sleeping fancy designs far vaster than his waking faculties could have
conceived. He had thought that the young Wallace might have won
Dumbarton by a bold stroke, and that when his invincible courage should
be steered by stroke, and that when his invincible courage should be
steered by graver heads, every success might be expected from his arms;
and saw that when turned to any cause of policy, "the Gordian knot of
it he did unloose, familiar as his garter," he marveled, and said
within himself, "Surely this man is born to be a sovereign!"

Maxwell, though equally astonished, was not so rapt. "You have made
arms the study of your life?" inquired he.

"It was the study of my earliest days," returned Wallace. "But when
Scotland lost her freedom, as the sword was not drawn in her defense, I
looked not where it lay. I then studied the arts of peace; that is
over; and now the passion of my soul revives. When the mind is bent on
one object only, all becomes clear that leads to it; zeal, in such
cases, is almost genius."

Soon after these observations, it was admitted that Wallace might
attend Lord mar and his family on the morrow to the Isle of Bute.

When the dawn broke, he arose from his heather bed in the great tower;
and having called forth twenty of the Bothwell men to escort their
lord, he told Ireland he should expect to have a cheering account of
the wounded on his return.

"But to assure the poor fellows," rejoined the honest soldier, "that
something of yourself still keeps watch over them. I pray you leave me
the sturdy sword with which you won Dumbarton. It shall be hung up in