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and that with as much distraction, and in as great a frenzy of attachment to existence, as though each had an honoured, happy life before him, instead of eight-and-forty hours of miserable imprisonment, and then a violent and shameful death.

But the anguish and suffering of the two sons of one of these men, when they heard, or fancied they heard, their father's voice, is past description. After wringing their hands and rushing to and fro as if they were stark mad, one mounted on the shoulders of his brother, and tried to clamber up the face of the high wall, guarded at the top with spikes and points of iron. And when he fell among the crowd, he was not deterred by his bruises, but mounted up again, and fell again. And, when he found the feat impossible, began to beat the stones and tear them. with his hands, as if he could that way make a breach in the strong building, and force a passage in. At last, they cleft their way among the mob about the door, though many men, a dozen times their match, had tried in vain to do so, and were seen, inyes, in the fire, striving to prize it down with crowbars. Nor were they alone affected by the outcry from within the prison. The women who were looking on, shrieked loudly, beat their hands together, stopped their ears; and many fainted; the men who were not near the walls and active in the siege, rather than do nothing, tore up the pavement of the street, and did so with a haste and fury they could not have surpassed if that had been the jail, and they were near their object. Not one living creature in the throng was for an instant still. The whole great mass was mad.

A shout! Another! Another yet, though few knew why, or what it meant. But those around the gate had seen it slowly yield, and drop from its topmost hinge. It hung on that side by but one, but it was upright still, because of the bar, and its having sunk of its own weight, into the heap of ashes at its foot. There was now a gap at the top of the doorway, through which could be descried a gloomy passage, cavernous and dark. Pile up the fire!

It burnt fiercely. The door was red-hot, and the gap wider. They vainly tried to shield their faces with their hands, and standing as if in readiness for a spring, watched the place. Dark figures, some crawling on their hands and knees, some carried in the arms of others, were seen to pass along the roof. It was plain the jail could hold out no longer. The keeper, and his officers, and their wives and children, were escaping. Pile up the fire! The door sank down again: it settled deeper in the cinders-tottered-yielded-was down!

As they shouted again, they fell back, for a moment, and left a clear space about the fire that lay between them and the jail entry. Hugh leapt upon the blazing heap, and scattering a train of sparks into the air, and making the dark lobby glitter with those that hung upon his dress, dashed into the jail. The hangman followed. And then so many rushed upon their track, that the fire got trodden down and thinly strewn about the street ; but there was no need of it now, for, inside and out, the prison was in flames.

Charles Dickens.

A woeful hunt was held in Chevy Chase.

Earl Percy

vowed to kill Scotch deer for three days.

Douglas

said he'd stop that sport.

But Percy went

to his hunt

LII

CHEVY CHASE1

GOD Prosper long our noble king,
our liffes & saftyes all!

a woefull hunting once there was
in Cheuy Chase befall.

to drive the deere with hound and horne
Erle Pearcy took the way:

the Child may rue that is vnborne
the hunting of that day!

the stout Erle of Northumberland
a vow to god did make,
his pleasure in the Scottish woods
3 sommers days to take;

the cheefest harts in Cheuy Chase
to kill & beare away.
these tydings to Erle douglas came
in Scottland where he Lay,

who sent Erle Pearcy present word
he wold prevent his sport.
the English Erle, not fearing that,
did to the woods resort

with 1500 bow- with 1500 bowmen bold,

men

all chosen men of Might,

who knew ffull well in time of neede

to ayme their shafts arright,

the Gallant Greyhound swiftly ran

to Chase the fallow deere; on Munday they began to hunt

ere daylight did appeare;

& long before high noone thé 2 had

a 100 fat buckes slaine. then hauing dined, the drouyers went to rouze the deare againe;

The Bowmen mustered on the hills, well able to endure;

theire backsids all with speciall care

that they were guarded sure.

and on Monday began his hunt.

By noon 100 bucks are slain. After dinner they

the hounds ran swiftly through the woods hunt again,

the Nimble deere to take,

that with their cryes the hills & dales

an Eccho shrill did make.

Lord Pearcy to the Querry 3 went

to veiw the tender deere;

quoth he, "Erle douglas promised once

this day to meet me heere;

"but if I thought he wold not come,

noe longer wold I stay."

with that a braue younge gentlman

thus to the Erle did say,

"Loe, yonder doth Erle douglas come,

hys men in armour bright,

full 20 hundred Scottish speres

all Marching in our sight,

all pleasant men of Tiuydale 4

fast by the riuer Tweede."

and the hills echo their cries.

Percy wonders whether Douglas will appear.

"There he is, with 2000 men !"

"O ceaze your sportts!" Erle Pearcy said, Percy calls on

"and take your bowes with speede,

his men

to be brave;

he will fight any

one,

man to man.

Douglas

asks whose men

they are that hunt his deer.

Percy will not tell,

but will fight for the right to hunt. Douglas declares

that one of them must die,

and as it would be wrong to kill their guiltless

men,

& now with me, my countrymen,

your courage forth advance!
for there was neuer Champion yett
in Scottland nor in ffrance 5
"that euer did on horsbacke come,
& if my hap it were,

I durst encounter man for man,

with him to breake a spere."

Erle douglas on his Milke white steede,
Most Like a Baron bold,

rode formost of his company,

whose armor shone like gold :

"shew me," sayd hee, "whose men you bee
that hunt soe boldly heere,

that without my consent doe chase
& kill my fallow deere."

the first man that did answer make
was noble Pearcy hee,

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who sayd, wee list not to declare,
nor shew whose men wee bee,

"yett wee will spend our deerest blood
thy cheefest harts to slay."

then douglas swore a solempne oathe, and thus in rage did say,

"Ere thus I will outbraued bee,

one of vs tow shall dye!

I know thee well! an Erle thou art,
Lord Pearcy! soe am I;

"but trust me, Pearcye, pittye it were,
& great offence, to Kill

then any of these our guiltlesse men,
for they haue done none ill;

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