"Ah! is she gone?" cried a young woman, raising her face, covered with tears, from the bosom of her infant; "is the loveliest lady that ever the sun shone upon, cold in the grave? Alas, for me! she it was that gave me the roof under which my baby was born; she it was who, when the Southron soldiers slew my father, and drove us from our home in Ayrshire, gave to my old mother, and my then wounded husband, our cottage by the burnside. Ah! well can I spare him now to avenge her murder."
The night being far advanced, Halbert retired, at the invitation of this young woman, to repose on the heather-bed of her husband who was now absent with Wallace. The rest of the peasantry withdrew to their coverts, while she and some other women, whose anxieties would not allow them to sleep, sat at the cavern's mouth watching the slowly moving hours.
The objects of their fond and fervent prayers, Wallace and his little army, were rapidly pursuing their march. It was midnight—all was silent as they hurried through the glen, as they ascended with flying footsteps the steep acclivities that led to the cliffs which overhung the vale of Ellerslie. Wallace must pass along their brow. Beneath was the tomb of his sacrificed Marion! He rushed forward to snatch one look, even of the roof which shrouded her beloved remains.
But in the moment before he mounted the intervening height, a soldier in English armor crossed the path, and was seized by his men. One of them would have cut him down, but Wallace turned away the weapon. "Hold, Scot!" cried he, "you are not a Southron, to strike the defenseless. The man has no sword."
The reflection on their enemy which this plea of mercy contained reconciled the impetuous Scots to the clemency of their leader. The rescued man, joyfully recognizing the voice of Wallace, exclaimed, "It is my lord! It is Sir William Wallace that has saved my life a second time!"
"Who are you?" asked Wallace; "that helmet can cover no friend of mine."
"I am your servant Dugald," returned the man; "he whom your brave arm saved from the battle-ax of Arthur Heselrigge."
"I cannot ask you how you came by that armor; but if you be yet a Scot throw it off and follow me."
"Not to Ellerslie, my lord," cried he; "it has been plundered and burned to the ground by the Governor of Lanark."
"Then," exclaimed Wallace, striking his breast, "are the remains of my beloved Marion forever ravished from my eyes? Insatiate monster!"