"Hear her, blessed Son of Mary!" ejaculated the old man. She looked round, and rising from her knees, demanded of him, in a kind but anxious voice, whether he had left her lord in security.
"In the way to it, my lady!" answered Halbert. He repeated all that Wallace had said at parting, and then tried to prevail on her to go to rest. "Sleep cannot visit my eyes this night, my faithful creature," replied she; "my spirit will follow Wallace in his mountain flight. Go you to your chamber. After you have had repose, that will be time enough to revisit the remains of the poor earl, and to bring them with the box to the house. I will take a religious charge of both, for the sake of the dear intruster."
Halbert persuaded his aldy to lie down on the bed, that her limbs at least might rest after the fatigue of so harassing a night; and she, little suspecting that he meant to do otherwise than to sleep also, kindly wished him repose and retired.
Her maids, during the late terror, had dispersed, and were nowhere to be found; and the men, too, after their stout resistance at the gates, had all disappeared; some fled others were sent away prisoners to Lanark, while the good Hambledon was conversing with their lady. Halbert, therefore, resigned himself to await with patience the rising of the sun, when he hoped some of the scared domestics would return; if not, he determined to go to the cotters who lived in the depths of the glen, and bring some of them to supply the place of the fugitives; and a few, with stouter hearts, to guard his lady.
Thus musing, he sat on a stone bench in the hall, watching anxiously the appearance of that orb, whose setting beams he hoped would light him back with tidings of William Wallace to comfort the lonely heart of his Marion. All seemed at peace. Nothing was hear but the sighing of the trees as they waved before the western window, which opened toward the Lanark hills. The morning was yet gray, and the fresh air blowing in rather chilly, Halbert rose to close the wooden shutter; at that moment, his eyes were arrested by a party of armed men in quick march down the opposite declivity. In a few minutes more their heavy steps sounded in his ears, and he saw the platform before the house filled with English. Alarmed at the sight, he was retreating across the apartment, toward his lady's room, when the great hall door was burst open by a band of soldiers, who rushed forward and seized him.
"Tell me, dotard!" cried their leader, a man of low stature, with gray locks, but a fierce countenance, "where is the murderer? Where is Sir William Wallace? Speak, or the torture shall force you."
Halbert shuddered, but it was for his defenseless lady, not for himself. "My master," said he, "is far from this."
"Where?"
"I know not."
"Thou shalt be made to know, thou hoary-headed villian!" cried the same violent interrogator. "Where is the assassin's wife? I will confront ye. Seek her out."