While Lord Andrew and his new colleague were making the range of the
suburbs, the glad progress of the victor Scots had turned the whole
aspect of that gloomy city. Doors and windows, so recently closed in
deep mourning, for the sanguinary deeds done in the palace, now opened
teeming with smiling inhabitants. The general joy penetrated to the
most remote recesses. Mothers now threw their fond arms around the
necks of the children whom just before they had regarded with the
averted eyes of despair; in the one sex, they then beheld the victims
of, perhaps, the next requisition for blood; and in the other, the
hapless prey of passions, more felt than the horrid rage of the beast
of the field. But now all was secure again. These terrific tyrants
were driven hence; and the happy parent, embracing her offspring as if
restored from the grave, implored a thousand blessings on the head of
Wallace, the gifted agent of all this good.
Sons who in secret had lamented the treacherous death of their fathers,
and brothers of their brothers, now opened their gates, and joined the
valiant troops in the streets. Widowed wives and fatherless daughters
almost forgot they had been bereaved of their natural protectors, when
they saw Scotland rescued from her enemies, and her armed sons, once
more walking in the broad day, masters of themselves and of their
country's liberties.
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