The trumpets sound, and the English cavalry charge. At the first onset the Scottish horsemen, led by traitor lords, turn bridle and ride from the field. Then the English knights swoop down upon the Scottish archers, and after a terrible struggle slay them to a man. But again and again they recoil from the “dark, impenetrable wood” of the spearmen. The bristling hedge of spears cannot be broken by the shock of horse and man, but there are other and deadlier means available. The English archers are to win the first of those signal victories which will make them the terror of the age. Drawn up in security scarce a hundred paces away, they shoot their cloth-yard shafts with unerring aim. Thick and fast they fall amidst the spearmen, and soon the living walls are breached. The English cavalry charge into the gaps where the dead and dying lie, and an awful slaughter rages. The battle is over; the Scots betake themselves to flight, and Wallace barely escapes into Torwood Forest. But even this victory has not laid Scotland at Edward’s feet. Everywhere he finds the country devastated, and he must either retreat or starve. Less than a month after the battle of Falkirk he sullenly leads his army, stricken by famine and disease, southward to England. But he withdraws like the panther, only to spring again. Five successive times he leads his army northward, and Scotland, exhausted by her long and heartrending struggles, at length lies at the conqueror’s feet. Once more Wallace is an outlaw on the hills. Edward has marked him down for death, and there is a price on his head. He lurks in the greenwood, hunted from cover to cover, with scarce a comrade to trust, and none to aid him. His former friend, Sir John Menteith, at length wins the blood-money. Wallace is seized in his sleep, bound with cords, and hurried south. As he enters London the streets swarm with spectators, all eager to see this renowned warrior of the North. His trial is a mockery. Vainly he protests that he is no traitor, for he has never sworn fealty to the English king. But he is doomed already, and all argument is vain. He is condemned of murder, sacrilege, and treason, and suffers the ghastly and revolting death which was meted out to David of Wales twenty-two years before. His head is set up on London Bridge, his right arm at Newcastle, his left at Berwick, one leg at Perth, and the other at Aberdeen. So perishes the national hero of Scotland, his body dispersed to “every airt” that the wind blows, but his name and fame cherished for ever in the hearts of his countrymen. He rises like a star in the darkness; he sets in gloom, but not before his radiance has rekindled the torch of Scottish patriotism, the flame of which is nevermore to be extinguished. Wallace cannot die; he lives again in every free and unselfish aspiration of unconquered Scotland. [Illustration]