Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/346

332 live and die amongst them in defence of his country and its liberties; to wipe from the Scottish name, the shame which it endured from the tyranny of the usurper, and to wash it away in the blood of their oppressor. He pointed to the mountains which had defended them from the Romans, and would still defend them from every attempt on their homes and lights. He reminded them of the fate of Wallace, and bade them assure themselves that the same fate inevitably awaited them, if they did not scorn to live the life of dogs, or were not determined to drive the implacable tyrants from the land.

Certain that this harangue, which electrified the whole assembly, would be transmitted without delay to London, he followed Comyn, on the dissolution of the party, into the cloisters of the Minorites at Dumfries, and ran him through the body. Hurrying from the convent, he cried, "To horse!" and Sir Roger Kirkpatrick, one of his attendants, seeing him greatly agitated, demanded whether the traitor was slain. "I doubt so," replied Bruce. "You doubt!" exclaimed Kirkpatrick; "I will make sure;" and so saying, he rushed into the monastery, stabbed the Comyn to the heart, and killed also his kinsman. Sir Robert Comyn, who strove to defend him. From this circumstance the Kirkpatrick family adopted the crest of a bloody hand holding a dagger, and the motto, "I make sicker."

The die was now cast. There was no retreat, no reconciliation after that terrible deed. Bruce called his staunchest friends hastily around him; they were few, but devoted spirits. The Bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow, the Abbot of Scone, the four brothers of Bruce, his nephew Thomas Randolph, his brother-in-law Christopher Seton, and some ten or twelve young men, gathered at the call. Bruce flew in various directions, exciting his countrymen to arms. He attacked and defeated the English, took some of their forts, and drove them from the open country.

Edward, on receiving this news, at once prepared to take signal vengeance on the insurgents, and this time to give the nation such a castigation as should effectually quell its spirit. Not waiting for his own slower movements, he sent on Aymer de Valence, the Earl of Pembroke, with a small army, to check the spread of the disaffection. He met with Bruce near Methven, in Perthshire, on the 19th of Juno, and falling on his forces by surprise, ho put them utterly to the rout. Bruce was three times unhorsed in the battle, and escaped with the greatest danger. His friends the Earl of Atholl, Simon Frazer, and Sir Christopher Seton, were taken prisoners and executed. Amongst the prisoners was also his nephew Randolph. His wife and his daughter Marjory having left the fortress of Kildrumraie, were seized by the Earl of Ross in the sanctuary of St. Duthac, at Tain: the knights who attended them were put to death, and they themselves were sent to England, where they remained prisoners eight years. His brother Nigel, much beloved by the people, was compelled to surrender Kildrummie, and was also hanged and afterwards beheaded Berwick, with many other knights and gentlemen. He himself with great difficulty made his escape into the mountains of Atholl, with about five hundred followers, the sole remnant of the army with which he had hoped to redeem Scotland. For many months he and this little band wandered amongst the hills in the utmost wretchedness, destitute of shelter, and often of food. A price was set upon their heads; their enemies, the Comyns, infuriated by the slaughter of their chief, and now in the ascendant as allies of England, pursued them with vindictive rage, driving them farther and farther into the labyrinth of the hills. On reaching the borders of Argyll, they encountered the Lord of Lorn, who had married an aunt of the Comyn, at the head of 1,000 men, and who occupied a narrow defile. A desperate conflict took place, and Bruce and his followers narrowly escaped extermination. Finally, Bruce found means to pass over to the Isle of Rachrine, on the north coast of Ireland. Here was a reverse terrible and complete enough to have extinguished the hopes of all but a true hero. His forces defeated, destroyed, or dispersed; his wife and daughter captive; his brother and most of his chief men taken and executed; himself a fugitive; the English king still lord paramount in Scotland. All readers are familiar with the story of the spider which Bruce saw in a moment of his deepest depression—a moment when he was nearest to despair, and which rekindled his hope and ardour, by six times failing in its attempt to raise itself to the roof of the hut under which he lay, but accomplishing its object on the seventh essay. But it is not so generally known that such was his distress of mind, and the hardships he endured after the battle of Methven, that he was affected by a scorbutic disorder, then styled leprosy. Mr. Train informed Sir Walter Scott that Bruce was, according to tradition, benefited by drinking the waters of a well about a mile north of the town of Ayr—thence called "King's Ease;" that, in grateful memory of this, and of the immortal hero of his time. Sir William Wallace, he built eight houses for lepers round the well, to whom and their successors he left a stated allowance of oatmeal and £28, Scottish money, per annum; and that this institution remained so long as the family of Wallace existed there, when the property was purchased by the town of Ayr, and its proceeds devoted to the poor.

Whatever was the momentary despondency and misery of Bruce, he passed over from Rachrine early in the spring of 1307, in order to make one more effort far the expulsion of the English. His followers, on landing on the Carrick coast, near his ancestral castle of Turnberry, amounted only to 300; and he was there nearly betrayed by the unexplained lighting of a fire upon a hill, the very signal which ho had agreed upon if it were safe to approach. As he drew near the landing-place, he was met by the information that the English were in full possession of Carrick, and Lord Percy, with a strong garrison, held Turnberry Castle. Bruce was thunderstruck at the intelligence; but making a sudden attack on a party of English that lay close at hand, he created a momentary panic, and, under advantage of that, made good his retreat into the mountains. The war became desultory and undecided; and two of Bruce's brothers, Thomas and Alexander, as they were bringing over a band of Irish adventurers to his assistance, were taken prisoners by Duncan M'Dowal, a chief of Galloway, and, being conducted to King Edward, were instantly ordered for execution.

Fortune still continued to pursue Bruce He could only