Morning was spreading in pale light over the heavens, and condensing with its cold breath the lurid smoke which still ascended in volumes from the burning ruins, when Wallace, turning round at the glad voice of Edwin, beheld the released nobles. This was the first time he had ever seen the Lords Dundaff and Ruthven; but several of the others he remembered having met at the fatal decision of the crown; and, while welcoming to his friendship those to whom his valor had given freedom, how great was his surprise to see, in the person of a prisoner suddenly brought before him, Sir John Monteith; the young chieftain whom he had parted with a few months ago at Douglas; and from whose fatal invitation to that castle he might date the ruin of his dearest happiness, and all the succeeding catastrophe!

“We found Sir John Monteith amongst the slain before the palace,” said Ker; “he, of the whole party, alone breathed; I knew him instantly. How he came there I know not; but I have brought him hither to explain it himself.” Ker withdrew, to finish the interment of the dead.

Monteith, still leaning on the arm of a soldier, grasped Wallace’s hand. “My brave friend!” cried he, “to owe my liberty to you is a twofold pleasure; for,” added he, in a lowered voice, “I see before me the man who is to verify the words of Baliol; and be not only the guardian, but the possessor of the treasure he committed to our care!”

Wallace, who had never thought on the coffer, since he knew it was under the protection of St. Fillan, shook his head. “A far different need do I seek, my friend!” said he; “to behold these happy countenances of my liberated countrymen is greater reward to me than would be the development of all the splendid mysteries which the head of Baliol could devise.”

“Ay!” cried Dundaff, who overheard this part of the conversation, “we invited the usurpation of a tyrant by the docility with which we submitted to his minion. Had we rejected Baliol, we had never been ridden by Edward. But the rowel has gored the flanks of us all! and who amongst us will not lay himself and fortune at the foot of him who plucks away the tyrant’s heel?”

“It all held our cause in the light that you do,” returned Wallace, “the blood which these Southrons have sown would rise up in ten thousand legions to overwhelm the murderers!”

“But how,” inquired he, turning to Monteith, “did you happen to be in Ayr at this period? and how, above all, amongst the slaughtered Southrons at the palace?”

Sir John Monteith readily replied: “My adverse fate accounts for all.” He then proceeded to inform Wallace, that on the very night in which they parted at Douglas, Sir Arthur Heselrigge was told the story of the box: and accordingly sent to have Monteith brough............