Added to all this, he was an
extraordinarily expert swordsman. He was a man, too, of much influence
and acknowledged authority in the county--a useful man to have on the
side of the King--one to whom the people listened, and to whom often an
appeal for help was made in ticklish affairs.
There was, for instance, that affair of the feud between Lowes of
Willimoteswick Castle and Leehall of Leehall, which kept a great part of
Tynedale in hot water for so many years. Leehall appears to have been
physically the better man; at any rate, on more than one occasion Lowes
seems to have escaped from the clutches of his enemy solely by the
superior speed of the horse he rode, or possibly he was a light, and his
enemy a heavy, weight, which would make all the difference in a rousing
gallop across deep ground or heathery hill. In any case, as a general
rule, Lowes was more often the hunted than the hunter. Yet, to the
followers of Lowes--there must always be two sides to a story--it was
he, and not Leehall, who was the finer man, for, of an encounter between
the pair near Bellingham, when Lowes' horse was killed by a sword-thrust
directed at the rider's thigh, the old ballad says:
"Oh, had Leehall but been a man
As he was never ne-an,
He wad have stabbed the rider
And letten the horse alean.
Pages:
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103