In vain he attempted to
raise her in his feeble arms. "I have carried thee scores of times in
thy blooming infancy," cried he; "and now must I bear thee to thy
grave? I had hoped that my eyes would have been closed by this dear
hand." As he spoke, he pressed her cold hand to his lips with such
convulsive sobs that the soldier, fearing he would expire in the agony
of his sorrow, took him almost motionless from the dead body, and
exhorted him to suppress such self-destroying grief for the sake of his
master. Halbert gradually revived; and listening to him, cast a
wistful look on the lifeless Marion.
"There sleeps the pride and hope of Ellerslie, the mother with her
child! O my master, my widowed master," cried he, "what will comfort
thee!"
Fearing the ill consequence of further delay, the soldier again
interrupted his lamentations with arguments for flight; and Halbert
recollecting the oratory in which Wallace had ordered the body of Lord
Mar to be deposited, named it for that of his dear lady. Grimsby,
immediately wrapping the beauteous corpse in the white garments which
hung about it, raised it in his arms, and was conducted by Halbert to a
little chapel in the heart of a neighboring cliff.
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