The chieftain now checked his horse in front of Wallace, and respectfully raising his visor, discovered Sir John Monteith. At sight of him Edwin dropped the point of his yet unlifted sword; and Wallace, stepping back, "Monteith," said he, "I am sorry for this rencounter. If you would be safe from the destiny which pursues me, you must retire immediately, and forget that we have met."
"Never," cried Monteith; "I know the ingratitude of an envious country drives the bravest of her champions from our borders, but I also know what belongs to myself! To serve you at all hazards! And by conjuring you to become my guest, in my castle on the Frith of Clyde, I would demonstrate my grateful sense of the dangers you once incurred for me, and I therefore thank fortune for this rencounter."
In vain Wallace expressed his determination not to bring peril on any of his countrymen, by sojourning under any roof till he were far away from Scotland. In vain he urged to Monteith the outlawry which would await him should the infuriated abthanes discover that he had given shelter to the man whom they had chosen to suppose a traitor, and denounce as one. Monteith, after equally unsuccessful persuasion on his side, at last said, that he knew a vessel was lying at Newark, near his castle, in which Wallace might immediately embark: and he implored him, by past friendship, to allow him to be his guide to its anchorage. To enforce this supplication, he threw himself off his horse, and, with protestations of a fidelity that trampled on all comfort he should ever know in his now degraded country. "Once I saw Scotland's steady champion, the brave Douglas, rifled from her shores! Do not then doom me to a second grief, bitterer than the first; do not you yourself drive me from the side of her last hero! Ah! let me behold you, companion of my school-days, friend, leader, benefactor! till the sea wrests you forever from my eyes!" Exhausted and affected, Wallace gave his hand to Monteith; the tear of gratitude stood in his eye. He looked affectionately from Monteith to Edwin, from Edwin to Monteith: "Wallace shall yet live in the memory of the trusty of this land! you, my friend, prove it. I go richly forth, for the hearts of good men are my companions."
As they journeyed along the devious windings of the Clyde, and saw at a distance the aspiring turrets of Rutherglen, Edwin pointed to them, and said, "From that church a few months ago did you dictate a conqueror's terms to England."
"And now that very England makes me a fugitive," returned Wallace.
"Oh! not England!" interrupted Edwin; "you bow not to her. It is blind, mad Scotland, who thus thrusts her benefactor from her."
"Ah! then, my Edwin," rejoined he, "read in me this history of thousands. So various is the fate of a people's idol; to-day he is worshiped as a god, to-morrow cast into the fire!"
Monteith turned pale at this conversation; and quickening his steps, hurried in silence past the opening of the valley which presented the view of Rutherglen.
Night overtook the travelers near the little village of Lumloch, about two hours' journey from Glasgow. Here a storm coming on, Monteith advised his friends to take shelter and rest. "As you object to implicate others," said he, "you may sleep secure in an old barn which at present has no ostensible owner. I remarked it while passing this way from Newark. But I rather wish you would forget this too chary regard for others, and lodge with me in the neighboring cottage."
Wallace was insensible to the pelting of the elements; his unsubdued spirit wanted rest for neither mind nor body; but the broken voice and lingering step of the young Edwin, who had severely sprained his foot in the dark, penetrated his heart; and notwithstanding that the resolute boy, suddenly rallying himself, declared that he was neither weary nor in pain, Wallace seeing he was both, yielded a sad consent to be conducted from the storm. "But not," said he, "to the house. We will go into the barn, and there, on the dry earth, my Edwin, we may gratefully repose."