“Well, brave Sir,” replied the Earl of Douglas, “it shall be set up before my pavilion this night; so come thither to seek for thy pennon, and take it thence if thou canst; till then, farewell.”
The Lord Douglas turned away, proudly bearing his trophy; and the night was now approaching, and all hopes of succeeding in the assault being at an end, he ordered the retreat to be sounded, and collecting his forces, he retired behind his trenches.
The Scottish troops were no sooner withdrawn than Hotspur, smarting under the stinging disgrace of the loss of his pennon, summoned a council of war, in which he bravely proposed to lead on the English troops to a night attack against the Scottish entrenchments. This proposition was warmly supported by Sir Rafe Piersie, who participated largely in his brother’s injured feelings; but an opinion prevailing among the English knights [[435]]that the Earl of Douglas’s party was but the Scottish vanguard, and that the large army, of which they had heard so much, was hovering at no great distance, ready to avail itself of any imprudent step they might take, very generally opposed his wishes.
“Sir,” said the prudent Seneschal of York, who was present, and who seemed to speak as the organ of the rest, “there fortuneth in war oftentimes many chances. Another day thou mayest gain greater advantage of Earl Douglas than he hath this day won of thee. Let us not peril the cause of England for a paltry pennon, when the power of Scotland is abroad. Who knoweth but this empty skirmish of theirs may be a snare to lure us out to destruction? Better is it to lose a pennon than two or three hundred brave knights and squires, and to lay our country at the mercy of these invading foemen.”
Though some of the young and impetuous, and even the old Sir Walter de Selby, showed symptoms of being disposed to support the plan proposed by the Hotspur, yet this prudent counsel was so generally applauded, that, though boiling inwardly with indignation at their apathy, he was compelled to yield with the best face he could, while his lip was visibly curled with a smile of ineffable contempt for what he considered their pusillanimity.
“What a hollow flock of craven pullets, brother Rafe!” said he, giving way to a burst of passionate vexation after the council had broke up, and they were left alone. “What, a paltry pennon, saidst thou, Sir Seneschal? May thy tongue be blistered for the word! Depardieux, were it not unwise to stir up evil blood among us at such a time, I would make him eat it, old as he is, and difficult as he might find the digestion of it. Oh, is’t not bitter penance, brother Rafe, for falcons such as we are to be mewed up with such a set of grey geese? By Heaven, it is enough to brutify the noble spirit we do inherit from our sires. What will the Douglas, I pr’ythee, think of Harry Hotspur, now that after all his vaunts he cometh not out to-night to give him the camisado in his tent, and to pluck his pennon from the disgraceful soil in the which it doth now grow so vilely? But, by St. George, though I should be obliged to go with no more than our vassals, I will catch the Douglas ere he quits Northumberland, and I will have my pennon again or die in the taking of it.”
The Douglas was well prepared to give Harry Piersie a welcome had circumstances enabled him to have paid his visit to the Scottish camp before they broke up from Newcastle. The [[436]]sentinels were so stationed that the whole army would have been alarmed and under arms in a few minutes. His sleep was therefore as sound as if he had been in his own Castle of Dalkeith, though he slept in his armour, that he might be ready to meet the foe on the first rouse.
“Well, my trusty esquires,” said he to Robert Hart and Simon Glendinning, as they came to wait on him in the morning, “doth Harry Piersie’s pennon still flutter where these hands did place it yesternight?”
“Yea, my good Lord,” replied Glendinning, “thy challenge hath gone unheeded.”
“Nay, then, we bide no longer for him here,” said Douglas; “an he will have it now, he must come after us to take it. Are my Lords Moray and Dunbar astir?”