or rain.
"Yield thee, Percy," said the Douglas, "and in faith I shall thee
bring
Where thou shalt have an earl's wagis of Jamy our Scottish king.
Thou shalt have thy ransom free, I hight thee here this thing,
For the manfullest man yet art thou that ever I conquered in field
fighting."
"Nay," said the Lord Percy, "I told it thee beforn,
That I would never yielded be to no man of a woman born."
With that there came an arrow hastily forth of a mighty wone;
It hath stricken the Earl Douglas in at the breastbone.
Through liver and lung-es both the sharp arrow is gone,
That never after in all his life-days he spake mo word-es but one,
That was, "Fight ye, my merry men, whilis ye may, for my life-days ben
gone!"
The Percy lean-ed on his brand and saw the Douglas dee;
He took the dead man by the hand, and said, "Wo is me for thee!
To have saved thy life I would have parted with my lands for years
three,
For a better man of heart nor of hand was not in all the north
countree."
Of all that see, a Scottish knight, was called Sir Hugh the Montgomer-
y,
He saw the Douglas to the death was dight, he spended a spear a trusty
tree,
He rode upon a coursiere through a hundred archer-y,
He never stinted nor never blane till he came to the good Lord Perc-y.
He set upon the Lord Percy a dint that was full sore;
With a suar spear of a mighty tree clean thorough the body he the
Percy bore
On the tother side that a man might see a large cloth yard and more.
Two better captains were not in Christiant-e than that day slain were
there.
An archer of Northumberland saw slain was the Lord Perc-y,
He bare a bent bow in his hand was made of trusty tree,
An arrow that a cloth yard was long to the hard steel hal-ed he,
A dint that was both sad and sore he sat on Sir Hugh the Montgomer-y.
The dint it was both sad and sore that he on Montgomery set,
The swan-feathers that his arrow bare, with his heart-blood they were
wet.
There was never a freke one foot would flee, but still in stour did
stand,
Hewing on each other while they might dree with many a baleful brand.
This battle began in Cheviot an hour before the noon,
And when evensong bell was rang the battle was not half done.
They took on either hand by the light of the moon,
Many had no strength for to stand in Cheviot the hillis aboon.
Of fifteen hundred archers of England went away but seventy an