"That," said he, "is the name of the person you already esteem; but how will you regard him when I tell you who he was?"
Wallace turned on him an inquiring look.
"You have often spoken to me of Sir Gilbert Hambledon-"
"And this be he!" interrupted Wallace.
Edwin recounted the manner of the earl discovering himself, and how he came to bear that title. Wallace listened in silence and when his young friend ended, sighed heavily, "I will thank him," was all he said; and rising, he proceeded to the chamber of Montgomery. Even at that early hour it was filled with his officers come to inquire after their late commander's health. Wallace advanced to the couch, and the Southrons drew back. The expression of his countenance told the earl that he now knew him.
"Noblest of Englishmen!" cried Wallace, in a low voice, "I come to express a gratitude to you, as lasting as the memory of the action which gave it birth. Your generous conduct to all that was dearest to me on earth was that night in the garden of Ellerslie witnessed by myself. I was in the tree above your head, and nothing but a conviction that I should embarrass the honor of my wife's protector could at that moment have prevented my springing from my covert and declaring my gratitude on the spot.
"Receive my thanks now, inadequate as they are to express what I feel. But you offered me your heart on the field of Cambus-Kenneth; I will take that as a generous intimation how I may best acknowledge my debt. Receive then my never-dying friendship, the eternal gratitude of my immortal spirit."
The answer of Montgomery could not but refer to the same subject, and by presenting the tender form of his wife and her devoted love, almost visibly again before her widowed husband, nearly forced open the fountain of tears which he had buried deep in his heart; and rising suddenly, for fear his emotions might betray themselves, he warmly pressed the hand of his English friend, and left the room.
In the course of the same day the Southron nobles were transported into the citadel, and the family of Mar removed from the fortress, to take up their residence in the palace of Snawdoun.