The Bruce must now follow in the footsteps of Wallace, and wander, a hunted fugitive, over many a league of forest and hill. How true now seem the words of his wife at their hasty and impromptu coronation: “Alas! we are but king and queen of the May, such as boys crown with flowers and rushes in their summer sports.” Deserted and distressed, he lives the life of an outlaw, shooting his own venison and catching his own fish. But he is not sad and gloomy, as Wallace was wont to be. He cheers his little company by many a good-humoured sally and the recital of heroic deeds. Summer passes, and the pageantry of autumn descends upon the woods; but still he is a king without a throne, a wanderer without a home. The wild life of a hunted fugitive may not be borne during the dread winter by the ladies of his company, so he sends them with many a dark foreboding of evil to the care of his brother, and then takes ship for the remote island of Rathlin, off the north Irish coast, where he winters safe from his foes. Here, in his island retreat, bitter news reaches him. His wife and daughters have been seized and imprisoned in England. His brother and his relatives have been captured and hanged, his estates have been forfeited and given to others, and the Pope has driven him out of the Church for his sacrilege at Dumfries. No wonder the Bruce sits under his juniper tree “steeped to the lips in misery.” But with the kindly spring he makes another bid for fortune. He sails to the Isle of Arran, and has hardly landed before he well-nigh walks into a trap laid for him. Then begins a fresh period of difficulty and danger, of hairbreadth escapes and desperate deeds. Slowly but surely the tide turns in his favour. The preachers are with him; a prophecy has been discovered which assures him of victory; stout hearts begin to flock to his side; his cause gains ground every day. By the middle of May he is no longer a hunted fugitive but a leader of forces. He has defeated two English earls in the field, and they are shut up in the castle of Ayr, which he is closely besieging.