The Scottish Chiefs

by Jane Porter

**In memory of this circumstance, the crest of the family of Kirkpatrick is a hand grasping a dagger distilling gouts of blood; the motto, "I mak sikkar."

Before the catastrophe was known in the convent, Bruce and his friends had left it some time, and were far on their road to Lochmaben. They arrived before sunrise, and once more an inmate of his paternal castle, he thence dispatched Fleming to Lord Ruthven, with a transcript of his designs.

In the same packed he inclosed a letter for the Lady Isabella. It contained this brave resolution—that, in his present return to Scotland, he did not consider himself merely as Robert Bruce, come to reclaim the throne of his ancestors, but as the executor of the last dying will of Sir William Wallace, which was—that Bruce should confirm the independence of Scotland, or fall, as Wallace had done, invincible at his post. "Till that freedom is accomplished," continued the virtuous prince, "I will never shake the steadfast purpose of my soul by even once glance at thy life-endearing beauties. I am Wallace's soldier, Isabella, as he was Heaven's! and, while my captain looks on me from above, shall I not approve myself worthy his example? I wooed you as a knight, I will win you as a king; and on the day when no hostile Southron breathes in Scotland I will demand my sweetest reward, my beloved bride, of her noble uncle. You shall come to me as the angel of peace, and in one hour we will receive the nuptial benediction and the vows of our people!"

The purport of the prince's letter to Ruthven was well adapted to the strain of the foregoing. He then announced his intention of proceeding immediately to the plain of Stirling; and there, putting himself at the head of his loyal Scots, declare himself their lawful sovereign, and proclaim to the world that he acknowledged no legal superior but the Great Being whose vicegerent he was. From that center of his kingdom he would make excursions to its furthest extremities, and, with God's will, either drive his enemies from the country, or perish with the sword in his hand, as became the descendant of William the Lion, as became the friend of William Wallace!

Ruthven lay encamped on the Carse of Gowrie when this letter was delivered to him. He read it aloud to his assembled chieftains, and, with waving bonnets, they hailed the approach of their valiant prince. Bothwell alone, whose soul-devoted attachment to Wallace could not be superseded by any other affection allowed his bonnet to remain inactive in his hand; but with the ferver of true loyalty he thanked God for thus bringing the sovereign whom his friend loved to bind in one the contending interests of his country—to wrest from the hand of that friend's assassin the scepter for which he had dyed them so deep in blood.

Chapter LXXXVIII.

Stirling.

The word of Bruce was as irreversible as his spirit was determined. No temptation of indulgence could seduce him from the one, no mischance of adversity could subdue the other. The standard of liberty had been raised by him on the Carse of Gowrie, and he carried it in his victorious arm from east to west, from the most northern point of Sutherland to the walls of Stirling; but there, the garrison which the treason of the late regent had admitted into the citadel gave a momentary check to his career. The English governor hesitated to surrender on the terms proposed, and while his first flag of truce was yet in the tent of the Scottish monarch, a second arrived to break off the negotiation. Whatever were the reasons for this abrupt determination, Bruce paid him not the compliment of asking a wherefore, but advancing his troops to the Southron outposts, drove them in with great loss; and, approaching the lower works of the town by the road of Ballochgeich, so alarmed the governor as to induce him to send forth several squadrons of horse to stop his progress.

Vain was the attempt. They shrunk before the resolute prince and his enthusiastic followers. The governor dispatched others, and at last marched himself out to their support. No force seemed able to withstand the pressing valor of the Scots. The Southron saw himself in the midst of his slain, and deserted by half of his surviving troops. A surrender, both of himself and his fainting companions, was now his only recourse. His herald sounded a parley. The generous victor, in the midst of triumph, listened to the offered capitulation. It was not to include the citadel of Stirling.

Bruce stopped the herald at this clause, and at once demanded the unconditional surrender of both the town and citadel. The governor, being aware that in his present state there was no alternative, and knowing the noble nature of the prince who made the requisition, yielded to necessity, and resigned the whole into his hands.