Now there was a great feud between Bruce and the Red Comyn. One day when the two met, they entered a church to talk and Bruce killed his foe on the steps of the high altar and, rushing out, he cried to his men, "I doubt I have slain the Red Comyn." "Ye doubt? I make certain," cried one of his followers as he pushed his way into the church.
The people of Scotland were angry for this sin in their hero, but they could not do without him, for Wallace had been caught and hanged as a traitor. So they crowned the Bruce in the old city of Scone, and the golden circlet was placed upon his head by the Countess of Buchan, whose husband was with the invader.
Many stories are told of these times and of the high courage of the Scots, for there were great perils in this strife and there was hunger and cold and faithlessness.
Hearing of the deeds of this man, who had once paid vows to him, Edward, now an old man, led his armies northward again. There on the Borderland he died, leaving this charge to his son, that he should rest neither day nor night till he was prince of Scotland also.
Yet the young King turned his face towards London to make ready for his coronation and wedding. Then the Bruce became indeed King of Scotland, and seven years afterwards, when it was too late, the English King marched with his men to the field of Bannockburn. There he was defeated and from the shame of that day he could never escape.
The Scots harried the north of England for many a year. They rode on swift ponies, carrying only a tin platter and a bag of oatmeal for food, drinking from the streams and eating flesh when they could catch wild deer or mountain sheep or the fat oxen in the pastures. It was a hard matter to find this army, for they rode hither and thither silently, surely and swiftly. Thus was Scotland separated from England for many a generation.
CHAPTER XXI
THE WAR WITH FRANCE
In the days of "the courteous knight" and King, Edward III, a great war was waged with France, for the English merchants complained bitterly that the French had troubled them as they passed bearing wool to the great markets. So bold had the French become that they had harried the Isle of Wight and burned many villages along the southern shore.