Page:Essays and studies; by members of the English Association, volume 1.djvu/105

 James Douglas under Bruce captured Douglas Castle with the aid of 'Thorn Dicson'; so in the Wallace Sir William Douglas (father of Sir James) with the aid of 'Thorn Dycson'—evidently caught young—captures Sanquhar Castle. William Bunnock in the Bruce uses a stratagem to seize Linlithgow, and in Wallace the hero by the same hay-wain stratagem captures Perth. Bruce having, as above noted, won Linlithgow by an ambush against its 'peill' —constructed, as we know, in 1301—Harry naturally deemed it well to make Wallace take the 'peyll' too, notwithstanding its having been set up after Wallace's brilliant but brief season of victory was ended. Plagiarism is not nearly the word for such literary pillage. Harry nearly uproots Barbour.

The Wallace has for its ground plan a prophecy first intimated by the lines:

but later more circumstantially accredited to Thomas the Rymer thus:

This is the mode by which the expectancy of the reader is started; and the complete fulfilment of the prophecy makes up the story of the Wallace—the tale of Scotland rescued thrice. Yet here again in the prophetic field the trail of