Down with its lord! All but the lady Helen shall be yours!"

"In a moment every sword was directed toward me. They wounded me in
several places; but the thought of my daughter gave supernatural vigor
to my arm, and I defended myself till the cries of my servant brought
you, my brave deliverer, to my rescue. But, while I am safe, perhaps
my treacherous pursuer has marched toward Bothwell, too sure to commit
the horrid violence he meditates; there are none to guard my child but
a few domestics, the unpracticed sword of my stripling nephew, and the
feeble arms of my wife."

"Be easy on that head," interrupted Wallace: "I believe the infamous
leader of the banditti fell by my hand, for the soldiers made an outcry
that Arthur Heselrigge was killed; and then pressing on me to take
revenge, their weight broke a passage into a vault, through which I
escaped-"

"Save, save yourself, my master!" cried a man rushing in from the
garden. "You are pursued-"

While he spoke he felt insensible at Wallace's feet. It was
Dugald-whom he had rescued from the blow of Heselrigge, and who, from
the state of his wound had been thus long in reaching Ellerslie.

Wallace had hardly time to give him to the care of Halbert, when the
voice of war assailed his ears. The tumult of men demanding admittance
and the terrible sound of spears rattling against the shields of their
owners, told the astonished group within that the house was beset by
armed foes.