"Revenge! revenge!" he cried; "lay on them, lads. Willie's death shall be revenged or we will never see Teviotside again."
The lances flew into splinters, and many another brave rider fell, and before the Kershope ford was reached, the Scots had got the victory. John of Brigham was slain, and John of Barlow, and thirty more of the Captain's men lay bleeding on the ground. The Captain himself was run through the right thigh and the bone broken, and never would woman love him again, if he should live a hundred years.
"Take back the kye!" said he; "they are dear kye to some of us; never will a fair lady smile on me if I should live to be a hundred."
Word came to the Captain's bride in her bower, that her lord had been taken prisoner. "I would rather have had a winding-sheet," said she, "and helped to put it over his head than that he should have been disgraced by the Border Scot when he led his men over Liddel."
There was a wild gallant there named Watty Wudspurs (Madspurs) who cried, "Let us on to his house in Stanegirthside, if any man will ride with us!"
So they came to Stanegirthside, pulled down the trees, burst open the door, and drove out all the Captain's kye before them.
An old woman of the Captain's kin cried, "Who dare loose the Captain's kye, or answer to him and his men?"
"It is I, Watty Wudspurs, that loose the kye; I will not hide my name from thee; and I will loose them in spite of him and his men."
When they came to the fair Dodhead they were a welcome sight, for instead of his own ten milk kye Jamie Telfer had now got thirty-three. He paid the rescue shot in gold and silver, and at Willie Scott's burial, there were many weeping eyes.
Chapter XXXVIII