"Lead on!" cried a vigorous old man. "I drew this stout claymore last in the battle of Largs.** Life and Alexander was then the word of victory: now, ye accursed Southrons, ye shall meet the slogan* [* Slogan, (so the war-word was termed.-(1809.)] of Death and Lady Marion."
**In the battle of Largs, Sir Malcolm Wallace, the father of Wallace, fell gloriously fighting against the Danes.-(1830.)
"Death and Lady Marion!" was echoed with shouts from mouth to mouth. Every sword was drawn; and those hardy peasants who owned none, seizing the instruments of pasturage, armed themselves with wolf-spears, pickaxes, forks, and scythes.
Sixty resolute men now ranged themselves around their chief. Wallace, whose widowed heart turned icy cold at the dreadful slogan of his Marion's name, more fiercely grasped his sword, and murmured to himself. "From this day may Scotland date her liberty, or Wallace return no more! My faithful friends," cried he, turning to his men, and placing his plumed bonnet on his head, "let the spirits of your fathers inspire you souls; ye go to assert that freedom for which they died. Before the moon sets, the tyrant of Lanark must fall in blood."
"Death and Lady Marion!" was the pealing answer that echoed from the hills.
Wallace again sprung on the cliffs. His brave peasants followed him; and taking their rapid march by a near cut through a hitherto unexplored defile of the Cartlane Craigs, leaping chasms, and climbing perpendicular rocks, they suffered no obstacles to impede their steps, while thus rushing onward like lions to their prey.
Chapter V.
Lanark Castle.
The women, and the men who age withheld from so desperate an enterprise, now thronged around Halbert, to ask a circumstantial account of the disaster which had filled all with so much horror.
Many tears followed his recital; not one of his auditors was an indifferent listener; all had individually or in persons dear to them, partaken of the tender Marion's benevolence. Their sick beds had been comforted by her charity; her voice had often administered consolation to their sorrows; her hand had smoothed their pillows, and placed the crucifix before their dying eyes. Some had recovered to bless her, and some had departed to record her virtues in heaven.