"Well, well, my good dame," he said, on finding his urgency only gave offence; "we'll settle all this on some future day. Depend upon it, I will not forget the score which stands against me here. In the meantime, farewell; and fare ye well too, my little maiden," he said, taking his hostess's daughter by the hand; "you and I will meet again." Having said this, and having once more bid mother and daughter adieu, Bruce left the house, and soon after disappeared in the depths of the Torwood.
Margaret Grahame stood at the door, and, with the corner of her apron at her eye, looked after the stately figure of the patriot chief, as long as it remained in sight. When it had disappeared, she returned into the house, and began, as she busied herself in brushing up, or, as she would herself have called it, "redding" up her little cottage, after the hospitalities of which it had been the scene, in crooning a popular Scottish ditty of the day, of which the two first verses ran thus,
"Guid speed the wark o' bow and brand
That's raised for Scotland's weal,
And blessins on the heart and hand
O' the ever true and leal."
"Come frae the east, come frae the wast,
Come frae the south and north;
For Bruce's horn has blawn a blast
That's heard frae Clyde to Forth."
"Guid speed the wark," &c.
Here, we beg to apprise the reader, the first act of our little drama closes—the curtain drops; and when we again raise it, years have passed away, and many things have undergone those changes which the lapse of time so certainly produces.
During the interval to which we allude—an interval of eight or ten years, Scotland, after a long and arduous struggle, had achieved her independence, and Bruce was now in secure and peaceable possession of the Scottish crown.
To all, however, the changes which had taken place had not been equally fortunate or favourable. On many the sanguinary and ruthless warfare which had desolated the country brought poverty and ruin.
Amongst the sufferers of this description was Margaret Grahame. About three years after the occurrence of the incidents which occupy the preceding pages, a party of English soldiers had first plundered and then burned her little cottage, driving herself and family forth on the world, to earn a livelihood as they best might, or to subsist, if other means failed, on the scanty doles of charity.
On being driven from her home, Margaret Grahame, followed by her children, in melancholy procession, wandered she knew nor cared not whither; but, instinctively, taking that direction which promised to leave further danger at the greatest distance behind her. This direction was westward, and on this route she continued; subsisting by the way on the benevolence of the humane; most of whom, however, were more willing than able to relieve her, till she reached the neighbourhood of the village of Kilpatrick, on the Clyde. Exhausted with fatigue, and famishing with hunger, the widow and her children here applied at a respectable farm-house, which stood a little way off the road, for relief.
The door was opened by the farmer himself, a man of mild and benevolent disposition. To him, therefore, the petition of the destitute widow was not proffered in vain. Herself and children were instantly admitted, and a plenteous meal of bread, and cheese, and milk, placed before them.