"I will not yield to briar or bracken bush, but I would yield to Lord Douglas or to Sir Hugh Montgomery, if he were here."
Then Montgomery made himself known, and as soon as Percy knew that it was Montgomery, he struck the point of his sword into the ground, and Montgomery, who was a courteous knight, took him up by the hand.
This deed was done at Otterbourne at daybreak, where Earl Douglas was buried by the bracken bush, and Percy led captive into Scotland, and it is said that Hotspur, for his ransom, built for Montgomery the castle of Penoon, in Ayrshire.
But the English version of these stirring events can also claim to be heard; the ballad upon it is called Chevy Chase, which means the Chase on the Cheviots; and so popular was this ballad that its name was given to a boys' game, which is so called even to this day. It tells how the Percy, from his castle in Northumberland, vowed that within three days he would hunt on the mountains of Cheviot in spite of the doughty Douglas and his men, and that he would kill and carry away the fattest deer in Cheviot.
"By my faith," said Douglas, when he heard of the boast, "but I will hinder his hunting."
Percy left Bamborough Castle with a mighty company, no less than fifteen hundred bold archers chosen out of three shires.
The foray began on a Monday morning in the high Cheviot Hills, and many a child yet unborn was to rue the day.
The drivers went through the woods and raised the deer, and the bowmen shot them with their broad arrows. Then the wild deer rushed through the woods, only to be met and killed by the greyhounds, and before noontide a hundred fat deer lay dead. The bugles sounded, "A mort!" and on all sides Percy and his men assembled to see the cutting up of the venison.
Said Percy: "The Douglas promised to meet me here this day, yet right well did I know that he would fail." But a Northumberland squire saw the doughty Douglas coming with a mighty company, with spear and batter-axe and sword. Never were men hardier of heart and hand seen in Christendom—two thousand spearmen born along the banks of the Tweed and Teviotdale. Then said Lord Percy: "Now leave off the cutting of the deer, and take good heed to your bows, for never had ye more need of them since ye were born."
Earl Douglas rode before his men, his armour glittering like a burning coal, and never was such a bold baron. "Tell me whose men ye are," said he, "and who gave ye leave to hunt in Cheviot without word asked of me?"