The windows of the adjoining houses were thrown open; people
armed and unarmed issued from their doors and pressed forward to
inquire the cause of the alarm. Wallace was nearly overpowered; a
hundred swords flashed in the torchlight; but at the moment he expected
they would be sheathed in his heart, the earth gave way under his feet,
and he sunk into utter darkness.
He fell upon a quantity of gathered broom; and concluding that the
weight of the thronging multitude had burst his way through the arch of
a cellar, he sprung to his feet; and though he heard the curses of
several wretches, who had fallen with him and fared worse, he made but
one step to a half-opened door, pointed out to him by a gleam from an
inner passage. The men uttered a shout as they saw him darken the
light which glimmered through it; but they were incapable of pursuit;
and Wallace, aware of his danger, darting across the adjoining
apartment, burst open a window, and leaped out to the foot of the
Lanark hills.
The oaths of the soldiers, enraged at his escape, echoed in his ears,
till distance sunk them into hoarse murmurs. He pursued his way over
the craigs; through the valley, and across the river, to the cliffs
which embattle the garden of Ellerslie.
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