During his Guardianship, the country was beginning to feel the return of her former prosperity. With the spoil of the enemy he had diffused plenty over the land; the poor were protected; thieves were promptly and severely punished; cheats and liars were discouraged; and good men met the reward of their virtues. The vigilance with which he watched over the public weal was unremitting, and never for a moment gave place to any object of personal consideration. Even those duties which are often considered paramount to every other, were with him secondary to the interest of his country; for, on the death of his mother, his presence being required elsewhere, he intrusted the performance of her obsequies to his friend John Blair and a confidential servant;--which duty they discharged with becoming solemnity in the cathedral of Dunfermline. To this cemetery, it is conjectured, the fragments of his own body were secretly collated by his companions, after the barbarous and impolitic exposure had taken place. At his execution, that self-command and nobleness of soul, which formed such luminous traits in his character, never for a moment forsook him. Without deigning to breathe a murmur, either at the injustice of the tyrant who condemned, or the unhappy man who betrayed him,[81] he submitted to his fate with that becoming dignity which extorted even from his enemies expressions of unqualified admiration. A revulsion, the natural consequence of the inhuman cruelty of Edward, and the undaunted demeanour of his victim, took place in the minds of the people of England immediately after his execution; and the story of an English[82] monk who pretended to have seen a vision of angels conducting Wallace out of purgatory with much honour, was quickly circulated, and received with pleasure, all over Britain. The following lines, translated from the original Latin by Hume of Godscroft, are understood to have been composed some time after the execution of our illustrious patriot, by his afflicted friend and chaplain John Blair; and with this elegant and pathetic tribute of genius at the shrine of departed greatness, we shall close the present chapter:-- “Envious death, who ruins all, Hath wrought the sad lamented fall Of Wallace; and no more remains Of him--than what an urn contains! Ashes for our hero we have-- He, for his armour, a cold grave. He left the earth--too low a state! And by his acts o’ercame his fate. His soul Death had not power to kill, His noble deeds the world do fill With lasting trophies of his name. O! hadst thou virtue loved, or fame, Thou could’st not have insulted so Over a brave, betrayed, dead foe, Edward, nor seen those limbs expos’d To public shame--fit to be clos’d As relics in an holy shrine. But now the infamy is thine. His end crowns him with glorious bays, And stains the brightest of thy praise.” CHAPTER XIII. CONCLUSION.