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Wallace heard the blast; and seeing the day was won at the palace, he left the finishing of the affair to Kirkpatrick and Murray; and, drawing off a small party to reinforce Graham, he took the Southron officer by surprise. The enemy's ranks fell around him like corn beneath the sickle; and, grasping a huge battering ram which his men had found, he burst open the door of the keep.
"I come," cried the Southron knight, "from the lord warden of Scotland, who, like my prince, too greatly condescends to do otherwise than command, where now he treats; I come to the leader of this rebellion, William Wallace, to receive an answer to the terms granted by the clemency of my master, the son of his liege lord, to this misled kingdom."
To this purpose, not doubting the Scottish's earl acceptance of such a son-in-law, on the very day that Wallace marched toward the coast, De Valence sent to request an hour's private audience of Lord Mar. He could not then grant it; but at noon, next day, they met in the governor's apartments. The Southron, without much preface, opened his wishes, and proffered his hand for the Lady Helen.
The young Southron, frowning, followed Scrymgeour from the hall, and Wallace, turning to Murray, "My friend," said he, "it is not well to stimulate insolence by repartee. This young man's speech, though an insult to the nation, was directed to me, and by me only it ought to have been answered, and that seriously.
He read in a high, clear treble the telegraphic dispatches, the sanguinary editorial ratiocinations, Orphic in their prophetic sententiousness, and then turned to the local columns. Any one listening to the lad would never have suspected that he was not a Southron.
But his picture of royal power accorded ill with the notions of a Black Douglas, in the most masterful days of that family; and Earl Archibald, who had come to regard kings as beings meant to be hectored by Douglases, resentfully exclaimed, 'Hear him, comrades; he has avouched himself a Southron at heart.
The standard was no sooner raised than the proud clarion of triumph was blown from every warlike instrument in the garrison and the Southron captain, placing himself at the head of his disarmed troops, under the escort of Murray, marched out of the castle. He announced his design to proceed immediately to Newcastle, and thence embark with his men to join their king at Flanders.
"I will have nought to do with it," said Douglas: "to march against the English, and the Southron traitor March, is task enough for me. Moreover, I am a true Scotsman, and will not give way to aught that may put the Church of Scotland's head farther into the Roman yoke, or make the baron's coronet stoop to the mitre and cowl.
"Valiant and most rustical Audacity," said the Southron knight, "to no man on earth could you have put a question on the code of honour, who was more capable of rendering you a reason. Therefore, if we coolly examine the state of our dependence, we may the better apprehend whether the sisters three have doomed one of us to expiate the same with his blood Dost thou understand me?"
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