s meat,"
and having so many to provide for, his large herds often disappeared with
great rapidity. The result was that he was constantly under the necessity
of crossing the Border in order to replenish his stock. It is related that
on one occasion he overheard the town herd calling out to some one, as he
was passing, to "send out Wat o' Harden's coo." "Wat o' Harden's coo!" the
old reiver indignantly exclaimed, "My sang, I'll soon mak ye speak of Wat
o' Harden's kye," and so he at once gathered his forces, marched into
Northumberland, and before long he was seen on his way back driving before
him a big herd of cows and a basson'd bull. On his way he passed a large
sow-backed haystack. Turning round in his saddle and looking at it
wistfully, he said, in a regretful tone of voice, "If ye had four feet, ye
wadna stand long there!"

It is perhaps to this successful foray that Lord Eure refers in a letter
addressed to Cecil under date July 15, 1596, in which he says:--"Watt
Ellatt, _alias_ Watt of Harden, with other East Tividale lairds had 300 or
400 able horsemen, laying an ambush of 300 or 400 foote, brake a day
forray a myle beneathe Bellinghame, spoiled the townes men in
Bellinghame, brake the crosse, toke all the cattell upp the water to the
number thre or fower hundred beastes at the leaste, hath slaine three men
of name and wounded one allmoste to deathe, fired noe houses. The fray
rose and being brought to me at Hexhame about ix(o) or x(o) houers in the
morning, I rose myself with my household servuantes, caused the beacons to
be fired and sent the fray eche way rounde aboute me, and yet could not
make the force of the countrie iiij{xx} horsemen and some six score
footmen. I followed with the horsemen within twoe or three myles of
Scotland, and except Mr Fenwick of Wellington, together with the Keaper of
Tindale, Mr Henry Bowes, ther was not one gentleman of the Marche to
accompanie me, or mett me at all; and when all our forces were togeither,
we could not make twoe hundredth horsse, nor above twoe hundredth
footmen.... With shame and greife I speake it' the Scottes went away
unfought withall."[103]

It will thus be seen that within a few months this famous freebooter had
transferred from English soil some six or seven hundred head of cattle. No
doubt like his neighbours, who were engaged in the same precarious line of
business, he had many unsuccessful raids to recount, but he was certainly
one of the most wary a