The young
men gazed on his large form and powerful make as upon some
antediluvian giant who had survived the destruction of the Flood.
But the sound of the trumpets on both sides recalled the
attention of every one to the lists, surrounded as they were by
numbers of both nations eager to witness the event of the day.
The combatants met in the lists. It is needless to describe the
struggle: the Scottish champion fell. Foster, placing his foot
on his antagonist, seized on the redoubted sword, so precious in
the eyes of its aged owner, and brandished it over his head as a
trophy of his conquest. The English shouted in triumph. But the
despairing cry of the aged champion, who saw his country
dishonoured, and his sword, long the terror of their race, in the
possession of an Englishman, was heard high above the
acclamations of victory. He seemed for an instant animated by
all his wonted power; for he started from the rock on which he
sat, and while the garments with which he had been invested fell
from his wasted frame, and showed the ruins of his strength, he
tossed his arms wildly to heaven, and uttered a cry of
indignation, horror, and despair, which, tradition says, was
heard to a preternatural distance, and resembled the cry of a
dying lion more than a human sound.
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