"O my Wallace, my Wallace!" cried she in agony.

"Fear not, my love, it is a mere scratch. How is the wounded stranger?"

It was Wallace who had saved the stranger's life. That day he had been
summoned to Douglas Castle, where he had received in secret from Sir
John Monteith an iron box entrusted to him by Lord Douglas, then
imprisoned in England; he had been charged to cherish the box in
strictness, and not to suffer it to be opened until Scotland was again
free. Returning with his treasure through Lanark, he had seen a fellow
countryman wounded, and in deadly peril at the hands of a party of
English. Telling two of his attendants to carry the injured man to
Ellerslie, he had beaten off the English and slain their leader--Arthur
Heselrigge, nephew of the Governor of Lanark.

"Gallant Wallace!" said the stranger, "it is Donald, Earl of Mar, who
owes you his life."

"Then blest be my arm," exclaimed Wallace, "that has preserved a life so
precious to my country!"

"Armed men are approaching!" cried Lady Marion. "Wallace, you must fly.
But oh! whither?"

"Not far, my love; I must seek the recesses of the Cartlane Crags. But
the Earl of Mar--we must conceal him."

They found a hiding-place for the wounded earl, and Wallace went away,
promising to be near at hand. Hardly had he gone when the door was burst
open by a band of soldiers, and Lady Wallace was confronted by the