Kirkpatrick at that moment appeared on the threshold, and without a
word, putting forth his hand, seized the arm of his commander, and
pulled him into the cottage. Before Wallace could ask the reason of
this, he saw a woman run forward with a light in her hand; the beams of
which falling on the face of the knight of Ellerslie, with a shriek of
joy she rushed toward him, and threw herself upon his neck.
He instantly recognized Elspa, his nurse; the faithful attendant on his
grandfather's declining years! the happy matron who had decked the
bridal bed of his Marion! and with an anguish of recollections that
almost unmanned him, he returned her affectionate embrace.
"Here he lies!" cried the old woman, drawing him toward the rushy bier;
and before he had time to demand, "Who?" she pulled down the shroud and
disclosed the body of Sir Ronald Crawford. Wallace gazed on it, with a
look of such dreadful import that Edwin, whose anxious eyes then sought
his countenance, trembled with a nameless horror. "Oh," thought he,
"to what is this noble soul reserved! Is he alone doomed to extirpate
the enemies of Scotland, that every ill falls direct upon his head!"
"Sorry, sorry bier, for the good Lord Ronald!" cried the old woman; "a
poor wake to mourn the loss of him who was the benefactor of all the
country round! But had I not brought him here, the salt sea must have
been his grave.
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