Wallace with his sixteen men
Is on his weary way;
They have hasting been all night,
And hasting been all day;
And now, to lose their only hope,
They hear the bloodhound bay.
The bloodhound's bay comes down the wind,
Right upon the road;
Town and tower are yet to pass,
With not a friend's abode.
Wallace neither turn'd nor spake;
Closer drew the men;
Little had they said that day,
But most went cursing then.
Oh! to meet twice sixteen foes
Coming from English ground,
And leave their bodies on the track,
To cheat King Edward's hound
Oh! to overtake one wretch
That left them in the fight,
And leave him cloven to the ribs,
To mock the bloody spite.
Suddenly dark Fawdon stopp'd,
As they near'd a town;
He stumbled with a desperate oath,
And cast him fiercely down.
He said, "The leech took all my strength,
My body is unblest;
Come dog, come devil, or English rack,
Here must Fawdon rest."
Fawdon was an Irishman,
Had join'd them in the war;
Four orphan children waited him
Down by Eden Scawr.
But Wallace hated Fawdon's ways,
That were both fierce and shy;
And at his words he turn'd, and said,
"That's a traitor's lie.
"No thought is thine of lingering here,
A captive for the hound;
Thine eye is bright; thy lucky flesh
Hath not a single wound:
The moment we depart, the lane
Will see thee from the ground."