He half rose from his couch, as
the door at which he had seen him last gently opened. He started up,
and Gloucester, with a lantern in his hand, stood before him. The earl
put his finger on his lip, and taking Bruce by the hand, led him, as he
had done Wallace, down into the vault which leads to Fincklay Abbey.
When safe in that subterraneous cloister, the earl replied to the
impatient gratitude of Bruce (who saw that the generous Gloucester
meant he should follow the steps of his friend) by giving him a
succinct account of his motives for changing his first determination,
and now giving him liberty. He had not visited Bruce since the escape
of Wallace, that he might not excite any new suspicion in Edward; and
the tower being fast locked at every usual avenue, he had now entered
it from the Fincklay side. He then proceeded to inform Bruce, that
after his magnanimous forgetfulness of his own safety to insure that of
the queen had produced a reconciliation between her and her husband,
Buchan, Soulis, and Athol, with one or two English lords, joined the
next day to persuade the king that Bruce's avowal respecting Wallace
had been merely an invention of his own to screen some baser friend and
royal mistress.
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