his own hands, desiring those who were present to inform the
champion that he, and no other, had possessed himself of the gage
of defiance. But the champion was as much ashamed to face
Bernard Gilpin as the officials of the church had been to
displace his pledge of combat.

The date of the following story is about the latter years of
Queen Elizabeth's reign; and the events took place in Liddesdale,
a hilly and pastoral district of Roxburghshire, which, on a part
of its boundary, is divided from England only by a small river.

During the good old times of RUGGING AND RIVING--that is, tugging
and tearing--under which term the disorderly doings of the
warlike age are affectionately remembered, this valley was
principally cultivated by the sept or clan of the Armstrongs.
The chief of this warlike race was the Laird of Mangerton. At
the period of which I speak, the estate of Mangerton, with the
power and dignity of chief, was possessed by John Armstrong, a
man of great size, strength, and courage. While his father was
alive, he was distinguished from others of his clan who bore the
same name, by the epithet of the LAIRD'S JOCK--that is to say,
the Laird's son Jock, or Jack. This name he distinguished by so
many bold and desperate achievements, that he retained it even
after his father's death, and is mentioned under it both in
authentic records and in tradition. Some of his feats are
recorded in the minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and others are
mentioned in contemporary chronicles.

At the species of singular combat which we have described the
Laird's Jock was unrivalled, and no champion of Cumberland,