"The next day a packet was put into my aunt's hands, containing a few
precious lines from my father to me, also a letter from the countess to
Lady Ruthven, full of your goodness to her and to my father, and
narrating the cruel manner in which they had been ravished from the
asylum in which you had placed them. She then said that could she find
means of apprising you of the danger to which she and her husband are
now involved, she would be sure of a second rescue. Whether she has
blessedly found these means I know not, for all communication between
us, since the delivery of that letter, has been rendered impracticable.
The messenger that brought the packet was a good Southron, who had
been won by Lady Mar's entreaties. But on his quitting our apartments,
he was seized by a servant of De Valence, and on the same day put
publicly to death, to intimidate all others from the like compassion to
the sufferings of unhappy Scotland. Oh! Sir William Wallace, will not
your sword reach these men of blood?
"Earl de Valence compelled my aunt to yield the packet to him. We had
already read it, therefore did not regret it on that head, but feared
the information it might give relative to you.
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