Bruce too
well understood what he durst not speak, and, shaking it off,
frantically:
"I have no friend!" cried he. "Wallace! my dauntless, my only Wallace,
thou art rifled from me! And shall I have fellowship with these? No,
all mankind are my enemies, and soon will I leave their detested
sojourn!"
Gloucester attempted to interrupt him; but he broke out afresh and with
redoubled violence:
"And you, earl," cried he, "lived in this realm, and suffered such a
sacrilege on God's most perfect work! Ungrateful, worthless man! fill
up the measure of your baseness; deliver me to Edward, and let me brave
him to his face. Oh! let me die, covered with the blood of thy
enemies, my murdered Wallace! my more than brother, that shall be the
royal robe thy Bruce will bring to thee!"
Gloucester stood in dignified forbearance under the invectives and
stormy grief of the Scottish prince; but when exhausted nature seemed
to take rest in momentary silence, he approached him. Bruce cast on
him a lurid glance of suspicion.
"Leave me!" cried he; "I hate the whole world, and you the worst in it;
for you might have saved him, and you did not--you might have preserved
his sacred limbs from being made the gazing-stock of traitors, and you
did not.
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