" In the edition published after his death
(1833) he "has been enabled to add several stanzas from recitation."
Leyden appears to have collected the copy whence the additional stanzas
came; the MS., at Abbotsford, is in his hand. In this ballad the
Halls, noted freebooters, rescue Archie o' Cafield from prison in
Dumfries. As in Jock o' the Side and Kinmont Willie, they speak to
their friend, asking how he sleeps; they carry him downstairs, irons
and all, and, as in the two other ballads, they are pursued, cross a
flooded river, banter the English, and then, in a version in the Percy
MSS., "communicated to Percy by Miss Fisher, 1780," the English
lieutenant says -
I think some witch has bore thee, Dicky,
Or some devil in hell been thy daddy.
I would not swam that wan water, double-horsed,
For a' the gold in Christenty.
Manifestly here was a form of Lord Scrope's reply to Buccleuch, in the
last stanza of Kinmont Willie -
He is either himself a devil frae hell,
Or else his mother a witch may be,
I wadna hae ridden that wan water
For a' the gowd in Christentie.
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