All envyings, all strifes were forgotten,
in unqualified resentment of the deed. There was not a man, even
amongst the late refractory chiefs, excepting the Cummins, and their
coadjutors Soulis and Monteith, who really had believed that Edward
seriously meant to sentence the Scottish patriot to a severer fate than
what he had pronounced against his rebellious vassal, the exiled
Baliol. The execution of Wallace, whose offense could only be that of
having served his country too faithfully, was therefore so unexpected,
that on the first promulgation of it, so great an abhorrence of the
perpetrator was excited in every breast, that the whole country rose as
one man, threatening to march instantly to London, and sacrifice the
tyrant on his throne.
At this crisis, when the mountains of the north seemed heaving from
their base, to overwhelm the blood-stained fields of England, every
heart which secretly rejoiced in the late sanguinary event quailed
within its possessor, as it tremblingly anticipated the consequences of
the fall of Wallace. At this instant, when the furies armed every clan
in Scotland, breathing forth revenge like a consuming fire before them,
John Cummin, the regent, stood aghast.
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