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"I am your servant Dugald," returned the man; "he whom your brave arm saved from the battle-ax of Arthur Heselrigge." "I cannot ask you how you came by that armor; but if you be yet a Scot throw it off and follow me." "Not to Ellerslie, my lord," cried he; "it has been plundered and burned to the ground by the Governor of Lanark."
Soon after daybreak a great procession was formed, and accompanied by all the matrons and maids of Lanark the body was conveyed to the church at Ellerslie, and there buried with the rites of the church. This sad duty ended, Wallace mounted his horse and rode for Cart Lane Craigs, which he had named as the rendezvous where all who loved Scotland and would follow him, were to assemble.
Am I to live to see a repetition of the horrors of Ellerslie?" "No, on my life," answered Glouceseter; "in this instance I would pledge my soul for King Edward's manhood. His ambition might lead him to trample on all men; but still for woman he feels as becomes a man and a knight." "But not in these garments," said he; "she must be habited as becomes her sex and her own delicacy."
Trembling with alarm, and with renewed grief-for the terrible scene of Ellerslie was now brought in all its horrors before him-he tore off her veil to staunch the blood; but the cut was too wide for his surgery; and, losing every other consideration in fears for her life, he again took her in his arms, and bore her out of the chapel.
But next day the governor, with a body of soldiers who had not witnessed his infamous deed, plundered Ellerslie and burnt it to the ground. During the day Lord Mar was brought from his hiding-place, and taken to Bothwell Castle; but the English seized him and his wife, and they were placed in strict confinement among the English garrison on the Rock of Dumbarton.
Inflamed with the double furies of revenge and avarice, he ordered out a new troop, and placing himself at its head, took the way to Ellerslie.
"Not under the ashes of Ellerslie," cried Murray, "sleep the remains of your lovely wife." Wallace's penetrating eye turned quick upon him. Murray continued: "My cousin's pitying soul stretched itself toward them; by her directions they were brought from your oratory in the rock, and deposited, with all holy rites, in the cemetery at Bothwell."
Upon his left, some two hundred yards farther north, the recently resurrected ship's gun, twelve feet of honeycombed metal, stamped on the flank "No. 6 Port," and casting solid shot of eighteenth-century pattern, projected a long black nose from Fort Ellerslie, and every time the venerable weapon went off without bursting, the Town Guards occupying the Fort and manning the eastern entrenchments raised a cheer.
They sat together in the window of the eastern tower of Ellerslie: and while he listened to the cheerful lilts to which their servants were dancing, the hand of his lovely bride was clasped in his. Marion smiled and talked of the happiness which should await them in the year to come. "Ay, my beloved," answered he, "more than thy beauteous self will then fill these happy arms!
"Blasphemous wretch!" cried the governor, and he plunged the sword through her heart. A shudder of horror ran through the English soldiers. "My friends," said Heselrigge, "I reward your services with the plunder of Ellerslie." "Cursed be he who first carries a stick from its walls!" exclaimed a veteran. "Amen!" murmured all the soldiers.
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