How he came there I know not; but I have brought him hither to explain
it himself." Ker withdrew, to finish the interment of the dead.
Monteith, still leaning on the arm of a soldier, grasped Wallace's
hand. "My brave friend!" cried he, "to owe my liberty to you is a
twofold pleasure; for," added he, in a lowered voice, "I see before me
the man who is to verify the words of Baliol; and be not only the
guardian, but the possessor of the treasure he committed to our care!"
Wallace, who had never thought on the coffer, since he knew it was
under the protection of St. Fillan, shook his head. "A far different
need do I seek, my friend!" said he; "to behold these happy
countenances of my liberated countrymen is greater reward to me than
would be the development of all the splendid mysteries which the head
of Baliol could devise."
"Ay!" cried Dundaff, who overheard this part of the conversation, "we
invited the usurpation of a tyrant by the docility with which we
submitted to his minion. Had we rejected Baliol, we had never been
ridden by Edward. But the rowel has gored the flanks of us all! and
who amongst us will not lay himself and fortune at the foot of him who
plucks away the tyrant's heel?"
"It all held our cause in the light that you do," returned Wallace,
"the blood which these Southrons have sown would rise up in ten
thousand legions to overwhelm the murderers!"
"But how," inquired he, turning to Monteith, "did you happen to be in
Ayr at this period? and how, above all, amongst the slaughtered
Southrons at the palace?"
Sir John Monteith readily replied: "My adverse fate accounts for all.
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