You were brought with this shameless grant to mangle the body
of the slain Cressingham; a deed which brought a stigma on the Scottish
name never to be erased by the disgrace of its perpetrators. For this
savage triumph did you sell yourself to Sir William Wallace; and a
bloody champion you are, always ready for your secretly murderous
master!"
"Hear you this, and bear it?" cried Kirkpatrick and Edwin in one
breath, and grasping their daggers, Edwin's flashed in his hand.
"Seize them!" cried Athol; "my life is threatened by his myrmidons."
Marshals instantly approached; but Wallace, who had hitherto stood in
silent dignity, turned to them with that tone of justice which had ever
commanded from his lips, and bade them forbear:
"Touch these knights at your peril, marshals!" said he; "no man in this
chamber is above the laws, and they protect every Scot who resents
unjust aspersions upon his own character, or irrelevant and prejudicing
attacks on that of an arraigned friend. It is before the majesty of
the laws that I now stand; but were injury to usurp its place, not all
the lords in Scotland should detain me a moment in a scene so unworthy
of my country.
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