So Murray judged when the poor old harper, finding himself alone with
him, again gave loose to his often-recapitulated griefs. He wept like
an infant; and recounting the afflictions of his master, while
bewailing the disasters at Bothwell, implored Murray to go without
delay to support the now almost friendless Wallace. Murray was
consoling him with the assurance that he would set off for the
mountains that very evening, when the prior returned to conduct Halbert
to a cell appointed for his novitiate. The good priest had placed one
of his most pious fathers there, to administer both temporal and
spiritual cordials to the aged sufferer.
The sorrowing domestic of Wallace being thus disposed of, the prior and
Murray remained together, consulting on the safest means of passing to
the Cartlane hills. A lay brother whom the prior had sent in pursuit
of Helen's fifty warriors, to apprise them of the English being in the
craigs, at this juncture entered the library. He informed the father
that, secure in his religious garb, he had penetrated many of the
Cartlane defiles, but could neither see nor hear anything of the party.
Every glen or height was occupied by the English: and from a woman, of
whom he begged a draught of milk, he had learned how closely the
mountains were invested.
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