The Wolfe of Badenoch: A Historical Romance of the Fourteenth Century

by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder

This speech was received with shouts by the little army to which it was addressed, and, “Douglas, Douglas! revenge our brave, our beloved Douglas!” was heard to break from every part of the line. The two Earls had hardly completed their preparations, when the approach of the Bishop of Durham’s army was announced. Orders were immediately issued for each soldier to blow the horn he carried, and the loud and discordant sound of these rude and variously-toned instruments being re-echoed and multiplied from the hills, was distinctly audible at several miles’ distance. It rung in the ears of the Bishop, and very much appalled him. Had it not been for a spice of shame he felt, he would have been disposed to have gone no farther; but the knights and esquires who were with him were still sanguine in their hopes of successfully attacking, with so large a force, the small army of the Scots, wasted as it was by the recent bloody engagement.

“Verily, it is a sinful thing to trust in the arm of flesh,” said the Bishop, growing paler and paler. “Who knoweth what may be the issue of the battle? Trust not in numbers. Non salvatur rex per multam virtutem; even the bravery of a Bishop shall not always win the fight. Gigas non salvabitur in multitudine virtutis suæ; even the courage of the greatest of Churchmen shall not always prevail. Fallax equus ad salutem; a horse is counted but a vain thing to save a man. St. Cuthbert grant,” ejaculated he in a lower tone—“St. Cuthbert grant that our steeds may be preserved.”

The Bishop, however, dissembling his feelings as well as he [[462]]could, continued to advance in good order until he came within sight of the Scots; when, beholding the strength of their position, and the horrible bulwark of defence they had constructed with the heaps of the dead bodies of the English whom they had already sacrificed, and listening to their wild shrieks of defiance, mingled with the increased sound of their horns, his blood froze within him, and he halted to reason with those who had been so prone to attack the foe. But opinions had been mightily changed in the course of a mile’s march. The knights and esquires, who had been lately so bold, now listened with becoming patience to the prudent arguments of their reverend leader; and when, after a considerable halt, and holding a communication with the Castle of Otterbourne, the Bishop did at last give the word for his army to retreat, there was not a single voice lifted in condemnation of the movement.

When it was fully ascertained in the Scottish army that the retrograde march of the English was no manœuvre, but a genuine retreat, a strong guard of observation was planted, and orders were given to proceed with the sad duty, already too long neglected, of collecting such of the wounded as had lain miserably on the plain, without food or attention, ever since they had fallen. Parties were also appointed to bury the dead.

The body of the heroic Douglas had never been deserted by the affectionate Lundie, who, though himself grievously wounded, sat watching it by the thicket where he died, until the termination of the battle and the break of day enabled the Saintclaires, the Earl of Moray, and the Hepbornes, to come to his aid. Then was his honoured corpse carried to the camp; but it was not till after the departure of the Bishop of Durham, that the Earls of Moray and Dunbar, accompanied by the whole chivalry of the Scottish army, met together at night in the pavilion of the Douglas. There—sad contrast to the happy night which they had so lately spent in the same place, under the cheering influence of his large, mild, and benignant eye!—they came to behold his body laid out in state. It was attended, even in death, by those who had never abandoned him in life. By the side of his bier lay his brave son Archibald, who had so well fulfilled his last injunctions. At his feet were stretched his two faithful esquires, who had so nobly perished with their master. Near them stood Robert Hop Pringle, leaning on the Douglas’s shield, who, having been separated from him in the thickest press, had fought like a lion, vainly searching for him through the field, and who now looked with an eye of mingled grief and envy on his comrades. Richard Lundie too was there, wounded [[463]]as he was, to perform a solemn service for that soul with which he had long held the closest and dearest converse. The place was dimly illuminated by the red glare of numerous torches, held by some hardy soldiers, who, though formed of the coarsest human clay, were yet unable to look towards the bier where lay the body of their brave commander, whose fearless heart had so often led them on to glory, without the big tears running down the furrows of their weather-beaten cheeks. Those who were tempered of finer mould, and whose rank had brought them into closer contact with the Douglas, and, above all, those whom strict friendship had bound to him, though they struggled hard to bear up like men, were forced to yield to the feelings that oppressed them. So overpowering indeed was the scene that Harry Piersie himself, who had craved permission to be present, wept tears of unfeigned sorrow over the remains of him who had been so lately his noble rival in the field of fame. “Douglas,” said he with a quivering lip that marked the intensity of his feelings, “what would I not give to see that lofty brow of thine again illumined with the radiant sunshine of thy godlike soul? Accursed be my folly—accursed be my foolish pride! Would that the curtailment of half the future life of Hotspur could be given to restore and eke out thine! God wot how joyously he would now make the willing sacrifice. Thou hast not left thy peer in chivalry, and even Hotspur’s glory must wane for lack of thee to contend with.”

This generous speech of the noble Piersie deeply affected all present. Sir Patrick Hepborne stole silently out of the tent to give way to his emotions in private, and to breathe the invigorating breeze of the evening, that sported among the dewy furze and the wild thyme that grew on the side of the hill. The moon was by this time up. Hepborne looked over the lower ground, that was now widely lighted up by her beams, where the furious and deadly strife had so lately raged, and where all was now comparatively still. The only signs of human life—and they spoke volumes for its folly, its frailty, and its insignificance—were the few torches that were here and there seen straggling about, carried by those who were creeping silently to and fro, over the field of the dead, looking for the bodies of their friends.

Hepborne’s heart was already sufficiently attuned to sadness; and it led him to descend the slope before him, that he might be a spectator of the melancholy scene. As he wandered about from one busy group to another, he met his esquire, Mortimer Sang, who, so actively engaged at the beginning of [[464]]the battle, had fortunately escaped, covered indeed with wounds of little importance in themselves. His friend Roger Riddel, who had been a good deal hurt, but who had been also fortunate enough to survive an attack where it appeared almost impossible that a mouse could have escaped with life, was with him. They were employed in the pious duty of looking for some of their friends who had not appeared. After they had turned over many an unknown and nameless corpse, and many a body whose face had been familiar to them, on each of whom Roger Riddel had some short and pithy remark to bestow, they at last discovered the well-set form of Ralpho Proudfoot.

“Good fellow, thy pride is laid low, I well wot,” cried Roger Riddel, as he held up the head of the dead man to the light of the torch, and discovered who he was.

The same haughty expression that always characterised him still sat upon his forehead in death; his eyebrows were fiercely knit and his lip curled. His battle-axe was firmly grasped with both his hands, and a heap of English dead lay around him. He had fallen across the body of a Scottish man-at-arms, and on turning him up, Hepborne was shocked to behold the features of Robert Lindsay.

“Ah me!” cried Roger Riddel; “what will become of thine ould father, Robin.”