The encounter was fierce and obstinate; but the Homes and Kerrs,
returning at the noise of battle, bore down and dispersed the left
wing of Buccleuch's little army. The hired banditti fled on all sides;
but the chief himself, surrounded by his clan, fought desperately
in the retreat. The laird of Cessford, chief of the Roxburgh Kerrs,
pursued the chace fiercely; till, at the bottom of a steep path,
Elliot of Stobs, a follower of Buccleuch, turned, and slew him with a
stroke of his lance. When Cessford fell, the pursuit ceased. But his
death, with those of Buccleuch's friends, who fell in the action, to
the number of eighty, occasioned a deadly feud betwixt the names
of Scott and Kerr, which cost much blood upon the marches[11].--See
_Pitscottie_, _Lesly_, and _Godscroft_.
[Footnote 10: Near Darnick. By a corruption from Skirmish field, the
spot is still called the Skinnerfield. Two lines of an old ballad on
the subject are still preserved:
"There were sick belts and blows,
The Mattous burn ran blood."
[Footnote 11: Buccleuch contrived to escape forfeiture, a doom
pronounced against those nobles, who assisted the Earl of Lennox, in
a subsequent attempt to deliver the king, by force of arms. "The laird
of Bukcleugh has a respecte, and is not forfeited; and will get his
pece, and was in Leithquo, both Sondaye, Mondaye, and Tewisday last,
which is grete displeasure to the Carres.
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