He paid some warm compliments to Edwin on his early success in the career of glory; and then turning to Murray: "Ay!" said he, "it is joy to me to see the valiant house of Bothwell in the third generation. Thy grandfather and myself were boys together at the coronation of Alexander the Second; and that is eighty years ago. Since then, what have I not seen! the death of two noble Scottish kings! our blooming princes ravished from us by untimely fates! the throne sold to a coward, and at last seized by a foreign power! Then, in my own person, I have been the father of as brave and beauteous a family as ever blessed a parent's eye; but they are all torn from me. Two of my sons sleep on the plains of Dunbar; my third, my dauntless William, since that fatal day, has been kept a prisoner in England. And my daughters, the tender blossoms of my aged years--they grew around me, the fairest lilies of the land: but they, too, are passed away. The one, scorning the mere charms of youth, and preferring a union with a soul that had long conversed with superior regions, loved the sage of Ercildown. But my friend lost this rose of his bosom, and I the child of my heart, ere she had been a year his wife. Then was my last and only daughter married to the Lord Mar; and in giving birth to my dear Isabella she, too, died. Ah, my good young knight, were it not for that sweet child, the living image of her mother, who in the very spring of youth was cropped and fell, I should be alone: my hoary head would descend to the grave, unwept, unregretted!" The joy of the old man having recalled such melancholy remembrances, he wept upon the shoulder of Edwin, who had drawn so near, that the story, was begun to Murray, was ended to him. To give the mourning father time to recover himself, Wallace was moving away, when he was met by Ker, bringing information that a youth had just arrived in breathless haste from Stirling, with a sealed packet, which he would not deliver into any hands but those of Sir William Wallace. Wallace requested his friends to show every attention to the Lord of Thirlestane, and then withdrew to meet the messenger. On his entering the ante-room, the youth sprung forward, but suddenly checking himself, he stood as if irresolute whom to address. "This is Sir William Wallace, young man," said Ker; "deliver your embassy." At these words the youth pulled a packet from his bosom, and putting it into the chief's hand, retired in confusion. Wallace gave orders to Ker to take care of him, and then turned to inspect its contents. He wondered from whom it would come, aware of no Scot in Stirling who would dare to write to him while that town was possessed by the enemy. But not losing a moment in conjecture, he broke the seal. How was he startled at the first words! and how was every energy of his heart roused to redoubled action when he turned to the signature! The first words in the letter were these: