Fawdon would not speak nor stir, Speak as any might; Scorn'd or sooth'd, he sat and lour'd As though in angry spite. Wallace drew a little back, And waved his men apart; And Fawdon half leap'd up, and cried, "Thou wilt not have the heart!" Wallace with his dreadful sword, Without further speech, Clean cut off dark Fawdon's head, Through its stifled screech: Through its stifled screech, and through The arm that fenc'd his brow; And Fawdon, as he leap'd, fell dead, And safe is Wallace now. Safe is Wallace with his men, And silent is the hound; And on their way to Castle Gask They quit the sullen ground. PART THE SECOND. WALLACE lies in Castle Gask, Resting with his men; Not a soul has come, three days, Within the warder's ken. Resting with his men is Wallace, Yet he fareth ill There are tumults in his blood, And pangs upon his will. It was night, and all were housed, Talking long and late; Who is this that blows the horn At the castle-gate? Who is this that blows a horn Which none but Wallace hears? Loud and louder grows the blast In his frenzied ears. He sends by twos, he sends by threes, He sends them all to learn; He stands upon the stairs, and calls But none of them return. Wallace flung him forth down stairs; And there the moonlight fell Across the yard upon a sight, That makes him seem in hell Fawdon's headless trunk he sees, With an arm in air, Brandishing his bloody head By the swinging hair. Wallace with a stifled screech Turn'd and fled amain, Up the stairs, and through the bowers, With a burning brain: From a window Wallace leap'd Fifteen feet to ground, And never stopp'd till fast within A nunnery's holy bound. And then he turn'd, in gasping doubt, To see the fiend retire, And saw him not at hand, but saw Castle Gask on fire. All on fire was Castle Gask; And on its top, endued With the bulk of half a tower, Headless Fawdon stood. Wide he held a burning beam, And blackly fill'd the light; His body seem'd, by some black art, To look at Wallace, heart to heart, Threatening through the night. Wallace that day week arose From a feeble bed; And gentle though he was before, Yet now to orphans evermore He gentlier bow'd his head. [From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.] WHAT BECOMES OF ALL THE CLEVER CHILDREN?