"Not the death of fifty thousand governors," replied Wallace, "could appease my feelings. Revenge were insufficient to satisfy the yearnings of my soul." For a moment he covered his agitated features with his hand, and then proceeded: "I slew Heselrigge because he was a monster, under whom the earth groaned. My sorrow, deep as it was--was but one of many, which his rapacity, and his nephew's licentiousness, the whole nation without reserve! When the sword of war is drawn, all who resist must conquer or fall; but there are some noble English who abhor the tyranny they are obliged to exercise over us, and when they declare such remorse, shall they not find mercy at our hands? Surely, if not for humanity's, for policy's sake we ought to give quarter; for the exterminating sword, if not always victorious, incurs the ruin it threatens, even hope, that by or righteous cause and our clemency, we shall not only gather our own people to our legions but turn the hearts of the poor Welsh and the misled Irish, whom the usurper has forced into his armies, and so confront him with troops of his own levying. Many of the English were too just to share in the subjugation of the country they had sworn to befriend. And their less honorable countrymen, when they see Scotsmen no longer consenting to their own degradation, may take shame to themselves for assisting to betray a confiding people." "That may be," returned Kirkpatrick; "but surely you would not rank Aymer de Valence, who lords it over Dumbarton, and Cressingham, who acts the tyrant in Stirling--you would not rank them amongst these conscientious English?" "No," replied Wallace; "the haughty oppression of the one and the wanton cruelty of the other, have given Scotland too many wounds for me to hold a shield before them; meet them, and I leave them to your sword." "And by heavens!" cried Kirkpatrick, gnashing his teeth with the fury of a tiger, "they shall know its point!" Wallace then informed his friends he purposed marching next morning by daybreak toward Dumbarton Castle. "When we make the attack," said he, "it must be in the night; for I propose seizing it by storm." Murray and Kirkpatrick joyfully acquiesced. Edwin smiled an enraptured assent, and Wallace, with many a gracious look and speech, disengaged himself from the clinging embraces of the weaker part of the garrison, who, seeing in him the spring of their husband's might and the guard of their own safety, clung to him as to a presiding deity. "You, my dear countrywomen," said he, "shall find a home for your aged parents, your children, and yourselves, with the venerable Sir John Scott of Loch Doine. You are to be conducted thither this evening, and there await in comfort the happy return of your husbands, whom Providence now leads forth to be the champions of your country."