Lord Percy to the quarry went, To view the slaughtered deere: Quoth he, ‘Erle Douglas promisèd This day to meet me here,
But if I thought he wold not come, No longer wold I stay.’ With that, a brave younge gentleman Thus to the Erle did say:
‘Lo, yonder doth Erle Douglas come, His men in armour bright; Full twenty hundred Scottish speares All marching in our sight;
All men of pleasant Tivydale, Fast by the river Tweede’: ‘O, cease your sports,’ Erle Percy said, ‘And take your bowes with speede;
And now with me, my countrymen, Your courage forth advance, For there was never champion yet, In Scotland or in France,
That ever did on horsebacke come, But if my hap it were, I durst encounter man for man, And with him break a speare.’
THE CHALLENGE
Erle Douglas on his milke-white steede, Most like a baron bold, Rode foremost of his company, Whose armour shone like gold.
‘Show me,’ said he, ‘whose men ye be, That hunt so boldly here, That, without my consent, do chase And kill my fallow-deere.’
The first man that did answer make, Was noble Percy he; Who sayd, ‘We list not to declare, Nor shew whose men we be,