Sir John Monteith, though he never ventured into his sight,
attended as the accuser, who, to put a visor on cruelty, was to swear
away his victim's life. The horror and grief of Ruthven at these
tidings were unutterable; and Scrymgeour, to turn the tide of the
bereaved father's thoughts to the inspiring recollection of the early
glory of his son, proceeded to narrate, that he found the beauteous
remains in the hovel, but bedecked with flowers by the village girls.
They were weeping over it, and lamenting the pitiless heart which could
slay such youth and loveliness. To bury him in so obscure a spot,
Scrymgeour would not allow, and he had sent Stephen Ireland with the
sacred corpse to Dumbarton, with orders to see him entombed in the
chapel of that fortress.
"It is done," continued the worthy knight, "and those towers he so
bravely scaled with stand forever the monument of Edwin Ruthven."
"Scrymgeour," said the stricken father, "the shafts fall thick upon us,
but we must fulfill our duty."
Cautious of inflicting too heavy a blow on the fortitude of his wife
and of Helen, he commanded Grimsby and Hay to withhold from everybody
at Huntingtower the tidings of its young lord's fate; but he believed
it his duty not to delay the letter of Wallace to Bruce, and the
dreadful information to him of Monteith's treachery.
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