Inflamed with
rage at the manifest determination to misjudge his commander, and
maddened at the contumely with which their envy affected to treat him,
Kirkpatrick threw off all restraint, and with the bitterness of his
reproaches still more incensed the jealousy of the nobles and augmented
the tumult. Lennox, vainly attempting to make himself heard, drew
toward Wallace, hoping, by that movement to at least show on whose side
he thought justice lay. At this moment, while the uproar raged with
redoubled clamor--the one party denouncing the Cummins as the source of
this conspiracy against the life of Wallace; the other demanding that
sentence should instantly be passed upon him as a traitor--the door
burst open and Bothwell, covered with dust, and followed by a throng of
armed knights, rushed into the center of the hall.
"Who is it ye arraign?" cried the young chief, looking indignantly
around him. "Is it not your deliverer you would destroy? The Romans
could not accuse the guilty Manlius in sight of the capitol he had
preserved, but you, worse than
heathens, bring your benefactor to the scene of his victories, and
there condemn him for serving you too well! Has he not plucked you
this third time out of the furnace that would have consumed you? And
yet in this hour, you would sacrifice him to the disappointed passions
of a woman! Falsest of thy sex!" cried he, turning to the countess,
who shrunk before the penetrating eyes of Andrew Murray; "do I not know
thee? Have I not read thine unfeminine, thy vindictive heart? You
would destroy the man you could not seduce! Wallace!" cried he,
"speak.
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