"Could you abhor the dereliction that your soul has thus made from duty, and leave him, whom your unwidowed wishes now pursue, to seek you; then I should say that you might be happy; for penitence appeases God, and shall it not find grace with man?"
"Blessed Edwin," cried she, falling on his neck, and kissing him; "whisper but my penitence to Wallace; teach him to think I hate myself. Oh, make me that in his eyes which you would wish, and I will adore you on my knees?"
The door opened at this moment, and Lord Ruthven entered. The tears she was profusely shedding on the bosom of his son, he attributed to some conversation she might be holding respecting her deceased lord, and taking her hand, he told her he came to propose her immediate removal from the scene of so many horrors.
"My dear sister," said he, "I will attend you as far as Perth. After that, Edwin shall be your guard to Braemar, and my Janet will stay with you there till time has softened your griefs."
Lady Mar looked at him.
"And where will be Sir William Wallace?"
"Here," answered Ruthven. "Some considerations, consequent to his receiving the French dispatches, will hold him some time longer south of the Forth."
Lady Mar shook her head doubtfully, and reminded him that the chiefs in the citadel had withheld the dispatches.
Lord Ruthven then informed her that, unknown to Wallace, Lord Loch-awe had summoned the most powerful of his friends then near Stirling, and attended by them, was carried on a littler into the citadel. It entered the council-hall, and from that bed of honorable wounds, he threatened the assembly with instant vengeance from his troops without, unless they would immediately swear fealty to Wallace, and compel Badenoch to give up the French dispatches. Violent tumults were the consequence; but Loch-awe's litter being guarded by a double rank of armed chieftains, and the keep being hemmed round by his men prepared to put to the sword every Scot hostile to the proposition of their lord, the insurgents at last complied, and forced Badenoch to relinquish the royal packet. This effected, Loch-awe and his train returned to the monastery. Wallace refused to resume the dignity he had resigned, the reinvestment of which had been extorted from the lords in the citadel.
"No," said he to Loch-awe; "it is indeed time that I should sink into shades where I cannot be found, since I am become a word of contention amongst my countrymen."