same gait, their
coming heralded by the bale-fires that flashed the signal from Hume
Castle to Edgarhope (wrongly identified by Professor Veitch with
Edgerston on Jed Water), and from Edgarhope to Soultra Edge. But
memorable above all other Border raids recorded in song or story, is
that encounter in which 'the Douglas and the Percy met,' and which has
inspired perhaps the very finest of the historical ballads of each
country. Moot points there are of locality, date, and circumstances; but
it is generally accepted that the rhyme known for many centuries in
Scotland as _The Battle of Otterburn_, and the English _Chevy Chase_ are
versions, from opposite sides, of one event--a skirmish fought in the
autumn of 1388 on Rede Water, between a band of Scots, under James, Earl
of Douglas, returning home laden with spoil, and a body of English, led
by Hotspur, the son of the Earl of Northumberland, in which Douglas was
slain and young Harry Percy taken prisoner. It were as hard to decide
between the merits of these famous old lays as to award the prize for
prowess between the respective champions. But it may be noted, as a fine
Borderer's trait, that each of the two ballads does full justice to the
chivalry and fighting mettle of the enemy. It is to be observed also
that they are different poems, and not merely versions of the same; and
that _The Battle of Otterburn_ and the other racy and vigorous ballads
of its class dealt with in this chapter, are of themselves sufficient to
refute the arrogant dictum of Mr. Carew Hazlitt, that Scotland has no
original ballad-poetry to speak of, and that what she calls her own are
'chiefly English ballads, sprinkled with Northern provincialisms.'

But while they are, as Scott says, different in essentials, the English
and Scottish ballads have exchanged phrases and even verses, as the
English and Scottish warriors exchanged strokes, and these of the best:

'When Percy wi' the Douglas met,
I wat they were full fain;
They swakked their swords till sair they swet,
And the blood ran doon like rain,'

may lack some of the picturesqueness of the corresponding passage of
_Chevy Chase_. But nothing, at least in Scottish eyes, can surpass the
simple majesty and pathos of the last words of Douglas--words that sound
all the sadder since Walter Scott repeated them, when he also had almost
fought his last battle and was wounded unto death:

'"My nephew good," the Douglas said,