The light talk of Crawford was soon confirmed in import by the treatment which Bruce began to experience in society. It was the fashion of the age that every injury, however trifling, should be expiated by an ample revenge; that nothing should be forgiven to any one, however previously endeared. Accordingly, no distinction was made between the case of Bruce and any other; no allowance was made for the circumstances in which he stood respecting the family of his injurer, nor for their former extraordinary friendship. The public, with a feeling of which too much still exists, seemed to think itself defrauded of something which was its right, in the continued impunity of Sackville’s insolence. It cried for blood to satisfy _itself_, if not to restore the honour of the injured party. Bruce, of course, suffered dreadfully from this sentiment wherever he appeared; insomuch that, even though he might have been still disposed to forgive his enemy, he saw that to do so would only be to encounter greater misery than could accrue from any attempt at revenge, even though that attempt were certain to end in his own destruction. It happened that just at this time Bruce and Sackville had occasion, along with many other _attachés_ of the court, to attend the Elector Palatine out of the country, with his newly-married bride, Elizabeth, the daughter of the king and queen. The two young men kept apart till they came to Canterbury, where, as the royal train was viewing the cathedral, it chanced that they saw each other very near. The elector, who knew a little of their story, immediately called Sackville up to him, and requested his sword, enjoining him, at the same time, in a friendly manner, to beware of falling out with Bruce so long as he was in attendance upon the court. His highness said, farther, that he had heard his royal father-in-law speak of their quarrel, and express his resolution to visit any transgression of the laws by either of them with his severest displeasure. Sackville obeyed the command of the elector, and withdrew to a part of the cortege remote from the place where Bruce was standing. However, it happened, that, in surveying the curiosities of that gorgeous architectural scene, they came to the monument of a Scottish crusader, who had died here on his way back from the Holy Land. Sackville muttered something respecting this object, in which the words “beggarly Scot” were alone overheard by Bruce, who stood at no great distance, and who immediately recriminated by using some corresponding phrase of obloquy applicable to England, to which Sackville replied by striking his former friend once more upon the face. Before another word or blow could pass between them, a number of courtiers had rushed forward to separate them, and they were immediately borne back to a distance from each other, each, however, glaring upon the other with a look of concentrated scorn and hate. The elector thought it necessary, after what had taken place, that they