He called aloud to the sheriff: “Sir Sheriff, here have I trusted to you my chief treasures. For God’s sake do them no harm, but wreak all your wrath on me!”
Gentle hands received Alice and her babes, and friendly citizens led them from the press; but Alice went reluctantly, in utter grief, knowing that her husband must be burnt with his house or taken by his foes; but for her children she would have stayed with him. William continued his wonderful archery, never missing his aim, till all his arrows were spent, and the flames came so close that his bowstring was burnt in two. Great blazing brands came falling upon him from the burning roof, and the floor was hot beneath his feet. “An evil death is this!” thought he. “Better it were that I should take sword and buckler and leap down amid my foes and so die, striking good blows in the throng of enemies, than stay here and let them see me burn.”
“William continued his wonderful archery”
Thereupon he leaped lightly down, and fought so fiercely that he nearly escaped through the throng, for the worthy citizens of Carlisle were not anxious to capture him; but the soldiers, urged by the sheriff and justice, threw doors and windows upon him, hampered his blows, and seized and bound him, and cast him into a deep dungeon.
The Sheriff Gives Sentence
“Now, William of Cloudeslee,” quoth the sheriff, “you shall be hanged with speed, as soon as I can have a new gallows made. So noted an outlaw merits no common gibbet; a new one is most fitting. To-morrow at prime you shall die. There is no hope of rescue, for the gates of the town shall be shut. Your dear friends, Adam Bell and Clym of the Cleugh, would be helpless to save you, though they brought a thousand more like themselves, or even all the devils in Hell.”
Early next morning the justice arose, went to the soldiers who guarded the gates, and forbade them to open till the execution was over; then he went to the market-place and superintended the erection of a specially lofty gallows, beside the pillory.