"I can guess it would be no gentle one," returned Wallace. "Why, brave
knight, will you ever sully the fair field of your fame with an
ensanguined tide?"
"It is the fashion of the times," replied Kirkpatrick, roughly, "You
only, my victorious general, who, perhaps, had most cause to go with
the stream, have chosen a path of your own. But look around! see our
burns, which the Southrons made run with Scottish blood; our hillocks,
swollen with the cairns of our slain; the highways blocked up with the
graves of the murdered; our lands filled with maimed clansmen, who
purchased life of our ruthless tyrants, by the loss of eyes and limbs!
And, shall we talk of gentle methods, with the perpetrators of these
horrors? Sir William Wallace, you would make women of us!"
"Shame, shame, Kirkpatrick!" resounded from every voice, "you insult
the regent!"
Kirkpatrick stood, proudly frowning, with his left hand on the hilt of
his sword. Wallace, by a motion, hushed the tumult, and spoke: "No
true chief of Scotland can offer me greater respect, than frankly to
trust me with his sentiments."
"Though we disagree in some points," cried Kirkpatrick, "I am ready to
die for him at any time, for I believe a trustier Scot treads not the
earth; but I repeat, why, by this mincing mercy, seek to turn our
soldiers into women?"
"I seek to make them men," replied Wallace; "to be aware that they
fight with fellow-creatures, with whom they may one day be friends; and
not like the furious savages of old Scandinavia, drink the blood of
eternal enmity.
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