"By the might of Our Lady, I will come," cried the proud Percy. "And I," answered Douglas, "plight thee my troth that I will meet thee there."

So Douglas and his men encamped at Otterbourne, and sent out their horses to pasture.

But before the peep of dawn, up spake a little page: "Waken ye, waken ye, my good lord; the Percy is upon us!" "Ye lie, ye lie," shouted Douglas; "yesterday, Percy had not men enough to fight us. But if thou lie not, the finest bower in Otterbourne shall be thy reward, and if what thou sayest prove false, thou shalt be hanged on the highest tree in Otterbourne. Yet I have dreamed a dreary dream; I dreamed that a dead man won a battle and that I was that dead man."

So Douglas belted on his good broadsword, and ran to the field, but forgot his helmet, and Percy and the Douglas fought with their swords together till the blood ran down like rain, and the Douglas fell, wounded on the brow.

Then he called to him his little foot-page and told him to run quickly and bring to him his sister's son, Sir Hugh Montgomery.

"My good nephew," said Douglas, "the death of one matters not; last night I dreamed a dreary dream, but yet I know the day is thine. My wound is deep; take thou the vanguard; bury me in the bracken high that grows on yonder lea, and let no man living know that a Scot lies there. And know that I am glad to die in battle, like my good forefathers, and not on a bed of sickness."

Montgomery lifted up his noble lord, while his eyes wept salt tears, and hid him in the bracken bush that his followers might not see, and before daylight the Scots slew many a gallant Englishman. The good Gordons steeped hose and shoes in the blood of the English; the Lindsays flew about like fire till the battle was ended, and Percy and Montgomery fought till the blood ran down between them.

"Now, yield thee, yield thee, Percy," cried Sir Hugh, "or I vow I will lay thee low!"

"Since it must be so," quoth Earl Percy, "to whom shall I yield?"

"Thou shalt not yield to me or to any lord, but to the bracken bush that grows on yonder lea!"