I found the banks of the Mouse
occupied by the English; but exploring the most intricate passes, at
last gained the bottom of the precipice on the top of which Wallace is
encamped; and as I lay among the bushes, watching an opportunity to
ascend, I perceived two English soldiers near me. They were in
discourse, and I overheard them say, that besides Heselrigge himself,
nearly two hundred of his garrison had fallen by the hand of Wallace's
men in the contention at the castle; that the tidings were sent to Sir
Richard Arnulf, the Deputy-governor of Ayr; and he had dispatched a
thousand men to surround the Cartland Craigs, spies having given notice
that they were Sir William's strongholds, and the orders were, that he
must be taken dead or alive; while all his adherents, men and women,
should receive no quarter.
"Such was the information I brought to my gallant friend, when in the
dead of night I mounted the rock, and calling to the Scottish sentinel
in Gaelic, gave him my name, and was allowed to enter the sacred spot.
Wallace welcomed his faithful Ker,** and soon unfolded his distress and
his hopes. He told me of the famine that threatened his little
garrison; of the constant watching, day and night, necessary to prevent
a surprise.
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