"It is the fashion of the times," replied Kirkpatrick, roughly, "You only, my victorious general, who, perhaps, had most cause to go with the stream, have chosen a path of your own. But look around! see our burns, which the Southrons made run with Scottish blood; our hillocks, swollen with the cairns of our slain; the highways blocked up with the graves of the murdered; our lands filled with maimed clansmen, who purchased life of our ruthless tyrants, by the loss of eyes and limbs! And, shall we talk of gentle methods, with the perpetrators of these horrors? Sir William Wallace, you would make women of us!" "Shame, shame, Kirkpatrick!" resounded from every voice, "you insult the regent!" Kirkpatrick stood, proudly frowning, with his left hand on the hilt of his sword. Wallace, by a motion, hushed the tumult, and spoke: "No true chief of Scotland can offer me greater respect, than frankly to trust me with his sentiments." "Though we disagree in some points," cried Kirkpatrick, "I am ready to die for him at any time, for I believe a trustier Scot treads not the earth; but I repeat, why, by this mincing mercy, seek to turn our soldiers into women?" "I seek to make them men," replied Wallace; "to be aware that they fight with fellow-creatures, with whom they may one day be friends; and not like the furious savages of old Scandinavia, drink the blood of eternal enmity. I would neither have my chieftains set examples of cruelty, nor degrade themselves by imitating the barbarities of our enemies. That Scotland bleeds every pore is true; but let peace be our aim, and we shall heal all her wounds." "Then I am not to cut off the ears of the freebooters in Annandale?" cried Kirkpatrick, with a good-humored smile. "Have it as you will, my general, only you must new christen me to wash the war-stain from my hand. The rite of my infancy was performed as became a soldier's son; my fount was my father's helmet and the first pap I sucked lay on the point of his sword." "You have not shamed your nurse!" cried Murray. "Nor will I," answered Kirkpatrick, "while the arm that slew Cressingham remains unwithered." While he spoke, Ker entered to ask permission to introduce a messenger from Earl de Warenne. Wallace gave consent. It was Sir Hugh le de Spencer, a near kinsman of the Earl of Hereford, the tumultory constable of England. He was the envoy who had brought the Prince of Wales' dispatches to Stirling. Wallace was standing when he entered, and so were the chieftains, but at his appearance they sat down. Wallace retained his position. "I come," cried the Southron knight, "from the lord warden of Scotland, who, like my prince, too greatly condescends to do otherwise than command, where now he treats; I come to the leader of this rebellion, William Wallace, to receive an answer to the terms granted by the clemency of my master, the son of his liege lord, to this misled kingdom."