their horses on the road and through the gates crept quietly. Johnnie’s kinsmen took places to guard the door, but the laddie took Johnnie to the wall below the window in the tower.

  At the window Baby stood, as the morning mists were rising gray, and she heard her true love calling to her and looked down, and there below was Johnnie Hay!

  “Jump from the window, Baby!” he said. “You need not fear to fall. My arms are strong to hold you safe, and my kinsmen are at the castle gate, so you’re free from Glenlion’s power.”

  But Baby feared to leap so far, for the tower window was high, so she made a rope of her coverlets and tied it fast above, and then she climbed down along the wall and Johnnie caught her in his arms before her foot could touch the ground. Then he set her before him on his horse and the two of them merrily rode away. As they sped away Baby looked back at the castle and cried with glee, “Glenlion, you have lost your bride. She’s gone off with her true love, Johnnie Hay!”

  Glenlion sat with his brother Jock, waiting for the priest to come. As Johnnie and Baby rode by the gate, the young laird heard the ringing of Johnnie’s bridle chain. The laird called out to his brother Jock. “Go meet the priest and bring him in! I hear the clang of his bridle chain.” Well pleased he was, as he laughed and said, “Now Bonnie Baby Livingston will be my wife before the larks rise up to sing.”

  Jock looked out the grill of the door, and back to his brother he ran and said, “Brother, that was no priest who came, and if he comes now, he’ll come too late. There’s a hundred of Johnnie Hay’s kinsmen, armed with swords, standing outside at the castle door.”

  The Laird of Glenlion stood in his hall, and raised a shout for his men. “Arm yourselves!” cried the Highland laird. “And take your swords in hand. We’ll make these Dundee rascals sorry they came here today!”

  Glenlion’s men all drew their swords and gave a warlike shout. But with a hundred of Johnnie Hay’s men outside to stand against the laird’s twenty men, not one of Glenlion’s men dared to be the first one to go out. So there they stood with their swords in hand, all the livelong day, while Bonnie Baby Livingston rode safely home to Dundee with Johnnie Hay.

  The Highland laddie was a wise chiel. He rode behind them on the gray, and when he got to Dundee he took service with Johnnie Hay. Then Baby gave him the golden chain, and the three bright guineas of gold, and Johnnie gave him twenty pounds for running his errand so well that night. But he never went back to Glenlion again, for he thought it wiser to stay away.

  Glenlion and his brother Jock and all their twenty armed men were shut up in their castle till night fell again. Then Johnnie’s hundred kinsmen went marching home to Dundee, singing all the way:

  “Away, Glenlion! Away for shame!

  Go hide yourself in your glen!

  You’ve let your bride be stolen away,

  For all your armed men.”

  The Tale of

  Lang Johnnie Mor

  DID you hear the tale of young Lang Johnnie Mor, the braw big laddie from Rhynie at the foot of Benachie? Johnnie was a good-sized lad for his age, which had just turned twenty years. It took three yards of leather belt to gird his waist around, and his shoulders were two yards wide. Lang Johnnie Mor was sturdy and strong, and the sword at his side was ten feet long, and Johnnie himself was fourteen feet in height.

  Johnnie was not a man to waste words, so when he went away from Rhynie at the foot of Benachie he did not trouble himself to tell his kin and his friends where he was going or why. But news has a way of traveling till it gets to the place where it belongs, and folks in Rhynie found out what had become of their Lang Johnnie Mor.

  Said one to another, “If all be true they tell, and I suppose it be, it’s off to Lunnon town young Lang Johnnie Mor has gone.”

  “Och, aye,” said t’other. “And if all be true I hear, and I suppose it be, he’s gone to carry the banner there, for the Sassenach king.”

  Then everybody said that, being a Rhynie lad, young Johnnie Mor would do well, no doubt, and now that they knew where Johnnie was, they went about on their own affairs.

  When Johnnie had dwelt in Lunnon town for a twelvemonth and two, or maybe three, the fairest lady in the town fell in love with the bonnie big lad. She smiled so sweetly on Lang Johnnie Mor whenever he passed by, that what could young Johnnie do but fall in love with the fairest lady in Lunnon town?

  Had his lady been a serving lass, or Johnnie a noble of high degree, the lovers would never have found a cloud to cast a shade on their joy. But the lass young Johnnie took for his love was the king’s own daughter, and Johnnie was naught but the lad who carried the banner for the king.

  The news ran all around Lunnon town till it reached the ear of the king that his banner bearer, Lang Johnnie Mor, and his noble daughter had fallen in love. The king, he reared and shouted with rage, and swore it should never be. He took his daughter and carried her up to a room in a high stone tower, and he locked the door and pocketed the key.

  “Stay there and starve, fair lady,” he said, “for you’ll get no meat or drink from me.”

  Then down he went, and angrily vowed that before the week went by, the weighty young Scot should stretch a rope, for he would be hanged on the gibbet tree. Lang Johnnie Mor paid little heed when they told him what the king had sai
d. “They must catch me first,” said he. “While I have my good sword in my hand, no man will dare lay a finger on me.”

  But the English king was cunning and sly. He found three rogues and paid them well to steal into the house where Johnnie dwelt and put poppy-seed oil in Johnnie’s ale. Johnnie came home and drank his ale and sleep overpowered him soon. He fell to the floor and there he lay, like a man in a swoon. Then the king sent his soldiers in, and they fettered young Johnnie where he lay. When he woke he was sorely amazed to find that his hands were bound with iron bands, and his legs weighted down with a hundredweight of chains.

  “Where will I find a wee little lad who will work for me?” young Johnnie cried. “Where will I find a wee little lad who will work for me and carry a message to Auld Johnnie Mor, my uncle, at Rhynie at the foot of Benachie?”

  There was a wee little lad by Johnnie’s door, and he spoke up. “Here am I, a wee little lad,” said he. “And I will run on, to take a message to Auld Johnnie Mor, your uncle, at the foot of Benachie.”

  “You will earn your meat and your fee,” said Lang Johnnie Mor. “Run on, my wee little lad. When you come to the brae where the grass grows green, throw off your shoes and speed away. And when you come where the streams run strong, bend your bow and leap over, or swim! When you come to Rhynie you’ll not need to call or seek about the town. You’ll know my uncle, Auld Johnnie, there, for he stands three feet above them all.”

  Then Johnnie said to the wee little lad, “Bid my uncle make haste lest they hang me high, and bid him bring along with him that stalwart body, Jock o’ Noth.”

  The wee little lad set his feet to the north, and on his errand he sped away. When he came to the brae where the grass grew green, he cast his shoes aside and ran on. When he came to the streams that flowed fast and deep, he bent his bow and leaped over or swam. And when he came to Rhynie at last, he had no need to go seeking through the town, or to call. He knew Auld Johnnie at first glance, for he stood three feet above them all.

  “What news?” Auld Johnnie asked. “What news, my wee little lad? I’ve never seen you here in Rhynie before.”

  “I bring you no news,” said the wee little lad. “But a message I bring to you, from your nephew, Lang Johnnie Mor. The king has put young Johnnie in chains, and he threatens to hang him high. Johnnie bids you haste to his aid, and to bring with you that stalwart body, Jock o’ Noth.”

  Benachie lies low in the dale, and the top of the Noth is high, but Jock o’ Noth on his mountaintop heard every word of Auld Johnnie’s call.

  “Come down! Come down! O Jock o’ Noth, come down in haste to me. My nephew, Lang Johnnie, needs us sore, so we must go to Lunnon town.”

  Then Jock o’ Noth came down from the hill and met with Auld Johnnie at the foot of Benachie, and these two mighty men together were an awesome grisly pair to see. Their heads peered down through the boughs of the trees, and their brows were three feet wide, and there was no less than three good yards across their shoulder bones.

  These two great bodies started forth. They ran o’er hill, they ran o’er dale, they ran o’er mountain high, and they came to the walls of Lunnon town at dawning of the third day. When they got there the city gates, with iron bars and iron bolts, were closed and all locked tight, and on a tower a trumpeter stood with his trumpet in his hand, ready to blow it and give the sign for Lang Johnnie Mor to be hanged. The keeper of the gates looked out to see who knocked so loud outside. Auld Johnnie asked, “What goes on inside that the drums beat with a mournful sound and church bells toll so solemnly?”

  “There’s naught that goes on,” the gatekeeper said. “And naught that matters to you! Just a weighty Scot to straighten a rope, for Lang Johnnie Mor will be hanged today.”

  “Open the gates!” Auld Johnnie cried. “Open the gates without delay!”

  The gatekeeper trembled, but grinned and said, “Kind sirs, I do not have the key.”

  “You’ll open the gates,” Auld Johnnie said. “You’ll open them without delay, or here’s a body at my back who will open them for me!”

  “Open the gates!” roared Jock o’ Noth, “or I’ll open them up with my own key!” Then he raised his foot and gave a great kick that knocked a hole three full yards wide through the stones of the city wall.

  In through the gap the champions went, and down by Drury Lane. They came down by the Lunnon town hall, and there stood young Lang Johnnie Mor, beside the gibbet tree.

  Young Johnnie cried out, “You’ve come in good time, Auld Johnnie, my uncle, and Jock o’ Noth, and you’re unco welcome here. Come, loosen the knot and throw off the rope, and set me free from the gibbet tree.”

  “Nay, not so fast,” Auld Johnnie said. “Why have they sentenced you to die? Is it murder you have done, or theft or robbery? If it’s for a grievous crime you’ve been judged, it’s not for us to set you free.”

  “Och, nay!” said young Johnnie. “For no great crime have they set me here to die. I have done no murder nor theft nor robbery. It’s all because I’ve fallen in love with the fairest lady in Lunnon town, and that is no crime at all that I can see.”

  “Why did you let the soldiers take you and bind you?” asked Jock o’ Noth. “And you with your good broadsword that you brought here from Scotland. I never saw a Scotsman in all my life but could free himself, as long as he had his sword in his hand.”

  “I had no sword in my hand,” said Lang Johnnie Mor. “And if I had, I should have gone free. The de’il fly away with the king’s sly rogues who put in my ale the poppy-seed oil that stole my senses away from me. But when they had me helpless and bound it took four of their stoutest men to carry my good sword away.”

  “Bring back the sword!” said Jock o’ Noth to the king’s men who were standing by. “Bring back the sword and give it back into the hand of Lang Johnnie Mor. I’ve one as good, if not better, of my own.” And he drew his sword that all might see. “Bring back his sword and quickly, or you must answer to me, for I have sworn a black Scotsman’s oath that if you delay, five thousand Englishmen will die by this sword of mine today.”

  The soldiers took Johnnie’s shackles away, and they took the rope from around his neck and set him free. And four of the stoutest of the king’s men fetched young Johnnie’s sword, and put it back in his hand again.

  “Now show me the lady,” said Jock o’ Noth. “Young Johnnie’s true love, I must see.”

  “It’s the king’s own daughter that’s young Johnnie’s love,” they said. “And she’s locked in a room in the castle tower, and the king, her father, keeps the key.”

  Then to the king’s palace went Lang Johnnie Mor, Auld Johnnie, and Jock o’ Noth, all three. Through the palace door they strode and showed themselves before the king.

  “Oh, where is your daughter?” roared Jock o’ Noth. “That bonnie young lady I must see, for me and Auld Johnnie here have come to see her wed Lang Johnnie Mor, all the way from the foot of Benachie!”

  “Oh, take my daughter!” cried the king, and his knee-caps rattled together with fear. “Take my daughter! You’re welcome to her, for all of me. I never thought they bred such men at the foot of Benachie!”

  “Och, if I had known,” said Jock o’ Noth, “that you’d wonder so much at my size, I’d have brought along another man who’s at least three times as big as me. Likewise if I thought the size of me would give you such a fright, I’d have brought Sir John of Erskine Park, for he has a height of thirty feet and three.”

  “Let me get hold of the wee little lad who fetched you here!” cried the king. “I’ll pay him well for the errand he ran, for I’ll hang him with my own hands!”

  “Do so!” Auld Johnnie said, and a hot fire shone in his angry eyes. “But if you do, we three, Lang Johnnie Mor, Jock o’ Noth, and me, will come to the wee lad’s burial, and you shall be as well paid as he, and you and the wee little lad in one same grave shall lie.”

  “Take the wee little lad and my daughter, too!” said the king. “And leave me be. My daught
er may wed whoe’er she likes, and I shall not say nay.”

  “A priest! A priest!” cried Lang Johnnie Mor. “Go run for a priest and bring him here, to wed my true love and me.”

  “A clerk! A clerk!” the king replied. “To set down the dower my daughter will have from me.”

  To that Auld Johnnie Mor spoke up. “You want no clerk for we’ll take no dower with your noble daughter,” said he. “We’ve no lack of land of our own at home in Rhynie, at the foot of Benachie. We have castles and houses and farms, and our plowmen’s plows are seventy-three. We’ve chests of gold too full to be told, and flocks and herds galore, and young Johnnie Mor has a grand estate at the foot of Benachie.”

  Then said Jock o’ Noth to the king, “Now have you masons in Lunnon town, and any who will come at your call, that we may bring in some of them to mend the hole that I kicked in your wall?”

  Said the king, “To be sure we have masons in town, and plenty to come at my call. But you can go back where you came from as fast as you can, and never mind my broken wall.”

  They took the key from the hand of the king, and off they went to the high stone tower. They set the king’s fair daughter free, and the priest came soon, and wedded her to Lang Johnnie Mor.

  There ne’er was a wedding in Lunnon town as joyful and full of glee. The merry drums beat and the merry fifes played for seven nights and seven days. Then Lang Johnnie Mor, Auld Johnnie, and Jock o’ Noth, all three, they took the king’s fair daughter and the wee little lad, and they all went home, to Rhynie, at the foot of Benachie.

  The Tale of the

  Famous Flower of Servingmen

  KINGS and castles have their day and crumble into dust. But when the dust has blown away we find that they are not forever gone. The old, old tales about them still live on, and storytellers bring them back to life again. And one of the very old tales of kings and castles is the one about the famous flower of servingmen.