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Isabella sunk weeping into the arms of her aunt. And the venerable Ercildown, wishing to curb an impetuosity which could only involve its generous agent in a ruin deeper than that it sought to revenge, with more zeal than judgment, urged to the prince the danger into which such boundless resentment would precipitate his own person.
Ercildown said he understood Sir Simon Fraser was hastening forward with a small body to attempt cutting off these advanced squadrons; but, he added, while the contentions continued between Athol and Soulis for the vacant regency, no man could have hope of any steady stand against England. At this communication, Cummin bluntly proposed himself as the terminator of this dispute.
Neville returned a respectful answer, and their conqueror soon after left them. Ruthven came up with Wallace before he joined them, and told him that Bruce was safe under the care of the sage of Ercildown, and that the regent, who had been wounded in the beginning of the day, was also in Roslyn Castle.
"The seer of Ercildown is too ill to bring his benediction himself, but I breathe it over this heroic brow!" Wallace bowed his head in silence; and the bridle being in the hand of Lord Andrew, he led the horse out of the eastern gate of the town, where, taking leave of the veteran knight, he soon rejoined his commander, whom he found in the midst of his chieftains.
Had not Sir Richard been your own mother's father, I would not have been so easily prevailed on; and thus am I rewarded for my indulgence." Few personages are so renowned in tradition as Thomas of Ercildown, usually called the Rhymer. He was a poet and a sage, and believed by his contemporaries to be a prophet.
'This, said the Lord of Ercildown, 'is the scathing wind and dreadful tempest which shall long blow calamity and trouble on the realm of Scotland! And surely his words have been verified, for still the storm rages around our borders-and will not cease, I fear, till the present dragon of England be laid as low as our noble lion was by that mysterious blast."
"These dreams," cried De Valence, "cannot terrify me. You are neither a seer, nor I a fool, to be taken by such prophecies. But were you wise enough to embrace the advantage I offer, you might be a prophet of good, greater than he of Ercildown, to your nation; for all that you could promise, I would take care should be fulfilled.
The one, scorning the mere charms of youth, and preferring a union with a soul that had long conversed with superior regions, loved the sage of Ercildown. But my friend lost this rose of his bosom, and I the child of my heart, ere she had been a year his wife. Then was my last and only daughter married to the Lord Mar; and in giving birth to my dear Isabella she, too, died.
"I have heard," observed Graham, "that the sage of Ercildown prophesied this dreadful calamity to Scotland." "He did prognosticate," replied Wallace, "that on the eighteenth of April, a storm should burst over this land which would lay the country in ruins. Fear seized the farmers; but his prophecy regarded a nobler object than their harvests.
Bruce lay insensible, amongst some bushes which grew nearer the top. With difficulty the honest Englishman got him dragged to the surface of the hill; and finding all attempts to recover him ineffectual, he laid him on his own beast, and so carried him slowly back to the castle. The assiduities of the sage of Ercildown restored him to life, but not to recollection.
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