ough the ranks of their own men, and advancing to the
place where the greatest peril appeared, renewed a hard conflict, and by
giving and receiving many wounds, they restored their men into the place
from whence they had been beaten, and continued the fight till the next
day at noon."[9] Foremost, in the thick of the fray, was the dauntless
Douglas, laying about him on every side with a mace of iron, which two
ordinary men were not able to lift, "and making a lane round about
wheresoever he went."

When Percy wi' the Douglas met
I wat he was fu' fain!
They swakked their swords till sair they swat,
And the blood ran down like rain.

"Thus he advanced like another Hector, thinking to recover and conquer the
field, from his own prowess, until he was met by three spears that were
pointed at him: one struck him on the shoulder, another on the stomach,
near the belly, and the third entered his thigh. He could never disengage
himself from these spears, but was borne to the ground fighting
desperately. From that moment he never rose again. Some of his knights and
squires had followed him, but not all; for though the moon shone it was
rather dark. The three English lances knew they had struck down some
person of considerable rank, but never thought it was Earl Douglas: had
they known it they would have been so rejoiced that their courage would
have been redoubled, and the fortune of the day had consequently been
determined to their side. The Scots were ignorant also of their loss till
the battle was over, otherwise they would certainly, from despair, have
been discomfited."[10]

When at last the dying Douglas was discovered by his kinsman, James
Lindsay and John and Walter Sinclair, and was asked how he fared, he
replied, "I do well dying as my predecessors have done before; not on a
bed of lingering sickness, but in the field. These things I require you as
my last petitions; First, that ye keep my death close both from my own
folk, and from the enemy; then that ye suffer not my standard to be lost,
or cast down; and last that ye avenge my death, and bury me at Melrose
with my father. If I could hope for these things, I should die with the
greater contentment, for long since I heard a prophecy that a dead man
should win a field, and I hope in God it shall be I."[11]

"My wound is deep; I fain would sleep,
Take thou the vanguard of the three,
And hide me by the bracken bush,
That grows on yonder li