The Fight in the Market-place
When they came to the market-place they found a dense crowd of sympathizers watching pityingly the hangman’s cart, in which lay William of Cloudeslee, bound hand and foot, with a rope round his neck. The sheriff and the justice stood near the gallows, and Cloudeslee would have been hanged already, but that the sheriff was hiring a man to measure the outlaw for his grave. “You shall have the dead man’s clothes, good fellow, if you make his grave,” said he.
Cloudeslee’s courage was still undaunted. “I have seen as great a marvel ere now,” quoth he, “as that a man who digs a grave for another may lie in it himself, in as short a time as from now to prime.”
“You speak proudly, my fine fellow, but hanged you shall be, if I do it with my own hand,” retorted the sheriff furiously.
Now the cart moved a little nearer to the scaffold, and William was raised up to be ready for execution. As he looked round the dense mass of faces his keen sight soon made him aware of his friends. Adam Bell and Clym of the Cleugh stood at one corner of the market-place with arrow on string, and their deadly aim bent at the sheriff and justice, whose horses raised them high above the murmuring throng. Cloudeslee showed no surprise, but said aloud: “Lo! I see comfort, and hope to fare well in my journey. Yet if I might have my hands free I would care little what else befell me.”