Kirkpatrick scoffed at the audacious menace of the young prince. "He should come amongst us, like a man," cried he; "and we would soon show him who it is that works mischief in Scotland! Ay, even on his back, we would write the chastisement due to the offender."
"Be not angry with him, my friend," returned Wallace; "these threats are words of course from the son of Edward. Did he not fear both our rights and our arms, he would not so readily accord with our propositions. You see every Scottish prisoner is to be on the borders by a certain day; and to satisfy that impatient valor (which I, your friend, would never check, but when it loses itself in a furor too nearly resembling that of our enemies), I intend to make your prowess once again the theme of their discourse. You will retake your castles in Annandale!"
"Give me but the means to recover those stout gates of our country," cried Kirkpatrick, "and I will warrant you to keep the keys in my hand till doomsday."
Wallace resumed: "Three thousand men are at your command. When the prisoners pass each other on the Cheviots, the armistice will terminate. You may then fall back upon Annandale, and that night, light your own fires in Torthorald! Send the expelled garrison into Northumberland, and show this haughty prince that we know how to replenish his depopulated towns!"
"But first I will set my mark on them!" cried Kirkpatrick, with one of those laughs which ever preluded some savage proposal.
"I can guess it would be no gentle one," returned Wallace. "Why, brave knight, will you ever sully the fair field of your fame with an ensanguined tide?"
"It is the fashion of the times," replied Kirkpatrick, roughly, "You only, my victorious general, who, perhaps, had most cause to go with the stream, have chosen a path of your own. But look around! see our burns, which the Southrons made run with Scottish blood; our hillocks, swollen with the cairns of our slain; the highways blocked up with the graves of the murdered; our lands filled with maimed clansmen, who purchased life of our ruthless tyrants, by the loss of eyes and limbs! And, shall we talk of gentle methods, with the perpetrators of these horrors? Sir William Wallace, you would make women of us!"
"Shame, shame, Kirkpatrick!" resounded from every voice, "you insult the regent!"
Kirkpatrick stood, proudly frowning, with his left hand on the hilt of his sword. Wallace, by a motion, hushed the tumult, and spoke: "No true chief of Scotland can offer me greater respect, than frankly to trust me with his sentiments."
"Though we disagree in some points," cried Kirkpatrick, "I am ready to die for him at any time, for I believe a trustier Scot treads not the earth; but I repeat, why, by this mincing mercy, seek to turn our soldiers into women?"